In her recent TIME Magazine profile, astrophysicist and TED Fellow Lucianne Walcowicz explains how her and her team are looking for alien communication in the flickering of stars.

TED Fellow Hakeem Oluseyi has dedicated his life to teaching science to those in underserved communities and developing countries. From his formative years in some of the poorest ghettos in the American south, to his current position as a member of a Nobel Prize-winning team of scientists at Stanford, Oluseyi is a testament to the transformative power of knowledge, and a master at turning complex ideas into simple explanations. In this video, he likens the evidence that supports the Big Bang to the stretching of a rubber band.

TED Fellow and Astrophysicist Lucianne Walkowicz studies the faces of stars to learn the inner workings of their hearts. In this fascinating TED talk, she shares some of the astounding findings of NASA’s Kepler mission, which searches for new planetary systems in far-off space. “In just over two years of operations, we’ve found over 1,200 potential new planetary systems around other stars,” she says. “To give you some perspective, in the previous two decades of searching, we had only known about 400, prior to Kepler.”

Scientist and novelist Janna Levin, in conversation with The Lavin Agency, talking about the power of accepting limitations.