TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Is it normal to talk to yourself? | TED-Ed
Being caught talking to yourself can feel embarrassing, and some people even stigmatize this behavior as a sign of mental instability. But decades of research show that talking to yourself is completely normal; most if not all of us...
PBS
Poet Amanda Gorman On How She Prepared For Inauguration Day
The poet who will carry on a tradition and present her new work, "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration this week is already quite accomplished at the age of 22. Jeffrey Brown talked to Amanda Gorman to learn more, as part of our...
TED Talks
The counterintuitive way to be more persuasive | Niro Sivanathan
What's the best way to make a good point? Organizational psychologist Niro Sivanathan offers a fascinating lesson on the "dilution effect," a cognitive quirk that weakens our strongest cases -- and reveals why brevity is the true soul of...
TED Talks
Ursus Wehrli: Tidying up art
Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art -- by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size.
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How many verb tenses are there in English? - Anna Ananichuk
How many different verb tenses are there in a language like English? At first, the answer seems obvious - there's past, present, and future. But it isn't quite that simple. Anna Ananichuk explains how thanks to something called...
TED Talks
Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies
Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show...
TED Talks
TED: The bridge between suicide and life | Kevin Briggs
For many years Sergeant Kevin Briggs had a dark, unusual, at times strangely rewarding job: He patrolled the southern end of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, a popular site for suicide attempts. In a sobering, deeply personal talk...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter - David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor
Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad rap in high schools for his complex plots and antiquated language. But a quick peek into the rhythm of his words reveals a poet deeply rooted in the way people spoke in his time - and still speak today....
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...
SciShow
Bones Began as Mineral Batteries
Today, bones hold us up. But for ancient jawless fishes, bones may have been a way to store energy for long journeys. Plus, new research indicated that hippos and cetaceans may have evolved their aquatic traits separately.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A brief history of plural words - John McWhorter
All it takes is a simple S to make most English words plural. But it hasn't always worked that way (and there are, of course, exceptions). John McWhorter looks back to the good old days when English was newly split from German -- and...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: One of the most difficult words to translate... - Krystian Aparta
As simple as it seems, it's often impossible to accurately translate the word you without knowing a lot more about the situation where it's being said. Krystian Aparta describes the specific reasons why it can be difficult, citing...
SciShow
Want to Speak a Foreign Language Better? Have a Drink
Drinking could help you master the complexities of speaking a new language, and might actually help you memorize your flashcards!
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What "Orwellian" really means - Noah Tavlin
If you've watched the news or followed politics, chances are you've heard the term Orwellian thrown around in one context or another. But have you ever stopped to think about what it really means, or why it's used so often? Noah Tavlin...
SciShow
Understanding the Voices in Our Heads
Psychologists are only just beginning to study that voice in your head that narrates your thoughts, and it's more complicated than you probably realize.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How computers translate human language - Ioannis Papachimonas
Is a universal translator possible in real life? We already have many programs that claim to be able to take a word, sentence, or entire book in one language and translate it into almost any other. The reality, however, is a bit more...
TED Talks
Pat Mitchell: Dangerous times call for dangerous women
Pat Mitchell has nothing left to prove and much less to lose -- she's become a "dangerous woman." Not dangerous as in feared, she says, but fearless: a force to be reckoned with. In this powerful call to action, Mitchell invites all...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What makes something "Kafkaesque"? - Noah Tavlin
The term Kafkaesque has entered the vernacular to describe unnecessarily complicated and frustrating experiences, especially with bureaucracy. But does standing in a long line to fill out confusing paperwork really capture the richness...
SciShow
A New Idea About Tabby's Star!
Astronomers might have finally discovered part of why Tabby's Star acts so strangely and we have some new ideas about what triggers a type Ia supernova.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages? - John McWhorter
What do Game of Thrones' Dothraki, Avatar's Na'vi, Star Trek's Klingon and LOTR's Elvish have in common? They are all fantasy constructed languages, or conlangs. Conlangs have all the delicious complexities of real languages: a high...
SciShow
Does My Voice Really Sound Like That?
Take it from an expert: It’s weird to hear how your voice really sounds. But why does it sound different to you than everyone else. Hank explains -- in a deep, resonant voice.
TED Talks
Who counts as a speaker of a language? | Anna Babel
Backed by research and personal anecdotes, Spanish professor Anna Babel reveals the intricate relationship between language and culture, showing how social categories and underlying biases influence the way we hear, regard and,...
TED Talks
TED: Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business | Christine Porath
Looking to get ahead in your career? Start by being respectful to your coworkers, says leadership researcher Christine Porath. In this science-backed talk, she shares surprising insights about the costs of rudeness and shows how little...
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...