Hank talks about space shuttle Discovery's retirement, a private space "taxi cab" service, a breakthrough with man-made DNA, and the similarities between religion and pornography in your brain.

Worms cause major changes to ecosystems, but those changes aren’t always new.ommunication.

Nearly 200 species of songbirds migrate south for winter, some traveling up to 7,000 miles. No easy task, the annual journey is dangerous to birds due to landscape change -- so much so, that only half the birds that migrate south will...

We might be closer to figuring out how our solar system was born and NASA has two finalists for its next New Frontiers mission.

What if, this holiday season, instead of saying "thank you" to your aunt for her gift of a knitted sweater, the polite response expected from you was to show up at her house in a week with a better gift? Or to vote for her in the town...

Honeybees are some of nature's finest mathematicians. Not only can they calculate angles and comprehend the roundness of the earth, these smart insects build and live in one of the most mathematically efficient architectural designs...

Black Holes are known for consuming everything that falls into them, but is there a point where these galactic devourers can't stomach anymore?

Do you ever order clothes online in different sizes and colors, just to try them on and then send back what doesn't work? Aparna Mehta used to do this all time, until she one day asked herself: Where do all these returned clothes go? In...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how a sine or cosine wave can describe the position of the wave based on wavelength or wave period. A wave function can the position of a wave as a function or the amplitude and wavelength or the...

Mining unobtainium is hard work _ the rare mineral appears in only 1% of rocks in the mine. But your friend Tricky Joe has something up his sleeve. The unobtainium detector he's been perfecting for months is finally ready, and it returns...

One day, Persephone was frolicking in a meadow with the nymph, Cyane. As they admired a flower, they noticed it tremble in the ground. Suddenly, the earth split, and a terrifying figure arose. It was Hades, god of the underworld. He...

People have been migrating and transplanting since before recorded history, and understanding the reasons why people migrate can help explain some of the cultural, economic, and political patterns we see around the world. Today, we’re...

This week, we're continuing our discussion of heroes by talking about Gilgamesh, star of one of the earliest written hero stories, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was a terrible ancient king who left his kingdom seeking adventure, and...

Paul Andersen explains how physical systems remain stable and unstable over time. The sum total of interactions acting on the system determine its stability. Feedback loops are used to maintain stability but require energy. If the...

African artifacts shown in museums worldwide are often not borrowed, but stolen -- and TED Fellow Jim Chuchu is on a mission to get them back. Learn the sordid history behind how many of the collections in the West came to be, Chuchu's...

Get to know Pablo Neruda, one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. -- A romantic and a revolutionary, Pablo Neruda was one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century, but...

This week, we're starting our discussion of Mythical Creatures with the WORST creatures. Monsters. What makes a monster monstrous though? Mike Rugnetta will guide you through the fine line between a magical creature and a monster....

In this video Paul Andersen explains how matter moves from the environment into living organisms and back into the environment. Food webs are used to show how matter and energy move through organisms. Ecological pyramids show that...

Let's get Heroic with Mike Rugnetta. This week on Crash Course World Mythology, we're talking about the Hero's Journey and the Monomyth, as described by Joseph Campbell. Campbell's theories about the shared qualities of human story...

It's perfectly human to grapple with questions, like 'Where do we come from?' and 'How do I live a life of meaning?' These existential questions are central to the five major world religions -- and that's not all that connects these...

New ReviewThe shortage of water is a big problem in parts of Africa. Women – usually the person who gathers the water – can spend up to 10-hours a day walking to a from a water tap to gather water in a bucket because the water in the nearby water...

This video explains how lower interest rates primarily benefit wealthy individuals by increasing asset prices, allowing them to earn higher returns on investments. For less wealthy households without significant assets, the impact is...

In this video Dr Charlotte Young discusses the origins and causes of the English Civil War.

In this science project, you will collect macroinvertebrate samples from multiple points along a body of water, ideally a small creek or stream, and test the pollution burden and biodiversity of small organisms or insects to see if...