Baldur was the gentlest and most beloved being in all of Asgard. But lately, he had been plagued by gruesome visions foretelling his own imminent death. Determined to protect her son from these grim prophecies, Queen Frigg travelled...

Baritone thunder. Snarling winds. Consuming downpours. Okeechobee, the hurricane of 1928, forced many to flee their ruined communities. But for Janie Crawford, it inspired an unexpected homecoming. So begins Zora Neale Hurston's...

Everyone should participate in decision-making and politics -- and it starts at home, says activist Hajer Sharief. She introduces a simple yet transformative idea: that parents can teach their children about political agency by giving...

Poet C.K. Williams reads his work at TED2001. As he colors scenes of childhood resentments, college loves, odd neighbors and the literal death of youth, he reminds us of the unique challenges of living.

What is jealousy? What drives it, and why do we secretly love it? No study has ever been able to capture its "loneliness, longevity, grim thrill" -- that is, says Parul Sehgal, except for fiction. In an eloquent meditation she scours...

Why do people supposedly see a woman in pictures sent from Mars by the Curiosity Rover? For the same reason that people see Pepe the Frog in their toast, or Jesus in a tortilla: a phenomenon known as pareidolia.

Sarah Jones changes personas with the simplest of wardrobe swaps. In a laugh-out-loud improvisation, she invites 11 "friends" from the future on stage—from a fast-talking Latina to an outspoken police officer—to ask them questions...

One in five women in the United States will not have a biological child, and Christen Reighter is one of them. From a young age, she knew she didn't want kids, in spite of the insistence of many people (including her doctor) who told her...

Despite her best efforts, comedian Julia Sweeney is forced to tell a little white lie when her 8-year-old begins learning about frog reproduction -- and starts to ask some very smart questions.

After leading a well-established life as a pastor, father and husband, Paula Stone Williams could no longer deny her truth and transitioned. In this conversational and at times humorous reflection, Williams offers her perspective on the...

Neurons often get all the credit for running the brain, but the work done by Ben Barres at Stanford University proved that glial cells are far more crucial to brain functioning than we had previously realized.

We each want to live a life of purpose, but where to start? In this luminous, wide-ranging talk, Jacqueline Novogratz introduces us to people she's met in her work in "patient capital" -- people who have immersed themselves in a cause, a...

As a gay couple in San Francisco, Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols had a relatively easy time living the way they wanted. But outside the bubble of the Bay Area, what was life like for people still lacking basic rights? They set off on a...

It's 2013, yet 2.5 billion people in the world have no access to a basic sanitary toilet. And when there's no loo, where do you poo? In the street, probably near your water and food sources -- causing untold death and disease from...

Today we know that humans and chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA and that we have a lot in common. Not just how we look, but how we behave, form groups, defend our turf, and love each other. People didn't always see other primates this...

People ask Google everything under the sun. One of the most commonly searched questions in the world is “How Many Calories Should I have in a day?” Allow us at SciShow to explain.

Why do we call women ladies? Well, etymologically-speaking, the word comes from the Old English words for hlaf (bread) and daege (maid), which, combined, mean the female head of the household and eventually indicated high social...

Aboard an overloaded ship carrying more than 500 refugees, a young woman becomes an unlikely hero. This single, powerful story, told by Melissa Fleming of the UN's refugee agency, gives a human face to the sheer numbers of human beings...

Hank brings us the story of Elizabeth Blackburn, the Nobel Prize-winning Australian woman who discovered telomeres and telomerase, and helped scientists begin to understand the process of aging at a genetic level.

Using simple, delightful illustrations, designer Stefan Sagmeister shares his latest thinking on happiness -- both the conscious and unconscious kind. His seven rules for life and design happiness can (with some customizations) apply to...

Humorist John Hodgman rambles through a new story about aliens, physics, time, space and the way all of these somehow contribute to a sweet, perfect memory of falling in love.

They've been called the "saints of Somalia." Doctor Hawa Abdi and her daughter Deqo Mohamed discuss their medical clinic in Somalia, where -- in the face of civil war and open oppression of women -- they've built a hospital, a school and...

Have you ever wondered what the sun is made of? Dr. Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin wondered that, too, and she used science to figure out the answer! Find out how she did that and more about her amazing life and...

Rosalind Franklin was a British scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA, but you most likely haven't heard of her. Hank will attempt to fix this gap in your knowledge on today's SciShow: Great Minds.