Having bones is pretty cool. They make our blood, let us hear, and keep us from being just a squishy puddle on the floor. But for every species with bones, there are at least 20 species on Earth with exoskeletons instead. And those...

Geckos can grip and climb almost anything. Walking up walls, hanging upside down… even from glass. It’s almost like they can defy gravity. How do they do it? The secret lies in nanotechnology. I’ll tell you how that works and how...

Seemingly distant ecosystems, even half a world apart, are connected in surprising ways. In this special limited series, Emily Graslie and Trace Dominguez join me as we explore the universal rules of life that tie together Earth’s living...

What is ”egg-shaped” even? I used to think it was the shape of a chicken egg. Then one day I saw a collection of eggs from lots of different bird species, and I realized just how many different kind of egg shapes there really are! I had...

Why do whales, elephants, and other large animals not get cancer? Logically, the larger an animal is, and the longer it lives, the more likely it should be to get cancer. But these giants don’t. Why is that? And can the answer help...

A human with the metabolism of a hummingbird would need to eat about 80,000 calories a day to survive. That’s because staying warm by making your own heat takes a ton of energy. And that brings up a paradox, because creating your own...

You may have heard that a kilogram of feathers weighs the same as a kilogram of steel, but that all depends on where you weigh them. This video is all about the difference between mass and weight, and how weirdly awesome Earth’s gravity...

The biggest thing that has ever lived on Earth… is a tree? Hard to believe, but it’s true. Travel with me to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to go inside the most massive species on our planet, and learn what unique and special...

A massive new study has just been released showing that human activities are threatening Earth’s other life forms in some very bad ways. One million species may be at risk of extinction. Just let that sink in. Isn’t the Anthropocene...

Could humans ever evolve to have wings? Why don’t fish have propellers? Why don’t tigers have wheels? Why don’t zebras have laser turrets? These might all seem like stupid questions (and maybe they are!) but they can teach us a lot about...

There’s a lot of confusion out there about what is and isn’t a dinosaur. And you’d be forgiven for being kinda confused. Maybe paleontologists are just messing with us. Or… maybe the question of what is and isn’t a dinosaur goes deeper...

Why are trees and other plants green? Seems like a simple question. But the answer is full of surprises. Using a special camera that can pick up light just beyond the visible range, into the near-infrared, you’ll get to see trees like...

The monarch butterfly migration is one of nature’s greatest events. This orange-winged wonder travels up to 4,500 km from all over North America to spend the winter hanging from oyamel fir trees in central Mexico’s mountain forests. I...

Greetings, fellow Homo sapiens. Our species is the only remaining member of the genus of upright, walking apes known as Homo. Where did we come from? Our history just got a whole lot more complicated (in a good way) thanks to some...

Seemingly distant ecosystems, even half a world apart, are connected in surprising ways. In this special limited series, Emily Graslie and Trace Dominguez join me as we explore the universal rules of life that tie together Earth’s living...

How do zebras get their stripes? How do leopards get their spots? And how do giraffes get their giraffe-shaped thingies, whatever they are called? Would you believe the answer is… math? This is the story of a WWII wartime codebreaker and...

One day around 15,000 years ago, a wall of ice 2,000 feet tall and 30 miles wide suddenly broke wide open, and it unleashed the largest flood that we know of in the history of Earth. Come and hit the road with me as we search for the...

The largest pterosaurs like Quetzalcoatlus were closer in size to airplanes than birds. No flying animal alive today comes close to their huge size. So did giant pterosaurs actually fly? I went to see the fossil bones of the largest...

I met Molly Burke a few months ago. She’s awesome. I absolutely love what she’s done on YouTube to bring awareness to living with disability, and turning it into ability. And her guide dog Gallop is awesome too! When Molly and I first...

Earth’s climate is changing in a big way, and it’s because there's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any point in our species’ history. But Earth’s climate has changed before. How do we know that this time we’re the cause? We...

If you were taking an engineering class in school and you turned in the human body for your final exam… you would get like, a C+. Or maybe a B- at best. That’s because the human body is full of design flaws. Except they aren’t really...

Ever feel like you aren't totally yourself? Well, maybe you aren't. In this video, we explore the idea of human chimeras. In mythology, the "Chimaera" was a beast made from different animals combined into one. But in biology, a chimera...

Can trees really save us from climate change? For eons, nature has relied on photosynthesis as a big way to keep carbon dioxide levels from getting out of control. But as we have put more carbon into the air, we’ve also cut down many of...

It sounds like such an incredible fact. “Our own cells are outnumbered by our microbes 10 to 1!” I don’t remember where I first heard it. But I read it in science papers and articles by journalists, so I believed it without question. I...