Every environment on the planet -- from forested mountaintops to scorching deserts and even the human gut -- has a microbiome that keeps it healthy and balanced. Ecologist Steven Allison explores how these extraordinarily adaptable,...

Have you had your daily dose of fun? It's not just enjoyable, it's also essential for your health and happiness, says science journalist Catherine Price. She proposes a new definition of fun -- what she calls "true fun" -- and shares...

Artist Sarah Sze takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey through her work: immersive installations as tall as buildings, splashed across walls, orbiting through galleries -- blurring the lines between time, memory and space. Explore how we...

Movies have the power to create a shared narrative experience and to shape memories and worldviews. British film director Beeban Kidron invokes iconic film scenes -- from Miracle in Milan to Boyz n the Hood -- as she shows how her group...

Observing the effects of microbes using satellites can give us all sorts of useful information about life on Earth ... and other planets too.

Although only boys were allowed at the Confucius Academy, what Zhu Yingtai wanted was to go to school. She begged her parents to let her attend dressed as a boy and, seeing her determination and clever disguises, they finally agreed— as...

A lot of the adaptability of children's brains diminishes as they age. But researchers are looking for ways they might be able to restore some of that flexibility later in life.

Tennis legend Billie Jean King isn't just a pioneer of women's tennis -- she's a pioneer for women getting paid. In this freewheeling conversation, she talks about identity, the role of sports in social justice and the famous Battle of...

We face an endless string of choices, which leads us to feel anxiety, guilt and pangs of inadequacy that we are perhaps making the wrong ones. But philosopher Renata Salecl asks: Could individual choices be distracting us from something...

The Apollo program was famous for being risky and expensive. It had a crunched timeline, daring astronauts, and lacked modern tech, and that all kind of makes you wonder… was the Apollo program a bad idea?

Jacqueline Novogratz shares stories of how "patient capital" can bring sustainable jobs, goods, services -- and dignity -- to the world's poorest.

When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and suicidal following a severe concussion, she had a fascinating idea for how to get better. She dove into the scientific research and created the healing game, SuperBetter. In...

"Life comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do is take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it." In this funny, enlightening talk, educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance --...

We hear anywhere from 10 to 200 lies a day. And although we've spent much of our history coming up with ways to detect these lies by tracking physiological changes in their tellers, these methods have proved unreliable. Is there a more...

The cotton-top tamarin is a very vocal monkey -- the species communicates using a sophisticated language of 38 distinct and grammatically structured calls! Anne Savage teaches a few of these chirps and whistles, taking us through a day...

Asteroseismology allows scientists to explore stars with sound. It can help them figure out what a star is burning and even help pin down the age of stars!

The price of insulin in the US is both outrageous and deadly to those who can't live without it. Diabetes advocate Brooke Bennett shares her own struggles living with type 1 diabetes and how the astronomical cost of a life-saving drug...

Since the 1960s, around 80% of bottom-dwelling species have disappeared from the deep waters of the North Atlantic, potentially all victims of a wrong-way migration phenomenon.

In this edition of Weird Places, we visit Australia's Lake Hillier, which is a shockingly flamboyant shade of pink. Hank's here to tell you science's best guess as to why.

Stars are our stellar alchemists. They spend their entire lifespan creating and molding elements. In their final moments, a supernova spreads these elements out into the universe, providing the building blocks for new stars, planets, and...

In the past couple years, you may have found yourself wishing that all the viruses in the world just disappear. But be careful what you wish for...

Fluorescent molecules are useful for a lot more than just making you look cool at your local rave. Fluorescence turns out to be a kind of chemical superpower that lets us tackle all kinds of problems, from solving crimes to saving lives!

This week, scientists turned to an unlikely source to try to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance, and got a peek at the lifestyle of some of the very first mammals... by studying their teeth.

Esha Alwani began writing songs when she was six years old, shortly after being diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. And she noticed something amazing: whenever she played music, her involuntary tics suddenly went away. Listen along as...