SETI researcher Seth Shostak bets that we will find extraterrestrial life in the next twenty-four years, or he'll buy you a cup of coffee. At TEDxSanJoseCA, he explains why new technologies and the laws of probability make the breakthrough so likely — and forecasts how the discovery of ...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/can-you-solve-the-prisoner-hat-riddle-alex-gendler Want more? Try the buried treasure riddle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCeklW2e6_E You and nine other individuals have been captured by super-intelligent alien overlords. The aliens think humans ...

Douglas Vakoch is the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, as well as the only social scientist employed by a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) organization. Dr. Vakoch researches ways that different civilizations might create messages that could be ...

Visit http://TED.com to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more. Aliens have invaded ancient history: they've cropped up in humanity's past through popular television and movies, displacing facts with absurd yet commonplace ...