Charity's Six Lungs Sing A Different Tune

(Photo Courtesy of TEDMED Press Portal)

“Some people say that life is not a sprint, it's a marathon…But life is not a marathon, it’s a relay.” These are the words of world-renowned opera singer Charity Tillemann-Dick, who has trained three sets of lungs how to breathe in order to sing for us today. Charity has idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, which required her to receive her first bilateral lung transplant at the age of twenty. Six lungs later, Charity is an organ donation advocate and spokesperson for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. She would not be alive today without the charitable actions of strangers. While 90% of Americans believe in organ donation, only 40% are registered donors. Today is your opportunity to register as a donor at http://donatelife.net/. "This is your opportunity to pass the baton." 

Playing Well With Others

The faculty of the Washington Conservatory shows us the true meaning of opus.

(Video Courtesy of TEDMED Press Portal)

Michael Hebb Is Inviting You To A Death Dinner

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Let’s put it all out on the table. How we end our lives is the most important and expensive conversation Americans are NOT having, says Hebb. Americans are not dying the way they want to die. 75% of Americans want to die at home, but only 25% do. 62% of U.S. bankruptcies are incurred due to healthcare costs, and the leading cause is end-of-life care. It has been suggested that we should expand the definition of life to include death, instead of seeing death as the failure to live. Dying is not losing the fight but continuing the journey, and doing so with dignity is something worth talking about. 

Plan your death dinner today: http://www.deathoverdinner.org/

Backstage At The Kennedy Center Is Right On Target

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The Oklahoma City Slim-Down

Oklahoma City Mayor, Mick Cornett, put his city on a diet to lose ONE MILLION pounds. After Oklahoma City was named one of America’s fattest cities, Mayor Cornett demanded better health for his community. He implemented planning to make the city more walk-able. In a city with the most per-capita fast-food restaurants in the country, Mayor Cornett worked to create healthier menu options. If that wasn't enough, life-sized cutouts of the Mayor appeared in every Taco Bell. The Mayor’s special quickly became the most popular item on the menu. Oklahoma City lost one million pounds and is now named on a different list, America’s Fittest Cities. 

Larry Brilliant Ideas For Pandemic Prevention

Smallpox killed more people than all the world’s wars combine, and Dr. Brilliant was on the team that eradicated this disease from our plant forever. Dr. Brilliant proposes a three tiered approach to pandemic prevention. Given his name and track-record we should probably listen. Google created quicker detection when tracking key strokes, predicting this year's flu season a full two weeks before the CDC. Better response time is being achieved through patient self-reporting, with organizations like http://flunearyou.org/. Better governance includes the CORDS initiative, creating regional networks at outbreak hot-spots (http://www.cordsnetwork.org/). Dr. Brilliant is living up to his name.

Playtime 4 The Mind

You may think you are in control, but watch-out! These blocks have imagination of their own. You just might end up seeing a pattern in something you thought was completely random. (These blocks connect to each other in specific ways; Notice the helical shape the blocks form as they stack.)

Hive Hopes For the Future: A Tiny Camera That Solves Big Problems

Hive Hopes For The Future is a segment focused on the technologies featured at the TEDMED Hive. 

                                  

A hysterosalpingogram is a painful and expense procedure to diagnose scarring of the fallopian tubes, the leading cause of infertility. This procedure was developed in 1914 and nVision COE, Surbhi Arna, thinks it’s time for a change. For one-fourth the cost, she can diagnose fallopian tube scarring in an obstetrics office, with no pain and no radiation. CMOS is a tiny camera attached to a flexible tube that plugs into equipment already available in most obstetric offices in the country. CMOS is a diagnostic tool of the future. 

Work IT Out

(Photo courtesy of TEDMED Press Protal) 

Every morning TEDsters have options for exercising their bodies before a day of exercising their minds. You can run with ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes, do yoga with Guru Bhavani Maki, or Meditate with Rana Chudnofsky. (That last option is really more like stretching for the day of mental exercise.) Regardless of what you choose, TEDsters stay true to the mind, body and soul approach to medicine.