TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why elephants never forget - Alex Gendler
It's a common saying that elephants never forget. But the more we learn about elephants, the more it appears that their impressive memory is only one aspect of an incredible intelligence that makes them some of the most social, creative,...
Be Smart
Why Are We The Only Humans Left?
In part 2 of our special series on human ancestry, we ask why we are the only surviving branch on the human evolutionary tree. Just 50,000-100,000 years ago, Earth was home to three or four separate human species, including our most...
TED Talks
Annie Murphy Paul: What we learn before we're born
Pop quiz: When does learning begin? Answer: Before we are born. Science writer Annie Murphy Paul talks through new research that shows how much we learn in the womb -- from the lilt of our native language to our soon-to-be-favorite foods.
TED Talks
TED: Work is not your family | Gloria Chan Packer
You may need to hear this (if you haven't already): your job is not your family. While you can develop meaningful relationships with your colleagues, calling work your family can actually breed burnout and be detrimental to your mental...
Crash Course
Was Gatsby Great? The Great Gatsby Part 2: Crash Course English Literature
In which John Green continues to explore F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. In this installment, John looks into the titular Gatsby's purported Greatness. Gatsby's single-minded pursuit of Daisy, his checkered past, and his...
Be Smart
Why Are Some People Left-Handed?
We've got two perfectly good hands attached to two perfectly good arms, so why do most people prefer to use one over the other for common tasks?
TED Talks
Smash fear, learn anything - Tim Ferriss
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. From the EG conference: Productivity guru Tim Ferriss' fun, encouraging anecdotes show how one simple question --...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How computers translate human language - Ioannis Papachimonas
Is a universal translator possible in real life? We already have many programs that claim to be able to take a word, sentence, or entire book in one language and translate it into almost any other. The reality, however, is a bit more...
TED Talks
TED: A universal translator for surgeons | Steven Schwaitzberg
Laparoscopic surgery uses minimally invasive incisions -- which means less pain and shorter recovery times for patients. But Steven Schwaitzberg has run into two problems teaching these techniques to surgeons around the world: language...
SciShow
Why Do We Have Such Long Childhoods?
Compared to most animals in the vast kingdom, humans have one of the longest childhoods. And you might think this is so we have time to develop our advanced thinking skills, but scientists think it might not be that simple.
TED Talks
Saki Mafundikwa: Ingenuity and elegance in ancient African alphabets
From simple alphabets to secret symbolic languages, graphic designer Saki Mafundikwa celebrates the many forms of written communication across the continent of Africa. He highlights the history and legacy that are embodied in written...
SciShow
Why Is It So Hard to Make a Realistic Twitter Bot?
What are the methods twitter bots use to fool us, and what are some of the challenges in doing so?
TED Talks
TED: TED's secret to great public speaking | Chris Anderson
There's no single formula for a great talk, but there is a secret ingredient that all the best ones have in common. TED curator Chris Anderson shares this secret -- along with four ways to make it work for you. Do you have what it takes...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages? - John McWhorter
What do Game of Thrones' Dothraki, Avatar's Na'vi, Star Trek's Klingon and LOTR's Elvish have in common? They are all fantasy constructed languages, or conlangs. Conlangs have all the delicious complexities of real languages: a high...
Crash Course
Make an AI Sound Like a YouTuber (LAB)
Let’s try to help John Green Bot sound a bit more like the real John Green using Natural Language Processing. Today, we're going to code a program that takes a one word prompt and then completes the sentence that sounds like something...
TED Talks
Deb Roy: The birth of a word
MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch...
SciShow
Arctic Bison Mummy!
SciShow News explains how Wikipedia has been used to track, and even predict, outbreaks of disease all over the world, and then introduces you to the most complete naturally mummified bison ever found.
TED Talks
Bonnie Bassler: How bacteria "talk"
Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria "talk" to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry -- and our understanding of ourselves.
SciShow
What Whistled Speech Tells Us About How the Brain Interprets Language
You can find groups of people from all over the world who communicate full conversation by whistling. And neuroscientists found how our brain works with whistled language is mind-blowing.
TED Talks
Who counts as a speaker of a language? | Anna Babel
Backed by research and personal anecdotes, Spanish professor Anna Babel reveals the intricate relationship between language and culture, showing how social categories and underlying biases influence the way we hear, regard and,...
MinuteEarth
Why You Shouldn't Give Ginger To Monkeys (and other animal sayings)
Humans from different cultures anthropomorphize different animals to represent the same human traits. ___________________________________________ To learn more, start your googling with these keywords: Sunshower: A meteorological...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: To Make Use of Water by Safia Elhillo
An animated interpretation of Safia Elhillo's poem "To Make Use of Water"
TED Talks
Susan Savage-Rumbaugh: The gentle genius of bonobos
Savage-Rumbaugh's work with bonobo apes, which can understand spoken language and learn tasks by watching, forces the audience to rethink how much of what a species can do is determined by biology -- and how much by cultural exposure.
TED Talks
Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money?
What can economists learn from linguists? Behavioral economist Keith Chen introduces a fascinating pattern from his research: that languages without a concept for the future -- "It rain tomorrow," instead of "It will rain tomorrow" --...