TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The incredible collaboration behind the International Space Station - Tien Nguyen
The International Space Station is roughly the size of a six-bedroom house and weighs more than 320 cars -- it's so large that no single rocket could have lifted it into orbit. Instead, it was assembled piece by piece while hurtling...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The genius of Marie Curie - Shohini Ghose
Marie Sk_odowska Curie's revolutionary research laid the groundwork for our understanding of physics and chemistry, blazing trails in oncology, technology, medicine, and nuclear physics, to name a few. But what did she actually do?...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to squeeze electricity out of crystals - Ashwini Bharathula
It might sound like science fiction, but if you press on a crystal of sugar, it will actually generate its own electricity. This simple crystal can act like a tiny power source because sugar happens to be piezoelectric. Ashwini...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Could the Earth be swallowed by a black hole? - Fabio Pacucci
From asteroids capable of destroying entire species to supernovae that could exterminate life on Earth, outer space has no shortage of forces that could wreak havoc on our planet. But there's something in space that is even more...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How aspirin was discovered - Krishna Sudhir
4000 years ago, the ancient Sumerians made a surprising discovery: if they scraped the bark off a particular kind of tree and ate it, their pain disappeared. Little did they know that what they'd found was destined to influence the...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Animation basics: The art of timing and spacing - TED-Ed
Expert timing and spacing is what separates a slide show from a truly amazing animation. TED-Ed demonstrates, by manipulating various bouncing balls, how the smallest adjustments from frame to frame can make all the difference.
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The real story behind Archimedes' Eureka! - Armand D'Angour
When you think of Archimedes' Eureka moment, you probably imagine a man in a bathtub, right? As it turns out, there's much more to the story. Armand D'Angour tells the story of Archimedes' biggest assignment -- an enormous floating...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Rosalind Franklin: DNA's unsung hero - Claudio L. Guerra
The discovery of the structure of DNA was one of the most important scientific achievements in human history. The now-famous double helix is almost synonymous with Watson and Crick, two of the scientists who won the Nobel prize for...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Meet the tardigrade, the toughest animal on Earth - Thomas Boothby
Without water, a human can only survive for about 100 hours. But there's a creature so resilient that it can go without it for decades. This 1-millimeter animal can survive both the hottest and coldest environments on earth, and can even...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why do airlines sell too many tickets? - Nina Klietsch
Have you ever sat in a doctor's office for hours, despite having an appointment? Has a hotel turned down your reservation because it's full? Have you been bumped off a flight that you paid for? These are all symptoms of overbooking, a...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How does your smartphone know your location? - Wilton L. Virgo
GPS location apps on a smartphone can be very handy when mapping a travel route or finding nearby events. But how does your smartphone know where you are? Wilton L. Virgo explains how the answer lies 12,000 miles over your head, in an...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Could we create dark matter? - Rolf Landua
Eighty-five percent of the matter in our universe is dark matter. We don't know what dark matter is made of, and we've yet to directly observe it, but scientists theorize that we may actually be able to create it in the Large Hadron...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What is the World Wide Web? - Twila Camp
The World Wide Web is used every day by millions of people for everything from checking the weather to sharing cat videos. But what is it exactly? Twila Camp describes this interconnected information system as a virtual city that...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why is cotton in everything? - Michael R. Stiff
Centuries ago, the Inca developed ingenuous suits of armor that could protect warriors from even the fiercest physical attacks. These hardy structures were made not from iron or steel, but rather something unexpectedly soft: cotton....
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Could a blind eye regenerate? - David Davila
We tend to think of blindness as something you're born with, but with certain genetic diseases, it can actually develop when you're a kid, or even when you're an adult. But could blind eyes possibly regenerate? David Davila explains how...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Is math discovered or invented? - Jeff Dekofsky
Would mathematics exist if people didn't? Did we create mathematical concepts to help us understand the world around us, or is math the native language of the universe itself? Jeff Dekofsky traces some famous arguments in this ancient...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Are you a body with a mind or a mind with a body? - Maryam Alimardani
Our bodies _ the physical, biological parts of us - and our minds - the thinking, conscious aspects - have a complicated, tangled relationship. Which one primarily defines you or your self? Are you a body with a mind or a mind with a...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The journey to Pluto, the farthest world ever explored - Alan Stern
As of 1989, mankind had successfully sent craft to every known planet in the solar system except one: Pluto. Located in an mysterious region called the Kuiper Belt, Pluto is a scientific goldmine, and could hold clues to the formation of...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do nuclear power plants work? - M. V. Ramana and Sajan Saini
Our ability to mine great amounts of energy from uranium nuclei has led some to bill nuclear power as a plentiful, utopian source of electricity. But rather than dominate the global electricity market, nuclear power has declined from a...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The history of the barometer (and how it works) - Asaf Bar-Yosef
A barometer is an instrument that measures air pressure, allowing weather forecasters and scientists to better predict extreme weather events. Despite its incredible usefulness, inventing the barometer was no walk in the park. Asaf...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The mathematics of sidewalk illusions - Fumiko Futamura
Have you ever come across an oddly stretched image on the sidewalk, only to find that it looks remarkably realistic if you stand in exactly the right spot? These sidewalk illusions employ a technique called anamorphosis - a special case...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: When is water safe to drink? - Mia Nacamulli
Water is refreshing, hydrating, and invaluable to your survival. But clean water remains a precious and often scarce commodity - there are nearly 800 million people who still don't have regular access to it. Why is that? And how can you...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to make a baby (in a lab) - Nassim Assefi and Brian A. Levine
Infertility affects 1 in 8 couples worldwide. But in the last 40 years, more than 5 million babies have been born using in vitro fertilization (IVF). How does it work? Nassim Assefi and Brian A. Levine detail the science behind making a...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The race to sequence the human genome - Tien Nguyen
In 1990, The Human Genome Project proposed to sequence the entire human genome over 15 years with $3 billion of public funds. Then, seven years before its scheduled completion, a private company called Celera announced that they could...