"We're all going to die -- and poems can help us live with that." In a charming and funny talk, literary critic Stephen Burt takes us on a lyrical journey with some of his favorite poets, all the way down to a line break and back up to...

What's salty and cold and cool as heck? Brinicles, a rarely seen undersea phenomenon the combines ice and saltwater to become every sea star's worst nightmare! Actually, they're not that scary, just awesome. Hank explains within.

Tesla's Autopilot system is the most advanced available right now, but it has limitations, and some of those limitations might be us.

Stress and anxiety are complex, and the brain chemistry involved in those experiences are no exception. Here we explore the chemicals responsible for your brain’s response to stress.

Scientists say that we might be looking at the first extinction caused by whaling, and on an entirely different note, a discovery involving bed bugs and STIs.

When stars die, they tend to take everything around them with them. But new evidence appears to show a planet orbiting a white dwarf, and we’re not sure how it survived! Plus, experiments designed to detect dark matter might be capable...

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here... Inscribed above the Gate of Hell, this prophecy sets into motion an epic journey for salvation. Written over 10 years, Dante Alighieri's three-part narrative poem "Divine Comedy" is both an...

In April 2003, just as American troops began rolling into Baghdad, a shell smashed into the building author and war correspondent Jean-Paul Mari was reporting from. There he had a face-to-face encounter with death, beginning his...

There are a lot of ways to kill and be killed in the animal kingdom, but only a lucky few use the powers of venom. Not all are closely related, so how did they acquire the same defenses, where did venom come from, and how does it work?...

In this episode Hank talks about global medical history and recorded death certificates with journalist Jeremy Smith. Special guest from Animal Wonders and SciShow Kids Jessi Knudsen Castañeda brings Freya the Northern Pine Snake.

In 1775, General George Washington received a poem from one of colonial America's most famous writers. Its verses praised the burgeoning revolution, invoking the goddess of their new nation to aid the general's cause. But this ode to...

In 2017, a truck screeched to a halt. One of its containers slid off, hit a car, and spilled its contents— thousands of kilograms of hagfish. The result of this accident was an absolute mess: the highway was coated in a thick slime that...

It may not appear very lively six feet underground, but a single teaspoon of soil contains more organisms than there are human beings on the planet. From bacteria and algae to fungi and protozoa, soils are home to one quarter of Earth's...

It may sometimes seem like things are getting worse, but there's lots of reasons to be optimistic about the future. More people have access to toilets and sanitation than ever before. Thanks to public health improvements like this, since...

It is the artist's job to unearth stories that people try to bury with shovels of complacency and time, says poet and freedom fighter Mwende "FreeQuency" Katwiwa. Performing her poem "The Joys of Motherhood," Katwiwa explores the...

Asteroid strikes get all the coverage, but "Medea Hypothesis" author Peter Ward argues that most of Earth's mass extinctions were caused by lowly bacteria. The culprit, a poison called hydrogen sulfide, may have an interesting...

If you use the internet, you may have read about a nutritional study about the deadliness of fried potatoes. It's a little more complex than that, though. Even if you haven't heard of that one, we're pretty sure you've heard of the...

Every minute, 20 people are newly displaced by climate change, economic crisis and political instability, according to the UNHCR. How can we help them overcome the barriers to starting new lives? TED Resident Muhammed Idris is leading a...

Near the end of 2020, we got some puzzling but good news: COVID-19 fatality rates have been dropping. Here are a few factors that might help explain why we’re seeing this trend.

We knew some stars created large amounts of calcium, but no one really ever knew how...until now! Plus, astrophysicists believe they’ve finally seen evidence of the star that created one of the most important supernovas ever!

Several COVID-19 variants are acting uniquely enough to qualify as a distinct strain. And you might have heard about one on the news: the Delta variant. Today we’re going to talk about what it is, why it’s here, and what you need to know...

Since the 1800s, a handful of oligarchs had controlled nearly all of El Salvador's land, forcing laborers to work for almost nothing. But in 1980, farmers and urban workers formed guerrilla groups to overthrow the US-backed dictatorship....

In 19 BC, the Roman poet Virgil suffered heatstroke and died on his journey back to Italy. On his deathbed, he thought about the manuscript he had been working on for over ten years, an epic poem called the "Aeneid." Unsatisfied with the...

Zombies have a distinct lineage— one that traces back to Equatorial and Central Africa. For three centuries, African people were enslaved and brought to the Caribbean Islands. There, a religion known as vodou developed, along with the...