Fresh food free of chemicals and pesticides is hard to come by in China: in 2016, the Chinese government revealed half a million food safety violations in just nine months. In the absence of safe, sustainable food sources, TED Fellow...

Human cannibalism is a lot more common than you might think. Dive into its complex history and see its uses in medicine, cultural rituals and in times of survival. -- 15th century Europeans believed they had hit upon a miracle cure: a...

This week, we're continuing our discussion of Mark Twain's 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' This is part two of our talk about Huck Finn, and this time we're looking at the metaphors in the book, a little bit about what the...

Design gives form to the future, says architect Bjarke Ingels. In this worldwide tour of his team's projects, journey to a waste-to-energy power plant (that doubles as an alpine ski slope) and the LEGO Home of the Brick in Denmark -- and...

Invasive species can wreak havoc in their new habitats, and the survival of entire ecosystems can depend on getting rid of them. In some cases, we humans have gotten pretty creative in our attempts to eradicate the problem.

Hurricane Walaka wiped out a small Hawaiian island, which could be devastating for some endangered animals, and new research says that we might be wrong about the origins of giant tortoises.

Explaining strange Earth geology is often straightforward — combine a volcanic eruption a dash of erosion, and boom, you’ve got a striking cliff! But not all the features on this planet are so easy to figure out. From the ground randomly...

The myth of the Minotaur tells the story of an enraged beast forever wandering the corridors of a damp labyrinth, filled with a rage so intense that its deafening roar shakes the earth. But is this story just fiction, or an attempt of...

This week, John i s talking about one of his least favorite novels, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Lord of the Flies is a novel of ideas, and John doesn't agree with the central idea of the novel, which diminished his...

Not all non-native species are totally terrible! Here are six of them can actually do more good than harm.

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What's the awesomest place in the world? Scientists can think of at least 137, the newly released list of the most biologically important places on Earth. Hank explains how ecologists arrived at this list, and takes you on a tour of four...

After a massive storm tears through the Hex Archipelago, you find five grizzled survivors in the water. As an act of gratitude for saving them, they reveal a secret _ the island they were just on holds some buried treasure. But when the...

How did ancient civilizations move massive stones to build Stonehenge, the Pyramids and the Easter Island statues? In this quick, delightful talk, TED Fellow Brandon Clifford reveals some architectural secrets of the past and shows how...

This week, a group of scientists estimated the cost of saving just one small village in America’s Chesapeake Bay from rising sea levels, and another found evidence that Smilodon (aka the saber-toothed cat) actually helped take care of...

Explore William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”, a story of shipwreck, magic and a fight for power. -- Claps of thunder and flashes of lightning illuminate a swelling sea, as a ship buckles beneath the waves. It is no ordinary...

You're entering a world, where one of the most blood thirsty predators, is a giant tortoise

Science probably isn’t the first thing that pops into your head when you think about Alaska, but it has a lot to offer when it comes to learning about the world, from cold corals to our behavior.

Even though there are no volcanoes on the Olympic Peninsula, you can find lots of volcanic rocks on the beaches. This bizarre circumstance might have to do with how the ancient island transformed Washington state.

Jessi and Squeaks explore nature’s way of letting off a little steam.

When historians talk about the atrocities of the 20th century, we often think of those that took place during and between the two World Wars. But two months before the Rape of Nanking in China, and a year before Kristallnacht in Germany,...

Modern technology can make us forget how cruel the ocean once was to seafarers. Even with these new technologies, some parts of the sea are still just plain dangerous. Here are a few places on Earth where ships have met the briny depths.

Invasive species destroying ecosystems are a huge problem, but there’s hope that we can help mitigate the damage.

Plastic bags are essentially indestructible, yet they're used and thrown away with reckless abandon. Most end up in the ocean, where they pollute the water and harm marine life; the rest are burned in garbage piles, where they release...

Megatsunamis are not only much larger than your average tsunami, they also form under different conditions. Good news: they're extremely rare. Bad news: they might not be for long.