Break down the oil slick, keep it off the shores: that's grounds for pumping toxic dispersant into the Gulf, say clean-up overseers. Susan Shaw shows evidence it's sparing some beaches only at devastating cost to the health of the deep sea.

Can you feel the love tonight? Hopefully scientists can make this the case for the growing numbers of lions in animal sanctuaries.

Explore some properties of water with the Amoeba Sisters! It's all about those hydrogen bonds.

Viruses are among humanity's greatest threats and it seems like they're always one step ahead of us. But this week, biologists say that they've discovered a new weapon we can use against some of our most nefarious virus enemies - and it...

In ancient times, wildcats were fierce carnivorous hunters. And unlike dogs, who have undergone centuries of selective breeding, modern cats are genetically very similar to ancient cats. How did these solitary, fierce predators become...

Speaking one month after the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Lisa Margonelli shows how drilling moratoriums and executive ousters make for good theater, but distract us from the issue at heart: our unrestrained oil consumption. She...

Is there life beyond earth? Join NASA's director of planetary science James Green for a survey of the places in our solar system that are most likely to harbor alien life.

Jessi and Squeaks were supposed to go sledding today, but it's really cold outside! That won't stop them from having fun, though! Join them as they look back on some great experiments to do on a freezing cold day!

Hank talks about a shiny element that has fascinated humans for millenia.

The event that gave us our moon may have also given us the elements necessary for life and scientists might have found a very tiny piece of our solar system's past way out in space.

The Earth and Moon are like identical twins, made up of the exact same materials -- which is really strange, since no other celestial bodies we know of share this kind of chemical relationship. What's responsible for this special...

Although we've spent a lot of time in this series looking at human-made organic chemicals, the term "organic chemistry" was originally used to describe molecules isolated from living things. In this episode of Crash Course Organic...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how an overall chemical reaction is made up of several elementary steps. The stoichiometry of this equation can be predicted but the rate law must be measured. If the elementary steps of the...

Burning a marshmallow can release more energy than detonating an equal mass of TNT...so why isn't a marshmallow as dangerous?

In this video Paul Andersen explains how disturbances to a reversible reaction at equilibrium affect the equilibrium constant and the reaction quotient. For example if the concentration is changed the reaction will move to reestablish...

Carrots get their orange-y color from, you guessed it, an organic chemical. This chemical, called beta carotene, gets its pigment from its conjugated electron system. We’ve talked some already about conjugation, but in this episode of...

Simplicity: We know it when we see it -- but what is it, exactly? In this funny, philosophical talk, George Whitesides chisels out an answer.

Hank delves into the details about that very popular substance: caffeine.

They explode when you touch them. Even a millionth of a gram can kill you. They can even disable you with their horrifying smell. SciShow introduces you to give of the most dangerous chemicals in the world.

In this video Paul Andersen explains how you can drive non spontaneous processes by adding external energy (like electricity or light) or by coupling it to a spontaneous process (like the conversion of ATP to ADP)

Learn about the latest advances in the war against cancer from Stanford researcher Adam de la Zerda, who's working on some cutting-edge techniques of his own. using a remarkable imaging technology that illuminates cancer-seeking gold...

If you were given a chemical and told to identify it, how would you go about doing that? You could look at different factors like color, boiling point, melting point, or smell, but the answer still might not be clear. Thankfully, today...

You might have heard that one year in a dog’s life is equivalent to seven in a human’s. But it turns out that the real ratio is both higher AND lower—depending on your dog’s current age.

Traditional lab tests for disease diagnosis can be too expensive and cumbersome for the regions most in need. George Whitesides' ingenious answer is a foolproof tool that can be manufactured at virtually zero cost.