TED Talks
An Astrophysicist on a Mission to Uncover the Secrets of Space
In the past decade, astronomers have discovered interstellar objects, including a 2014 meteor that collided with Earth and 'Oumuamua in 2017. These objects, moving too fast to be bound by the Sun's gravity, have sparked questions about...
SciShow
The Gems That Solved a Himalayan Mystery
January babies, rejoice! This month's SciShow Rocks Box video is the story of garnets, and how these fabulous gemstones help us solve geological mysteries, from the Italian Alps to the Himalayas.
SciShow
These Rocks Are ALIVE
This month, our SciShow Rocks Box subscribers are getting a really special treat -- a real, living, pet rock! These critters have been beloved companions for decades, and we're bringing you pet rocks from the original wild vein, meaning...
SciShow
Why the Hardest Rocks Can Be Easy to Break
So, rocks are hard. But the scale we use to rank them, the Mohs scale, is only really good at quantifying that for one kind of hardness, and topaz is a perfect stone to talk about to explain that. And you can check it out in our SciShow...
SciShow
The Rock That's Helping Us Find the Origin of Life
Epidote might just look like a pretty little crystal, but it has a secret. thanks to the high-pressure circumstances where it forms, we can use it to help us uncover the origins of life on our planet, and maybe even find signs of life on...
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...
SciShow
The Earthquake That Lasted Two Centuries
From an Australian fire that's been continually burning for millennia, to earthquakes that shake the ground for centuries, here are four natural disasters that lasted way longer than you might have expected.
SciShow
Early Earth Microbes May Have Eaten Raw Meteorites
Is it possible that life on earth began with an out of this world rock buffet?
SciShow
The Rocky Mountains Are in the Wrong Place
Mountain ranges usually don't form in the middle of continents. Except for the Rocky Mountains. We'll go into the baffling Laramide Orogeny and a few possible reasons why the Rockies might be in the wrong place.
SciShow
The Asteroid That Nearly Swallowed OSIRIS-Rex
It's always an asteroid heading straight toward us that we worry about, never what happens to us when we head straight toward the asteroid. OSIRIS-REx's experience with Bennu tells us it's worth a thought.
SciShow
The Hostile World Where Animal Life Began
For decades, researchers thought they had a solid idea about the earliest booms in animal life. But new research might have turned off the gas on all these ideas, flipping our understanding of the Avalon explosion and the Cambrian...
SciShow
Did Earth's Continents Come from Space?
Earth didn't always have the land beneath your feet, but what might have caused it to form is a bit of a mystery.
PBS
Can Viruses Travel Between Planets?
With the global pandemic of Covid 19 still encompassing the world, we are generally not big fans of viruses right now. But we sure are thinking about them a lot. That’s right, even astrophysicists are pondering these bizarre little...
PBS
How We Know The Earth Is Ancient
In astronomy we talk about billions of years like it’s no big deal. But how can we be sure about timescales so far beyond the capacity for human intuition? Our discovery of what we now call deep time is very recent - as recent as our...
PBS
When Trees Took Over the World
420 million years ago, the forest floor of what's now New York was covered with a plant that didn’t look like a tree at all, except its roots were made of wood. Instead of looking up to learn about the evolution of trees, it turns out...
PBS
These Fossils Were Supposed To Be Impossible
Hidden in rocks once thought too old to contain complex life we may have found the animal kingdom’s oldest known predator.
PBS
The World Before Plate Tectonics
There was a time in Earth’s history that was so stable, geologists once called it the Boring Billion. But the fact is, this period was anything but boring. In fact, it set the stage for our modern version of plate tectonics - and...
PBS
How Plants Caused the First Mass Extinction
In the middle of the Cambrian, life on land was about to get a little more crowded. And those newcomers would end up changing the world. The arrival of plants on land would make the world colder, drain much of the oxygen out of the...
MinuteEarth
Why Continents Are High
Lots of geological forces need to come together for continents to form, but they all require one ingredient: water.
SciShow
The Strange Life of a Giant Cell | The Xenophyophore
What on earth is a xenophyophore? It's a single-celled organism that unlike what you might think is NOT microscopically small. In fact, these ocean dwellers are a little heftier than that! Learn all about them in this new episode of...
SciShow
5 Unexplainable Mysteries Explained by Science
Do you want to know how some of Earth's most fascinating mysteries have been solved by science? Join us and learn about 5 thought-to-be unexplainable mysteries—explained! Hosted by Hank Green.
SciShow
The Tiny Reasons This Island Is Shrinking
Hoboro Island off the coast of Japan may soon be an island of the past, and it’s primarily due to one unsuspecting isopod.
SciShow
Is the Mystery of Earth's 1.2 Billion Missing Years Solved? | SciShow News
For the last hundred and fifty years or so, geologists have been trying to wrap their heads around the mystery: in some places, the geologic record just seems to jump by over billion years. And last week, a paper was published that may...
SciShow
How Washington Became a Ship Graveyard: A SciShow Field Trip #3
Olympic National Park is temporarily closed as Washington, the US, and the world work to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We filmed this series in early January and are currently at home practicing social distancing. We hope...