In this virtual conversation, New York Times science and global health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli will chat with Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor University’s National School of Tropical Medicine, about the COVID-19 vaccines. They will discuss the science behind the vaccine and address the public’s questions, concerns and misunderstandings. For example, is one vaccine better than another? Can the vaccines damage our DNA? What’s in the vaccines? Should anyone not get the vaccine? This presentation will fill you in on what’s going on now and where we need to get.

In this lecture, Alex Kontorovich will describe some of these connections, both ancient and modern. He will also showcase how mathematics is not a random collection of disjointed facts (as often learned in school), but rather numerous sweeping landscapes, all deeply interconnected and influencing each others’ development.

In this presentation, Rebecca Goldin will share some humorous as well as serious stories about statistical bloopers in the media, peppered with suggestions for better communication. Numerical reasoning can be powerful, she says, when we move past politics and morality to clarify what quantitative information actually tells us, what it does not and what it cannot.

Like a musical composition, physicist Stephon Alexander will present a four-part movement, each containing a vignette of experiences he had interacting and collaborating with artists and musicians (such as Brian Eno, Ned Kahn, Melvin Gibbs, Will Calhoun, Ornette, Dawn Meson and Rosemary Goodell) and how those interactions influenced his scientific ideas, research, approach and creativity.

During the Russian Revolution of 1917, Czar Nicholas and his family disappeared. In 1920, a mysterious woman surfaced in Germany claiming to be his youngest daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov. In this presentation, Amanda McBrien will talk about this transformative time in Russian history while illustrating how modern science, through the use of forensic evidence and DNA comparisons, helped solve the mystery of what really happened to Anastasia.

In this presentation, physicist Nadya Mason, neuroscientist Kay Tye, and TED's science curator David Biello will talk about the highs and lows of giving a TED Talk — and the importance of communicating the wonder of science in all media. Come learn how to make your research accessible and exciting to the general public without alienating your scientific peers, including do's and don'ts for public speaking. In a world where the facts of science are newly up for debate, science communication has never been more critical.