Jessica Green presented BioBE Center research at TEDGlobal 2011. This was the first time BioBE Center animation about the “Built Environment Microbiome”, created in collaboration with XVIVO, has been shown publicly. Highlights of the meeting included TED Fellows workshops, research presented by SFI’s Geoffrey West on the scaling properties of biological systems and cities, and the ideas of Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg on the fourth domain of life (Synthetica).