TED Talks
TED: Let your garden grow wild | Rebecca McMackin
Many gardeners work hard to maintain clean, tidy environments ... which is the exact opposite of what wildlife wants, says ecological horticulturist Rebecca McMackin. She shows the beauty of letting your garden run wild, surveying the...
TED Talks
TED: Your invitation to help build a sustainable future | Jim Snabe
If we want to avoid a climate disaster, we need much more radical leadership, says Jim Snabe, who knows a thing or two about leadership as chairman of the world's largest maritime shipping company. In a stirring talk, he encourages...
TED Talks
TED: Is climate change slowing down the ocean? | Susan Lozier
Ocean waters are constantly on the move, traveling far distances in complex currents that regulate Earth's climate and weather patterns. How might climate change impact this critical system? Oceanographer Susan Lozier dives into the...
TED Talks
TED: The Herds, a vast act of theater to spark climate action | Amir Nizar Zuabi
Theater has the power to transform the most pressing issues of our time from news stories into human stories, says director and playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi. Recounting his work on the journey of Little Amal — a 13-foot puppet symbolizing...
TED Talks
TED: The beauty of wildlife — and an artistic call to protect it | Isabella Kirkland
I think of my paintings as alarm clocks, says artist Isabella Kirkland. "They're reminders of what's at stake; the only problem is we keep pushing the snooze button." Investigating humanity's relationship to nature, she shares work that...
Be Smart
How Was the Grand Canyon Formed?
I was in Arizona recently for Phoenix Comic-Con, and had the amazing pleasure of seeing one of Earth's greatest natural wonders… the Grand Canyon. More than a mile deep, and several miles across, it just defies belief. But I couldn't...
TED Talks
TED: Regenerative living can restore a broken world | Paul Hawken
A frog and a mockingbird changed Paul Hawken's life, kindling a devotion to protect and restore nature. Now, as one of the world's preeminent environmentalists, he advocates for regeneration — a calling and action plan for the world to...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The largest river on Earth is actually in the sky | Iseult Gillespie
The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, exists between two rivers — but not in the way you might think. At ground level, the Amazon River and its tributaries weave their path. But above the canopy, bigger waterways are on the...
TED Talks
TED: Why science needs to get behind natural medicine | Jeff Chen
Pharmaceutical companies often only patent drugs they can monetize, creating synthetic versions of remedies already available in nature. In this quick talk, physician and entrepreneur Jeff Chen offers a path to affordable, effective...
TED Talks
TED: Photographing nature beyond the limits of human perception | Doris Mitsch
Artist Doris Mitsch invites us to revel in the wonders of nature through her dazzling photography: stacked images of starlings in flight, hawks surfing thermal updrafts, bats echolocating through the night sky and more. Revealing the...
PBS
Breaking The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Quantum mechanics forbids us from measuring the universe beyond a certain level of precision. But that doesn’t stop us from trying. And in some cases succeeding, by squeezing the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to its breaking point.
PBS
How To Detect a Neutrino
Why is there something rather than nothing? Well the answer may be found in the weakest particle in the universe: the neutrino. For over half a century Fermilab has been the premier particle accelerator facility of the United States and...
PBS
Do Black Holes Create New Universes?
Physicists have been struggling for some time to figure out why our universe is so comfy. Why, for example, are the fundamental constants - like the mass of the electron or the strength of the forces - just right for the emergence of...
PBS
Does Life Need a Multiverse to Exist?
Life exists in our universe. There we go - one hopefully uncontroversial statement. Therefore our universe is capable of producing and supporting life. How am I going? Two for two? Let’s try for three: therefore there are countless...
PBS
Can Space Be Infinitely Divided?
How many times can I half the distance between my hands? Assume perfect coordination and the ability to localize my palms to the quantum level. 15 halvings gets them to within a cell’s width. 33 to within a single atom, 50 and they’re a...
PBS
Black Hole Harmonics
When physicists talk about black holes they’re usually referring to highly theoretical objects – static, unchanging black holes viewed from “infinitely” far away. This makes everything clean and simple enough to attempt the already...
PBS
Why Is 1/137 One of the Greatest Unsolved Problems In Physics?
The Fine Structure Constant is one the strangest numbers in all of physics. It’s the job of physicists to worry about numbers, but there’s one number that physicists have stressed about more than any other. That number is 0.00729735256 -...
PBS
What Happens During a Quantum Jump?
Since the very beginning of quantum mechanics, a debate has raged about how to interpret its bizarre predictions. And at the heart and origin of that debate is the quantum jump or quantum leap - the seemingly miraculous and instantaneous...
PBS
The Equation That Explains (Nearly) Everything!
The Standard Model of particle physics is arguably the most successful theory in the history of physics. It predicts the results of experiments with a numerical precision unmatched by any other branch of science, and it does so almost...
PBS
How the Quantum Eraser Rewrites the Past | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
Causality is meant to move in one direction: forward. But the Quantum Eraser experiment seems to reverse causality. How and why can this happen and what are the implications of this experiment on how we understand Quantum Mechanics and...
Be Smart
Are We Running Out Of Food??
If you tried to sum up the last 150 years or so in one image, a chart of exponential growth would be a good place to start. It shows that some things change faster over time. You could apply it to life expectancy. Or compound interest....
Be Smart
The Golden Ratio: Is It Myth or Math?
The golden ratio. Some say it’s the most mythical number in the universe. Others say it underlies everything from nature’s patterns to beauty in art and design. But, like, what is it? And does the myth of the golden ratio hold up to its...
Be Smart
The Science of Iridescence
Why do we see rainbows in soap bubbles? What makes an oil slick so oddly beautiful? Iridescent colors, which transform depending on the angle you look at them, are all over nature. How does physics make these shifting rainbows? We’re...
Be Smart
The Amazing (and Deadly) Science of Jumping Spider Vision
Why do spiders have 8 eyes? It’s a seemingly simple question with a surprisingly complex answer. We’ll be hanging out with some jumping spiders (the cutest of all spiders) and some jumping spider researchers to investigate how a...