TED Talks
Lucy King: How bees can keep the peace between elephants and humans
Imagine waking in the middle of the night to an elephant ripping the roof from your house in search of food. This is a reality in some communities in Africa where, as wild spaces shrink, people and elephants are competing for space and...
SciShow
Are Ancient Grains Really Better For You?
Ancient grains like Spelt, Emmer, and Einkorn are making a comeback, but are they better for you than modern wheats? The answer is, as usual, not a simple 'yes' or 'no'.
Crash Course
Why is There Uneven Access to Food? Crash Course Geography
Food insecurity, or the lack of access to enough nutritious food, is a complex problem. In the 21st century, even with all of our advances in technology, access to food is still uneven. Today we're going to look at the diffusion of food...
Crash Course Kids
Big Changes in the Big Apple
Did you know that all living things change their environments? It's true. Beavers, deer, worms, and humans all change their environments. It just so happens that humans change our environments in big, obvious ways. In this episode,...
Crash Course
Why the Evolutionary Epic Matters: Crash Course Big History
Today we're talking about evolution_basically the history of all life on Earth. The thing is, why are we talking about this. Well, the story of life, all the way back to single celled microbes billions of years ago, is all part of our...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How corn conquered the world | Chris A. Kniesly
Corn currently accounts for more than one tenth of our global crop production. And over 99% of cultivated corn is the exact same type: Yellow Dent #2. This means that humans grow more Yellow Dent #2 than any other plant on the planet. So...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The case of the vanishing honeybees - Emma Bryce
In the past decade, the US honeybee population has been decreasing at an alarming and unprecedented rate. While this is obviously bad news for honeypots everywhere, bees also help feed us in a bigger way -- by pollinating our nation's...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: M Jackson: How to grow your own glacier
In the 13th century, Genghis Khan embarked on a mission to take over Eurasia, swiftly conquering countries and drawing them into his empire. But, legend has it that there was one obstacle that even he couldn't overcome: a towering wall...
SciShow
The Disappearing Monarch and the Oldest Mammal on Earth
SciShow News starts the new year off with unusual animal news, including a crisis for the iconic monarch butterfly, and new research into what makes bowhead whales the longest-living mammals on Earth.
SciShow
The Only Non-Human Mammal that Farms
This week, we discovered that some gophers are not the pests they’re made out to be, perhaps even sharing some of the farming behaviors of humans. And a martian rock a million years in the making finally has its origin story.
SciShow
The First Conservation Efforts Protected… Poop?!
The idea of conservation might seem like a thing that’s only popped up in the last century or so, but organized efforts to conserve resources that directly benefit humans go back centuries!
Crash Course
How do we Classify Climates? Crash Course Geography
From gnocchi and salchipapas to potato chips and french fries, it seems like every cuisine around the world has embraced the potato! And this humble tuber did not originate in Ireland or France, but near Lake Titicaca near the border of...
MinuteEarth
Why Farming is Broken
To feed everyone in the future, we may need to disrupt 10,000 years of farming practices and turn agriculture into a closed system. ___________________________________________ To learn more, start your googling with these keywords:...
SciShow
Beware the Bug Spit: How Spittlebugs Accidentally Doom Plants
Ever wondered what makes those balls of white foam you sometimes find clinging to plants? Spittlebugs create these bubbly cocoons after feeding on a plant’s fluids; but unfortunately, their eating habits help transmit a deadly bacteria...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Should we eat bugs? - Emma Bryce
What's tasty, abundant and high in protein? Bugs! Although less common outside the tropics, entomophagy, the practice of eating bugs, was once extremely widespread throughout cultures. You may feel icky about munching on insects, but...
TED Talks
TED: How we can make crops survive without water | Jill Farrant
As the world's population grows and the effects of climate change come into sharper relief, we'll have to feed more people using less arable land. Molecular biologist Jill Farrant studies a rare phenomenon that may help: "resurrection...
SciShow
Is Spider Silk the Future of Material Engineering?
Spiders have a long and fabled history of being a notorious creepy-crawly, but their silk might just change that image. Here are six ways in which spider silk is being studied to improve life for human beings.
MinuteEarth
How To (Literally) Save Earth
Farming erodes soil 50 times faster than it forms. We can change that, but will we?
MinuteEarth
The Secret Global Sewer System
Ditches and drain pipes help crops survive but can negatively impact the broader landscape.
SciShow
What If We Killed All the Wasps?
Unlike their friendly, flower-pollinating cousin, the bee, wasps are best known for stinging people, ruining picnics, and generally being jerks... so should we just totally get rid of them?
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can we create the "perfect" farm? | Brent Loken
About 10,000 years ago, humans began to farm. This agricultural revolution was a turning point in our history and enabled the existence of civilization. Today, nearly 40 percent of our planet is farmland. Spread all over the world, these...
SciShow
Engineering Plants That Fertilize Themselves to Save the World
Humans have relied on fertilizers to grow their plants for thousands of years. But the production of synthetic fertilizers also requires an immense amount of energy that comes primarily from fossil fuels and therefore contributes to...