Everyone hates mosquitos. Besides the annoying buzzing and biting, mosquito-borne diseases like malaria kill over a million people each year (plus horses, dogs and cats). And over the past 100 million years, they've gotten good at their...

Oxygen forms about 21% of the air around us. In your body, oxygen forms a vital role in the production of energy in most cells. But if gases can only efficiently diffuse across tiny distances, how does oxygen reach the cells deep inside...

Mosquitos might not be everyone’s favorite bug, but there’s a way we might at least be able to more comfortably coexist with these agitating arthropods.

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....

After nailing that sweet triple gainer into the pool you may have noticed something: being underwater is very peaceful, thanks to a reflex we share with all air-breathing vertebrates.

In an effort to protect us from getting killed by something we’ve ingested, our brain’s vomit control center processes a lot of information from several different places … and sometimes is a little overly cautious.

Preventing heartworm disease in your dog isn't just good for your furry friend. It turns out that humans can be infected with heartworm, too!

Cigarettes aren't good for us. That's hardly news -- we've known about the dangers of smoking for decades. But how exactly do cigarettes harm us, and can our bodies recover if we stop? Krishna Sudhir details what happens when we smoke --...

What if we could find cancerous tumors years before they can harm us -- without expensive screening facilities or even steady electricity? Physician, bioengineer and entrepreneur Sangeeta Bhatia leads a multidisciplinary lab that...

Today we're talking the heart and heart throbs -- both literal and those of the televised variety. Hank explains how your heart's pacemaker cells use leaky membranes to generate their own action potentials, and how the resulting...

Children's toys can help teach kids about colors, shapes, and imagination. But it turns out they've also inspired scientists and engineers for centuries, leading to innovations in medical diagnostics and space travel. So,...

Why do we yawn? If you think the answer is BOR-ing, then maybe your brain's just overheated. Let Hank explain the new thinking behind why we ... hold on ... *yawn*. Excuse me.

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...

Prolonged space travel plays a severe toll on the human body: microgravity impairs muscle and bone growth, and high doses of radiation cause irreversible mutations. As we seriously consider the human species becoming space-faring, a big...

You'd think that animals that lived in water wouldn't have to drink it -- but some fish do. Learn all about how different kinds of fish get the fresh water that they need to survive.

Blood-suckers may seem like they have it easy, but feeding on blood comes with a lot of challenges.

The chances of you being hit by lightning are small by comparison, but it does happen! Hank will go through what ultimately happens when you are struck by lightning because chances are you will survive to tell it to your friends.

Researchers have revealed a potentially life-saving rapid blood type test, and does using GPS to get around make your brain lazy?

Your digestive system impacts the rest of your body in all sorts of unexpected ways, from keeping your heart healthy to literally making you feel happier.

Today Hank wraps up this look at your integumentary system and all the hard work it does protecting you from and helping you interact with the world around you.
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Protects...

In the early 20th century, the US had expanded from coast to coast, but many cities in the southwest still lacked reliable water sources. The Colorado River's erratic flow and frequent floods made it unreliable for agriculture, and the...

Ice cream is a great treat, but you have to eat it slowly! Otherwise, you'll get what some people call a 'brain freeze,' which is a super bad headache that lasts for a couple seconds. But how does ice cream hurt your head?!

We all know that we need things like water and oxygen to live, but what happens when you get too much of a good thing?

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...