It may sound like the stuff of sci-fi movies, but diverting food waste from the landfill and converting it into electricity has become a real thing. William Brangham visited Ben & Jerry’s Vermont ice cream factory and the operations next...

How do you know if that shocking photo in your feed is real, or just another AI fake? Digital forensics expert Hany Farid explains how he helps journalists, courts and governments find structural errors in AI-generated images, offering...

The rise of the Himalayas affected more than just the immediate area. Turns out, we may have them to thank for everything from the rise of giant flightless birds in Madagascar; to the disappearance of plants from Antarctica; to the...

One fun fact about elephants is that they're a lot less likely to get cancer than other animals (including us). Another fun fact is that unlike most warm-blooded animals, their testes are deep inside their bodies. It turns out, these...

You’ve probably heard of mRNA, thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine. But what is mRNA exactly? In this episode of Crash Course Biology, we learn about the role of messenger RNA in living things and how it decodes our DNA instruction manual...

Feeling stuck on the big issues? Neuroscientist Kris De Meyer has a surprising fix. Instead of waiting for information to get you motivated, he shows how taking small actions in your personal life can rewire your brain to get unstuck....

Industrial manufacturers spend a huge amount of energy generating heat to make everyday materials and objects, like cement, steel, and paper. And since most companies use fossil fuels to reach these high temperatures, industrial heat...

Mount Teide is one of the world’s largest active volcanoes, and there may be a way to use the basalt rock inside it to save humanity. Obviously, destroying an ancient volcano would cause catastrophic and unpredictable ecological fallout....

The Grand Canyon is super-wide and super-deep, which might make you think that the Colorado River, which carved it, is particularly old or powerful. Or at least that's what I thought.

There are huge varieties of birth control methods because there are lots of different ways to disrupt the process of sperm-egg fertilization.

Many crustaceans from all sorts of starting points evolve to end up looking similar, likely due to outside pressures. That’s sort of like what happens with YouTube videos.

We've long known that animal pollination is an important way plants reproduce on land, but we're only just finding out animals also pollinate plants underwater.

Lily Yeh calls herself a barefoot artist: she travels the world with a suitcase full of art supplies, working with whoever wants to join her. In an inspiring talk, she shares the fruits of her collaborative art projects that bring color,...

New possibilities for storytelling are emerging faster than at any other time in history, says film producer Mark Grimmer. With an immersive approach to art exhibitions, he shares several multidisciplinary projects — including a...

In 1997, a fire began in Indonesia that would rage for almost a year. Despite being one of the largest fires in recorded history, for months at a time it burned without a flame. This might sound like a uniquely freaky fire, but it’s...

Dana R. Fisher calls herself an "apocalyptic optimist" based on her research as a sociologist of large social movements. Her studies suggest that ever-increasing climate disasters will get people out in the streets demanding the action...

In a world dominated by digital technology, a growing number of people are embracing a decidedly analog device: the typewriter. John Yang reports.

The Story of Frozen Food

The improper handling of waste is the third largest source of methane emissions in the world, says Aline Sousa, but waste pickers like her help reduce this environmental impact. She dives into the monumental effort of the...

Stars have cores hot and dense enough to force atomic nuclei together, forming larger, heavier nuclei in a process known as fusion. In this process, the mass of the end products is slightly less than the mass of the initial atoms. But...

Ice cream has a unique role in our world’s history, culture, and cravings. The first accounts of cold desserts date back to the first century, in civilizations including ancient Rome, Mughal India, and Tang Dynasty China. Yet the...

Prosopometamorphopsia is an extremely rare disorder of facial processing that makes other people's faces look demonic or seem to melt. But in the process of treating these people, we can also learn how our brain understands what a face...

At a time of intense polarization across the country and bitter partisan battles in Washington, some of the nation’s governors are attempting to find a way forward to solve their own states’ problems. Judy Woodruff sat down with two...

Israel and Palestine have grappled with enduring territorial disputes and complex geopolitical tensions across generations. In this profound TED Membership conversation, Palestinian peace activist Ali Abu Awwad and Israeli founder of...