Call it "fuel without fossils": Jonathan Trent is working on a plan to grow new biofuel by farming micro-algae in floating offshore pods that eat wastewater from cities. Hear his team's bold vision for Project OMEGA (Offshore Membrane...

How To Avoid the Next Atlantis

In high school biology, we learn that humans are born with either XX or XY chromosomes, and that a person’s internal and external sex organs match those chromosomes. It turns out, however, that sex isn’t that straightforward.

Goats are amazing creatures, but there's a lot more than meets the eye.

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....

It may be antiquated now, but the old pearl of wisdom: “Don’t sit too close to the TV” was good advice in the 1960s

Twins can be a lot more complicated than just identical or fraternal, and the rarer types of twins suggest that we have a lot more to learn about human development.

There's nothing quite like a good night's sleep. What if technology could help us get more out of it? Dan Gartenberg is working on tech that stimulates deep sleep, the most regenerative stage which (among other wonderful things) might...

Last week we introduced the idea of socialization and today we’re talking a little more about how it works, including an introduction to five main types of socialization. We’ll explore anticipatory socialization from your family, the...

We're generally taught that chromosomes determine an animal's sex, but it is way more nuanced than that.

Within every cell in our body, two copies of a tumor suppressor gene called BRCA1 are tasked with regulating the speed at which cells divide. Michael Windelspecht explains how these genes can sometimes mutate, making those cells less...

How does evolution really work? Actually, not how some of our common evolutionary metaphors would have us believe. For instance, it's species, not individual organisms, that adapt to produce evolution, and genes don't "want" to be passed...

Today we are talking about 3 scientists who, through their collective inventions and discoveries, have saved millions of lives.

Fish in a tree? How can that be? For some aquatic creatures, it's not necessarily bad to be a fish out of water.

With a greater understanding of biological mechanisms, humans may be able to take a devastating birth defect and turn it into a treatment for cancer.

Until recently, scientists thought cannibalism was a rare response to starvation or other extreme stress. Well-known cannibals like the praying mantis and black widow were considered bizarre exceptions. But now, we know they more or less...

What if one day you woke up and were suddenly speaking with a completely new accent from somewhere you’ve never lived? It sounds like a movie plot, but this rare condition is known as foreign accent syndrome.

From nourishing our foods to storing massive amounts of carbon, soil is teeming with diverse microbial life that could slow global warming. Climate change scientist Jane Zelikova calls for agricultural practices that protect Earth's soil...

Creating functional prosthetics at a fraction of the cost of imported tech, bionic innovator and TED Fellow Enzo Romero shares a groundbreaking model for designing 3D-printed assistive technology sourced from recycled materials -- built...

NASA just announced the five finalists for the next Discovery missions. It looks like we’ll be sending probes to Venus, studying asteroids, or both!

The first ever vaccine was created when Edward Jenner, an English physician and scientist, successfully injected small amounts of a cowpox virus into a young boy to protect him from the related (and deadly) smallpox virus. But how does...

Not only is this gecko adorned with beautiful coloration, but the same thing that makes it look so pretty could help us understand where some our cancers come from and how to stop them from progressing!

If you hear the word “baby-faced” you might picture a doe-eyed celebrity who never seems to age. But, really, you should be thinking of the axolotl. However, it is possible to transform these otherwise forever-babies, causing them to...

Imagine a country with abundant power -- oil and gas, sunshine, wind (and money) -- but missing one key essential for life: water. Infrastructure engineer Fahad Al-Attiya talks about the unexpected ways that the small Middle Eastern...