Animals have all kinds of adaptations to help them get through winter, from hibernation to boots and hats. But trees have to make it through the coldest months of the year alive, too, and they've developed some pretty extreme ways to do it!

The largest animal in the world is the blue whale, which weighs a massive 150 metric tons. Even so, it's not remotely close to being the largest organism by weight. That title goes to an organism so huge that it's estimated to weigh the...

In a few decades, scientists predict that a widespread, severe drought will sweep across western North America -- and it'll last for decades.

It turns out that defining what is and isn't a “tree” is way harder than it seems.

It's time for planetary-scale interventions to combat climate change -- and environmentalist Tim Flannery thinks seaweed can help. In a bold talk, he shares the epic carbon-capturing potential of seaweed, explaining how oceangoing...

To solve the climate crisis, we need to make tropical forests worth more alive than dead, says environmental economist Nat Keohane. Highlighting the urgent need to stop deforestation and the carbon pollution it brings, he details the...

This week on CC Myth, Mike Rugnetta is teaching you about mythical trees. There are lots of trees in myth, and we've touched on some of them before, but today we're going to focus on three trees from three different traditions. We'll...

Short-sightedness may be the greatest threat to humanity, says conceptual artist Katie Paterson, whose work engages with deep time -- an idea that describes the history of the Earth over a time span of millions of years. In this lively...

Towering 85 meters above the Norwegian countryside, Mjøstårnet is the world's tallest wooden building, made almost entirely from the trees of neighboring forests. But as recently as the end of the 20th century, engineers thought it was...

Deep in the Himalayas, on the border between China and India, lies the Kingdom of Bhutan, which has pledged to remain carbon neutral for all time. In this illuminating talk, Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay shares his country's...

After a massive storm tears through the Hex Archipelago, you find five grizzled survivors in the water. As an act of gratitude for saving them, they reveal a secret _ the island they were just on holds some buried treasure. But when the...

Bears are known for scratching their backs on trees, but it turns out that they might be using trees as a dating app.

We don't need a time machine to learn from the past (but let us know if you find one)! Air bubbles trapped in ice for millennia and ancient pollen grains can tell us a lot about climate shifts hundreds of thousands of years ago!

Hank goes head-to-head with Minute Physics’ Henry Reich to test their wits about the winter solstice, reindeer, and the science of snow! Chapters View all HANK GREEN 0:20 HENRY REICH 0:28 MAX LOUTZENHEISER 1:03 FLORIAN STINGLMAYR 1:06...

There's all sorts of life in the Redwood forest, but not just in the ground, different animals live in all layers of the Redwoods!



Disciplinary C

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LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems -...

How do we tell stories of humanity and nature at a time when our planet is burning? Novelist Elif Shafak invites us to listen to the trees, whose experience of time, stillness and impermanence is utterly different from our own. "Hidden...

As cities adopt greener, more sustainable designs, there's risk of a dangerous and unwelcome tenant moving in: mosquitoes. Researcher Cameron Webb explains what urban planners and the general public need to understand about mosquitoes --...

A future more beautiful? Architect Thomas Heatherwick shows five recent projects featuring ingenious bio-inspired designs. Some are remakes of the ordinary: a bus, a bridge, a power station ... And one is an extraordinary pavilion, the...

What do beavers, termites, and prairie dogs have in common? They all change their environments! Last time we talked about how humans change their environments, but humans are animals and all animals change their environments just by...

When Stephen Sillett was a boy, he took to the forests of Pennsylvania with his brother and grandmother. Looking up into the dense branches and leaves, his curiosity was piqued: What was hidden up there? Wendell Oshiro tells the story of...

Conservation efforts in Africa have typically been led by "parachute conservationists" -- outsiders who drop in thinking they have all the answers, hire locals to implement them and then disappear. But conservationist Resson Kantai Duff...

Two extinct relatives of horses and rhinos are closely related to each other but have strikingly different body plans. How did two of the same kind of animal, living in the same place, end up looking so different?

How do you define "nature?" If we define it as that which is untouched by humans, then we won't have any left, says environmental writer emma Marris. She urges us to consider a new definition of nature -- one that includes not only...

Squirrels eat a lot of things that are pretty tricky to find in the winter, like nuts and berries. Luckily for them, they have lots of clever ways to store up food to last them through the cold parts of the year!