As if you needed any more proof that alcohol just makes weird stuff happen, Quick Questions explains why alcohol can make you /feel/ warm, when it's actually making your body colder. You'll never think of brandy the same way again!

If a doctor has told you to quit smoking, that's not just because they're worried about lung cancer. Those cigarettes are messing up your body's natural healing process in more ways than one.

You’re cruising down the highway when all of a sudden endless rows of brake lights appear ahead. There’s no accident, no stoplight, no change in speed limit, or narrowing of the road. So why is there so much traffic? It's due to a...

Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he's drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris...

Koalas are pretty darn cute, but...they aren’t the brightest bulb on the continent. They will only eat eucalyptus leaves off the branch. On a plate, a koala won’t recognize their one and only food. Yet, somehow, koalas are still alive....

From Siri to Alexa to Google, virtual assistants already permeate our lives. What will the next generation of these digital helpers look and sound like? Customer experience professional Karen Lellouche Tordjman gives us a glimpse of...

Tesla's Autopilot system is the most advanced available right now, but it has limitations, and some of those limitations might be us.

This week Craig talks about police searches and seizures. Now, the fourth amendment says that you have the right to be protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures" but what exactly does this mean? Well, it's complicated. The...

For the first time, we are forced to consider the real risk of destabilizing the entire planet, says climate impact scholar Johan Rockström. In a talk backed by vivid animations of the climate crisis, he shows how nine out of the 15 big...

Accepting the 2006 TED Prize, Dr. Larry Brilliant talks about how smallpox was eradicated from the planet, and calls for a new global system that can identify and contain pandemics before they spread.

Around 1917, an unknown illness dubbed "sleeping sickness" caused people to suffer severe sleepiness and delirium. Some even became paralyzed for decades until a temporary cure was discovered in the 1960s. The story of this illness is...

For years, catch-and-release anglers have been pouring soda on bleeding fish in an effort to help save their lives. But.. does this actually work?

In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to...

3 Ways to Prevent Hurricanes (Maybe)

For most of human history, we have sought to treat and cure diseases. But only in recent decades did it become possible to ensure that a particular disease never threatens humanity again. Julie Garon and Walter A. Orenstein detail how...

Since the 1800s, a handful of oligarchs had controlled nearly all of El Salvador's land, forcing laborers to work for almost nothing. But in 1980, farmers and urban workers formed guerrilla groups to overthrow the US-backed dictatorship....

What's stopping the American government from recording your phone calls, reading your emails and monitoring your location? Very little, says surveillance and cybersecurity counsel Jennifer Granick. The government collects all kinds of...

Traveling is extremely arduous for microscopic sperm -- think of a human trying to swim in a pool made ofother humans. We can compare the journey of a sperm to that of a sperm whale by calculating the Reynolds number, a prediction of how...

After weeks of exploring the existence of nature of god, today Hank explores one of the biggest problems in theism, and possibly the biggest philosophical question humanity faces: why is there evil?

Hank loves bananas and is worried about their future, so he did some investigating and wrote this episode of SciShow to share some kinda scary banana truths with us.

When General Stanley McChrystal started fighting al Qaeda in 2003, information and secrets were the lifeblood of his operations. But as the unconventional battle waged on, he began to think that the culture of keeping important...

Keith Kirkland is developing wearable tech that communicates information using only the sense of touch. He's trying to figure out: What gestures and vibration patterns could intuitively communicate ideas like "stop" or "go"? Check out...

It’s tough out there for small animals. Other animals are always trying to eat them, so they have to use tactics like blending in or being toxic to stay alive. These 5 animals, however, take self-preservation to a whole new...

Plastic bags are essentially indestructible, yet they're used and thrown away with reckless abandon. Most end up in the ocean, where they pollute the water and harm marine life; the rest are burned in garbage piles, where they release...