In which John Green teaches you about war! Specifically, John talks about whether humanity is naturally warlike, hard-wired to kill, or if perhaps war is a cultural construct. John will talk about the Hobbes versus Rousseau debate, the...

In which John Green teaches you about railroads, and some of the ways they changed the world, and how they were a sort of microcosm for the Industrial Revolution as a whole. Prior to the invention of steam powered railroads, pretty much...

In which Stan Muller subs for John Green and teaches you about energy and humanity. Today we discuss the ideas put forth by Alfred Crosby in his book, Children of the Sun. Historically, almost all of the energy that humans use has been...

In which John Green teaches you about disease, and the effects that disease has had in human history. Disease has been with man since the beginning, and it has shaped the way humans operate in a lot of ways. John will teach you about the...

In the mid-1990s, a meteorite with the unmemorable name ALH84001 became the most famous rock in the world. Because one team of scientists proposed that it had the evidence of real, if microscopic, Martians.



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It never gets dark anymore. Not REALLY dark, anyway. Not like it used to. Light pollution is not only making it more difficult to see the night sky, but it's also affecting our health. For the past century and a half, since the dawn of...

We know modern day healthcare to be a world of expensive premiums, long wait times and frustrating hospital bills. However health care has existed long before insurance premiums and online portals! Curious about when healthcare for...

This week, researches published a genetic analysis of the 11,500-year-old remains of a baby found in Alaska, near where the first Americans crossed the Bering land bridge. That analysis has answered some lingering questions about human...

Earlier this week, a team of researchers announced that they’d made a discovery about how we inherit mitochondrial DNA from our parents that could change what we know about not only disease inheritance, but human history as a whole.

Imagine that your life began as one of the planet's first humans. After dying, you're reincarnated as the second human ever to live. You then return as the third person, the fourth, the fifth, and so on – living the lives of every human...

In which Hank and John Green teach you a Crash Course on the modern revolution, and the upside of the progress that humanity has made in the last 500 years or so. And while there are two sides to every history, and many of these changes...

In which John Green, Hank Green, and Emily Graslie teach you about evolution. So, in the last 3.8 billion years, life on Earth has evolved from single-celled prokaryotes to the dizzying array of life we have today. So how did all this...

In which Hank and John Green teach you about life on Earth. They won't be giving advice on how life should be lived, because this is a history series. Instead, they'll teach you about the earliest forms of life on Earth, and some of the...

What is the blockchain? If you don't know, you should; if you do, chances are you still need some clarification on how it actually works. Don Tapscott is here to help, demystifying this world-changing, trust-building technology which, he...

In a talk and demo, Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear shares his vision for the future of interactive entertainment -- and explains how video game streaming is helping people build communities online. "I am excited for a world where our...

In which John Green, Hank Green, and Emily Graslie teach you about what happened in the Universe after the big bang. They'll teach you about cosmic background radiation, how a bunch of hydrogen and helium turned into stars, formed...

In which Hank and John Green teach you a Crash Course on the modern revolution, and the upside of the progress that humanity has made in the last 500 years or so. And while there are two sides to every history, and many of these changes...

In which John Green, Hank Green, and Emily Graslie teach you about our Sun, and the formation of the planets. We're going to focus on the formation and development of the Earth, because that's where people live. You'll learn about the...

Earlier this week, a team of researchers announced that they’d made a discovery about how we inherit mitochondrial DNA from our parents that could change what we know about not only disease inheritance, but human history as a whole.

In this moving yet pragmatic talk, Kevin Bales explains the business of modern slavery, a multibillion-dollar economy that underpins some of the worst industries on earth. He shares stats and personal stories from his on-the-ground...

In which Stan Muller subs for John Green and teaches you about energy and humanity. Today we discuss the ideas put forth by Alfred Crosby in his book, Children of the Sun. Historically, almost all of the energy that humans use has been...

Infectious diseases have had some pretty major impacts on human history… and that’s putting it mildly. Here are 6 diseases that shaped human history

The Internet has transformed the front lines of war, and it's leaving governments behind. As security analyst Rodrigo Bijou shows, modern conflict is being waged online between non-state groups, activists and private corporations, and...

Of all the problems facing humanity, which should we focus on solving first? In a compelling talk about how to make the world better, moral philosopher Will MacAskill provides a framework for answering this question based on the...