When you think of antihistamines, you're probably only thinking about getting rid of a runny nose, but we're learning that antihistamines can be used for nausea, insomnia, and even depression!

Drugs that treat heart failure are also prescribed for anxiety? What's up with that?

Could a small jolt of electricity to your gut help treat chronic diseases? Medical hacker and TED Fellow Khalil Ramadi is developing a new, noninvasive therapy that could treat diseases like diabetes, obesity, Parkinson's and...

Every cell that's ever lived has been the result of the four-letter genetic alphabet: A, T, C and G -- the basic units of DNA. But now that's changed. In a visionary talk, synthetic biologist Floyd E. Romesberg introduces us to the first...

Last week, the opioid epidemic was declared a "public health emergency' in the United States, but what are opioids, and why is the way they interact with the human brain potentially so dangerous?

Believe it or not, about 20 years' worth of potentially life-saving drugs are sitting in labs right now, untested. Why? Because they can't get the funding to go to trials; the financial risk is too high. Roger Stein is a finance guy, and...

The War on Drugs is a decades-long United States policy intended to curb illegal drug use and trafficking. Long story short: it has not worked to reduce drug use or trade, and the policy has had devastating effects, especially on...

We tend to focus on the brain in psychology, but it's part of an entire system! Other organs, even your liver, play a big role in psychological health.

Dealing with depression is not easy, and the most common treatments don’t work for everyone. Could biomarkers be the key to finding more treatment options?

Cancer is a very clever, adaptable disease. To defeat it, says medical researcher and educator Paula Hammond, we need a new and powerful mode of attack. With her colleagues at MIT, Hammond engineered a nanoparticle one-hundredth the size...

(NOTE: This talk was given in 2010, and this field of science has developed quickly since then. Enjoy it as a piece of science history but not as the last word on this topic. Read "Criticisms & updates" below for more details.) William...

The brain is what makes us function, yet we understand so little about how it works. We are learning more about the brain by using new technology to monitor epilepsy patients during surgery. Moran Cerf explains the process doctors use to...

SciShow News looks into two things that were giving us less protection than we thought they were: online security software, and anti-viral drugs.

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Journalist Misha Glenny spent several years in a courageous investigation of organized crime networks, which have...

Learn why tuberculosis, TB, is the world’s most infectious disease and how medical advancements are improving treatment. -- In 2008, two 9,000-year old skeletons were found with their bones infected by an all too familiar bacterium....

In the 1980s and 90s, pharmaceutical companies began to market opioid painkillers aggressively, while actively downplaying their addictive potential. The number of prescriptions skyrocketed, and so did cases of addiction, beginning a...

Hank talks about the scary new drug that's led to some recent incidences of goat stabbing, as well as other tragedies - bath salts. We learn how it works and ask the important question: why?

Sodium pentothal, the so-called "truth serum,' is real! But does it work? Find out what "truth serums' do, and how your brain lets you tell lies.

Swallowing pills to get medication is a quick, painless and often not entirely effective way of treating disease. A potentially better way? Lasers. In this passionate talk, TED Fellow Patience Mthunzi explains her idea to use lasers to...

From a new method of drug design to an antiviral agent for herpes, Gertrude Elion's works totally transformed the world of drug development.

Aspirin isn't just an old medicine cabinet stand-by, it's one of the oldest medicines we humans learned how to make ourselves. And our research into aspirin did more than just make it better at relieving pain, it opened the door to whole...

What if instead of going to the store to buy a new toilet brush, all you had to do was walk into your office and print one out? With recent advances in 3D printing, such a scenario might not be as far away as you think. Chapters PRINT...

Scorpion venom and insect poison sound really deadly, but scientists are increasingly turning them into medical treatments that save millions of lives. Chapters CAPTOPRIL 1:18 SOUTH AMERICAN PIT VIPER Credit: Renato Augusto Martins 1:33...

In the 1950s, the discovery of two new drugs sparked what would become a multi-billion dollar market for antidepressants. Neither drug was intended to treat depression at all— many doctors and scientists believed psychotherapy was the...