TED Talks
TED: Why you should love gross science | Anna Rothschild
What can we learn from the slimy, smelly side of life? In this playful talk, science journalist Anna Rothschild shows us the hidden wisdom of "gross stuff" and explains why avoiding the creepy underbelly of nature, medicine and...
TED Talks
TED: The playful wonderland behind great inventions | Steven Johnson
Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Well, not always. Steven Johnson shows us how some of the most transformative ideas and technologies, like the computer, didn't emerge out of necessity at all but instead from the strange...
TED Talks
Lesley Hazleton: The doubt essential to faith
When Lesley Hazleton was writing a biography of Muhammad, she was struck by something: The night he received the revelation of the Koran, according to early accounts, his first reaction was doubt, awe, even fear. And yet this experience...
SciShow
Can Old Dogs Learn New Tricks?
I’t teach an old dog new tricks — but that saying might not be as trustworthy as you’d think.
SciShow
Wheezy Waiter on Movie Science, Mutant Flu Facts, and 2 Sounds You've Never Heard!
Wheezy Waiter announces the SciShow nominees for "Worst Science in a Film," & Hank talks about the bird flu and shares two sounds that had never been heard by human ears until very recently.
TED Talks
TED: Be humble -- and other lessons from the philosophy of water | Raymond Tang
How do we find fulfillment in a world that's constantly changing? Raymond Tang struggled with this question until he came across the ancient Chinese philosophy of the Tao Te Ching. In it, he found a passage comparing goodness to water,...
SciShow
IDTIMWYTIM Bird or Dinosaur
Hank fixes those of us who are probably wrong about what is and is not a dinosaur... and gives a refresher to those of us who do know this already.
TED Talks
TED: The joy of taking out the trash | Aparna Nancherla
Comedian Aparna Nancherla loves to take out the trash. In this funny and sharp meditation on garbage -- "the stuff that our modern, consumerist, carbon-powered culture makes us buy endlessly, and often for no reason" -- she shares...
TED Talks
David Bolinsky: Visualizing the wonder of a living cell
Medical animator David Bolinsky presents 3 minutes of stunning animation that show the bustling life inside a cell.
SciShow
Meet Your Microglia: Your Brain's Overlooked Superheroes
When talking about the brain, neurons have been dazzling scientists for a long time. But behind every successful neuron is a glial cell - particularly one type of them: microglia.
SciShow
Does Having Abusive Parents Mean You’ll Become One?
Growing up in a violent household creates the risk of perpetuating that violence later in life, but is it avoidable?
TED Talks
TED: How going to Mars improves life on Earth | Eric Hinterman
Memory foam, air purifiers, scratch-resistant lenses: these are just a few of the everyday items originally developed for space missions. Aerospace engineer Eric Hinterman invites us to dream big and imagine what technological...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why the insect brain is so incredible - Anna St_ckl
The human brain is one of the most sophisticated organs in the world, a supercomputer made of billions of neurons that control all of our senses, thoughts, and actions. But there was something Charles Darwin found even more impressive:...
SciShow
The Overlap of Autoimmunity and Mental Health Conditions
Our immune systems aren't just critical to our physical health. It turns out they may play a big role in our mental health, as well. And learning more about how these two aspects of our health are interconnected can help us develop more...
SciShow
How Bad Helmets Gave Us a Map of Vision
The Brodie helmet, widely used during the first World War, had some serious design flaws, . But thanks to those flaws we now have a staggeringly accurate map of the brain.
SciShow
Urinal Cakes: Why?
If you happen to be a frequenter of urinals, odds are you've seen one that has a little block at the bottom of it. But what does it do and why are you peeing on it?!
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why do cats have vertical pupils? | Emma Bryce
Peering into the eyes of different animals, you'll see some extraordinarily shaped pupils. House cats, for one, are twilight hunters with vertically elongated pupils. Many grazing animals, like goats, have rectangular pupils. Other...
TED-Ed
What causes dandruff, and how do you get rid of it? | Thomas L. Dawson
On top of our heads, there is a type of yeast that lives and dines on all of our scalps. Feasting constantly, it's in paradise. And in about half of the human population, its activity causes dandruff. So, why do some people have more...
SciShow
Why Doesn’t the Palo Verde Tree Need Water?
They don’t call water the building block of life for nothing, most living things need it. The palo verde tree, however, has managed to skate by needing it a lot less than the rest of us.
SciShow
5 Weird Reasons Not to Smoke
Hank gives you five MORE reasons why you should probably avoid smoking, or quit if you already smoke - in addition to those big ones you already know about. These are the weird reasons.
SciShow
The Most Incredible Octopus You’ve Never Heard of: The Blanket Octopus
All octopuses start out as teeny, tiny plankton, and most grow up to settle down on the seafloor. The blanket octopus, however, never settles down, and spends its life wandering the open ocean.
TED Talks
TED: The death of the universe -- and what it means for life | Katie Mack
The universe started with a bang -- but how will it end? With astonishing visuals, cosmologist and TED Fellow Katie Mack takes us to the theoretical end of everything, some trillions of years in the future, in a profound meditation on...