TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why do people fear the wrong things? - Gerd Gigerenzer
A new drug reduces the risk of heart attacks by 40%. Shark attacks are up by a factor of two. Drinking a liter of soda per day doubles your chance of developing cancer. These are all examples of a common way risk is presented in news...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How optical illusions trick your brain - Nathan S. Jacobs
Optical illusions are images that seem to trick our minds into seeing something different from what they actually are. But how do they work? Nathan S. Jacobs walks us through a few common optical illusions and explains what these tricks...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is color? - Colm Kelleher
Have you ever wondered what color is? In this first installment of a series on light, Colm Kelleher describes the physics behind colors-- why the colors we see are related to the period of motion and the frequency of waves.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Questions no one knows the answers to - Chris Anderson
In the first of a new TED-Ed series designed to catalyze curiosity, TED Curator Chris Anderson shares his boyhood obsession with quirky questions that seem to have no answers.
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Ideasthesia: How do ideas feel? - Danko Nikoli_
The traditional model of our mental function is that first our senses provide data to our brain, which then translates those senses into the appropriate mental phenomena: light into visual images, air vibrations into auditory...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why do we feel nostalgia? - Clay Routledge
Nostalgia was once considered an illness confined to specific groups of people. Today, people all over the world report experiencing and enjoying nostalgia. But how does nostalgia work? And is it healthy? Clay Routledge details the way...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The language of lying - Noah Zandan
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...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The great brain debate - Ted Altschuler
Throughout history, scientists have proposed conflicting ideas on how the brain carries out functions like perception, memory, and movement. Is each of these tasks carried out by a specific area of the brain? Or do multiple areas work...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do dogs "see" with their noses? - Alexandra Horowitz
You may have heard the expression that dogs 'see with their noses.' But these creature's amazing nasal architecture actually reveals a whole world beyond what we can see. Alexandra Horowitz illustrates how the dog's nose can smell the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is imposter syndrome and how can you combat it? - Elizabeth Cox
Even after writing eleven books and winning several awards, Maya Angelou couldn't escape the doubt that she hadn't earned her accomplishments. This feeling of fraudulence is extremely common. Why can't so many of us shake feelings that...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The "End Of History" Illusion - Bence Nanay
Time and time again, we've failed to predict that the technologies of the present will change the future. Recently, a similar pattern was discovered in our individual lives: we're unable to predict change in ourselves. But is there...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The Turing test: Can a computer pass for a human? - Alex Gendler
What is consciousness? Can an artificial machine really think? For many, these have been vital considerations for the future of artificial intelligence. But British computer scientist Alan Turing decided to disregard all these questions...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is deja vu? What is deja vu? - Michael Molina
You might have felt it -- the feeling that you've experienced something before, but, in reality, the experience is brand new. There are over 40 theories that attempt to explain the phenomenon of deja vu. Michael Molina explains how...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why do we dream? - Amy Adkins
In the 3rd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. In the years since, we haven't paused in our quest to understand why we dream. And while we still don't have any definitive answers, we...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Earworms: Those songs that get stuck in your head - Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis
Have you ever been waiting in line at the grocery store, innocently perusing the magazine rack, when a song pops into your head? Not the whole song, but a fragment of it that plays and replays until you find yourself unloading the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The benefits of a good night's sleep - Shai Marcu
It's 4am, and the big test is in 8 hours. You've been studying for days, but you still don't feel ready. Should you drink another cup of coffee and spend the next few hours cramming? Or should you go to sleep? Shai Marcu defends the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How stress affects your body - Sharon Horesh Bergquist
Our hard-wired stress response is designed to give us the quick burst of heightened alertness and energy needed to perform our best. But stress isn't all good. When activated too long or too often, stress can damage virtually every part...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: An exercise in time perception - Matt Danzico
Why is that some experiences feel like they last forever, while others fly by? We tend to miscalculate the time it takes to engage in novel activities due to the influence of memories. Matt Danzico explains why your childhood feels like...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The terrors of sleep paralysis - Ami Angelowicz
Imagine you're fast asleep and then suddenly awake. You want to move but can't, as if someone is sitting on your chest. And you can't even scream! This is sleep paralysis, a creepy but common phenomenon caused by an overlap in REM sleep...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Diagnosing a zombie: Brain and body - Tim Verstynen & Bradley Voytek
Zombies eat brains. They are also, like all of us, driven by brain functions. What is happening in their brains to make them act as they do? In this intriguing dialogue, Tim Verstynen & Bradley Voytek apply the various human medical...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How plants tell time - Dasha Savage
Morning glories unfurl their petals like clockwork in the early morning. A closing white waterlily signals that it's late afternoon. And moon flowers, as their name suggests, only bloom under the night sky. What gives plants this innate...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How memories form and how we lose them - Catharine Young
Think back to a really vivid memory. Got it? Now try to remember what you had for lunch three weeks ago. That second memory probably isn't as strong-but why not? Why do we remember some things, and not others? And why do memories...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How does anesthesia work? - Steven Zheng
When under anesthesia, you can't move, form memories, or -- hopefully -- feel pain. And while it might just seem like you are asleep for that time, you actually aren't. What's going on? Steven Zheng explains what we know about the...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why is being scared so fun? - Margee Kerr
At this very moment, people are lining up somewhere to scare themselves, be it with a thrill-ride or a horror movie. In fact, in October of 2015 alone, about 28 million people visited a haunted house in the US. But you might wonder: What...