TED Talks
David Merrill: Toy tiles that talk to each other
MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on...
TED Talks
Nick Sears: Demo: The Orb
Inventor Nick Sears demos the first generation of the Orb, a rotating persistence-of-vision display that creates glowing 3D images. A short, cool tale of invention.
TED Talks
TED: The case for curiosity-driven research | Suzie Sheehy
Seemingly pointless scientific research can lead to extraordinary discoveries, says physicist Suzie Sheehy. In a talk and tech demo, she shows how many of our modern technologies are tied to centuries-old, curiosity-driven experiments --...
TED Talks
Alexander MacDonald: How centuries of sci-fi sparked spaceflight
Long before we had rocket scientists, the idea of spaceflight traveled from mind to mind across generations. With great visuals, TED Fellow and NASA economist Alexander MacDonald shows how 300 years of sci-fi tales -- from Edgar Allan...
TED Talks
TED: Forget shopping. Soon you'll download your new clothes | Danit Peleg
Downloadable, printable clothing may be coming to a closet near you. What started as designer Danit Peleg's fashion school project turned into a collection of 3D-printed designs that have the strength and flexibility for everyday wear....
TED Talks
Zach Kaplan + Keith Schacht: Toys and materials from the future
The Inventables guys, Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht, demo some amazing new materials and how we might use them. Look for squishy magnets, odor-detecting ink, "dry" liquid and a very surprising 10-foot pole.
TED-Ed
The world's biggest battery looks nothing like a battery | TED-Ed
As of 2020, the world's biggest lithium-ion battery is hooked up to the Southern California power grid and can provide enough power for about 250,000 homes. But it's actually not the biggest battery in the world: a pair of lakes are. How...
TED Talks
Ellen Jorgensen: Biohacking -- you can do it, too
We have personal computing -- why not personal biotech? That's the question biologist Ellen Jorgensen and her colleagues asked themselves before opening Genspace, a nonprofit DIY bio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science, where...
TED Talks
Juan Enriquez: The age of genetic wonder
Gene-editing tools like CRISPR enable us to program life at its most fundamental level. But this raises some pressing questions: If we can generate new species from scratch, what should we build? Should we redesign humanity as we know...
TED Talks
Charles Leadbeater: The era of open innovation
In this deceptively casual talk, Charles Leadbeater weaves a tight argument that innovation isn't just for professionals anymore. Passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can't.
SciShow
The Tallest, Smallest, and Oldest Science of 2019
Scientific discovery often dabbles in the extreme, challenging and exceeding what we think of as "possible." And this year's discoveries were no different! We present to you three scientific discoveries made this year that set out to...
SciShow
SciShow Quiz Show with Phil Plait
Hank squares off against Crash Course Astronomy host Phil Plait in our special Valentine’s/Old Timey Medicine edition of SciShow Quiz Show!
TED Talks
TED: Fake videos of real people -- and how to spot them | Supasorn Suwajanakorn
Do you think you're good at spotting fake videos, where famous people say things they've never said in real life? See how they're made in this astonishing talk and tech demo. Computer scientist Supasorn Suwajanakorn shows how, as a grad...
TED Talks
Edward Tenner: Unintended consequences
Every new invention changes the world -- in ways both intentional and unexpected. Historian Edward Tenner tells stories that illustrate the under-appreciated gap between our ability to innovate and our ability to foresee the consequences.
TED Talks
TED: A young inventor's plan to recycle Styrofoam | Ashton Cofer
From packing peanuts to disposable coffee cups, each year the uS alone produces some two billion pounds of Styrofoam -- none of which can be recycled. Frustrated by this waste of resources and landfill space, Ashton Cofer and his science...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Silvia Moreno-García: Titan of terror: the dark imagination of H.P. Lovecraft
Arcane books of forbidden lore, disturbing secrets in the family bloodline, and terrors so unspeakable the very thought of them might drive you mad. These have become standard elements in modern horror stories. But they were largely...
TED Talks
David Holt: The joyful tradition of mountain music
Folk musician and storyteller David Holt plays the banjo and shares photographs and old wisdom from the Appalachian Mountains. He also demonstrates some unusual instruments like the mouth bow -- and a surprising electric drum kit he...
TED Talks
TED: How AI can save our humanity | Kai-Fu Lee
AI is massively transforming our world, but there's one thing it cannot do: love. In a visionary talk, computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee details how the US and China are driving a deep learning revolution -- and shares a blueprint for how...
TED Talks
TED: Forget Wi-Fi. Meet the new Li-Fi Internet | Harald Haas
What if we could use existing technologies to provide Internet access to the more than 4 billion people living in places where the infrastructure can't support it? using off-the-shelf LeDs and solar cells, Harald Haas and his team have...
TED Talks
TED: The incredible inventions of intuitive AI | Maurice Conti
What do you get when you give a design tool a digital nervous system? Computers that improve our ability to think and imagine, and robotic systems that come up with (and build) radical new designs for bridges, cars, drones and much more...
SciShow
Why Bladeless Fans Are a Lie
Bladeless fans can look like magic. How does all that air come out of that empty ring?! Well, it turns out that bladeless fans are more like a conventional fan than you might think, but that doesn't mean there isn't some really cool...
TED Talks
Juan Enriquez: The life code that will reshape the future
Scientific discoveries, futurist Juan Enriquez notes, demand a shift in code, and our ability to thrive depends on our mastery of that code. Here, he applies this notion to the field of genomics.
SciShow
From Lifesaver Sparks to Life-saving Tech: The Science of Triboluminescence
You might know that if you chomp on a Wint-O-Green Lifesaver in a dark room, you can see little blue flashes of light in your mouth. What you might not know is that this is an example of triboluminescence: a fascinating, somewhat...
Crash Course
Mechanical Engineering: Crash Course Engineering #3
Today we continue our tour through the major fields of engineering with a look at mechanical engineering, beginning with the steam engine. We’ll discuss aircraft, the development of aerospace engineering, and take a look into the future...