Because eclipses are powerful and frightening events, ancient cultures went to great lengths to understand eclipses, leading to remarkably accurate predictions and helping invent the science of astronomy.

When it comes to sex things can be complicated, but for the three species we are looking at today, sex is really hard.

If the 10 kilometer wide asteroid that hit the Earth 66 million years ago hit just a few minutes later, would the outcome of the living creatures here have been different?

You would think that almost everyone has the same exact number of bones in their body, but that number is different, and changing, in everyone!

Modern life runs on wireless technology. What if the energy powering our devices could also be transmitted without wires? Electrical engineer Ali Hajimiri explains the principles behind wireless energy transfer and shares his far-out...

It's late, pitch dark and a self-driving car winds down a narrow country road. Suddenly, three hazards appear at the same time. With no human at the wheel, the car uses smart eyes, sensors that'll resolve these details all in a...

Chris Anderson, then the editor of Wired, explores the four key stages of any viable technology: setting the right price, gaining market share, displacing an established technology and, finally, becoming ubiquitous.

Pulsars are more than just cool blinking lights shining across the universe. The discovery of the first binary pulsar paved the way for gravitational wave astronomy astronomy today.

We’ve detected seismic activity all around the solar system, from earthquakes to moonquakes, marsquakes to venusquakes. But the most dramatic quakes we know of actually happen on stars!

Nearly all life on Earth is ultimately powered by light. But many creatures have learned how to make their own. This week we investigate the beautiful phenomenon of bioluminescence. From blinking fireflies on summer nights to glowing...

Hank gives us the skinny on three plans NASA scientists have come up with to save Earth from an asteroid impact. Hopefully we'll never have to use any of them.

You’re a bank robber trying to escape from jail. Can you solve the riddle to get past the fence to freedom? -- Your timing made you and your partner infamous bank robbers. Now, you need to use that timing to break out of jail. Your...

The first time scientists found exoplanets, they were orbiting something very different from our sun: a pulsar.<br/>

Most of the time, it’s not great when an expensive spacecraft slams into an extraterrestrial body. But now and then mission control intentionally crashes a spacecraft for science!

You would think that almost everyone has the same exact number of bones in their body, but that number is different, and changing, in everyone!

During the age of dinosaurs, a massive asteroid slammed into the Earth, bringing an end to most life at the time. And thanks to new fossil evidence, we've been able to pinpoint a time of year for this event that happened millions of...

On December 1, 2020, Arecibo's long-story came crashing down to an end. While it's sad to see this monumental observatory go, it's worth looking back over the many discoveries it's made over the last 60 years.

Paul Andersen explains how organisms regulate timing and control. Phototropism and Photoperiodism allow plants to respond to light throughout the day and year. Circadian rhythms are used in all organisms (including animals) as an...

After more than two decades buzzing around above our heads, the life of the ISS will soon be coming to a close. But what does that actually look like? And what does it mean for the future of space experimentation?

With rapidly rising global temperatures come seasonal changes. As spring comes earlier for some plant species, there are ripple effects throughout the food web. Regina Brinker explains how phenology, or the natural cycles of plants and...

Bill Gross has founded a lot of startups, and incubated many others -- and he got curious about why some succeeded and others failed. So he gathered data from hundreds of companies, his own and other people's, and ranked each company on...

Every once in a while, traits thought to be lost forever suddenly reappear, like a dolphin or a whale born with complete hind limbs! Known as atavisms, these occurrences can teach us all sorts of things, like how limbs actually grow.

Expert timing and spacing is what separates a slide show from a truly amazing animation. TED-Ed demonstrates, by manipulating various bouncing balls, how the smallest adjustments from frame to frame can make all the difference.

Paul Andersen reviews the major components of the homeostasis. He explains how organisms respond to abiotic and biotic factors in their environment with feedback loops. He shows how responses can be behavioral or physiological.