TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do gas masks actually work? | George Zaidan
You might think of gas masks as clunky military-looking devices. But in the near future, we may need to rely on these filters as part of our everyday lives. In addition to emerging diseases, wildfire frequency has more than tripled, and...
SciShow
Why Does Everything Decay Into Lead
If you look at a copy of the periodic table, you might notice that basically every element after lead is labelled as radioactive. And the vast majority of those elements wind up decaying into some version of lead eventually. But why is...
SciShow
We Don’t Know What the Sun Is Made Of
Unlike Earth, our Sun is a giant ball of mostly hydrogen and helium. Astronomers managed to figure that one out roughly 100 years ago. But after all this time, they still can't come to an agreement on what "mostly" means, precisely.
SciShow
Chernobyl's Radioactive Wild Boar Paradox
After the Chernobyl Disaster, researchers have been studying the movement of radioactive contamination all over central Europe. Fortunately, that radioactive contamination is decreasing in just about every living thing, except for one...
SciShow
The Metal Claw Hiding in Your Food
Have you ever seen "calcium disodium EDTA" on an ingredients label and wondered what it's doing in your food? As it turns out, ethylenediamene triacetate is an important preservative that's helping to preserve your food. It's totally...
SciShow
The 5,000-Year-Old Mystery of Ancient Egyptian Perfume
The ancient Egyptians were masters of embalming the dead, but they left no record of the ingredients in their balms and perfumes. Luckily, modern chemistry is unlocking those secrets. And it's telling us a lot more about their culture...
SciShow
The World’s Strongest Acid Might be Gentle Enough to Eat
Hearing the word "superacid" may evoke memories of that scene from Breaking Bad, but perhaps counterintuitively, the strongest acid on Earth wouldn't be able to destroy your bathroom.
SciShow
This Element Doesn't Fit the Periodic Table
One of the most famous elements in the periodic table doesn't really belong anywhere chemists would like to put it.
SciShow
This Crystal Is ELECTRIC
There's a few minerals that exhibit something called piezoelectricity and pyroelectricity, which mean that either heat or pressure can turn them electric. Here's a demo from the SciShow Rocks Box where you can see this for yourself - all...
SciShow
Mercury Shouldn't Be Liquid. But It Is.
Mercury, a.k.a. quicksilver, is famous for being a liquid at room temperature...and also below room temperature. But you can't use a high school chem class to explain why. Instead, we need a little help from Einstein.
SciShow
How We Make Glass Nearly Unbreakable … With Science
We know that glass is fragile - that's like, it's main thing. But research is working on improving how we make glass to make it unbreakable, or at least as close as we can get. Here's the latest on how to make truly shatterproof glass!
SciShow
Glenn Seaborg: Shaking Up the Periodic Table
Hank synopsizes the life and work of Glenn Seaborg, pioneer of synthetic elements, member of the Manhattan Project, and the architect of the last great shake-up of the periodic table.
SciShow
The Electric Light Bulb Was Invented Centuries Before Edison
Thomas Edison often gets credit for the invention of the light bulb, but a good argument can be made that they were around centuries earlier in the form of barometric light.
SciShow
The Human Era Has an Official Start. It’s a Lake in Canada
Recently, a group of scientists have declared that the start of the Anthropocene, the time of outsize human influence on Earth, to be Crawford Lake in Canada. But how can a time be a place? We'll explain, and maybe grab some maple syrup.
PBS
Are there Undiscovered Elements Beyond The Periodic Table?
Adamantium, bolognium, dilithium. Element Zero, Kryptonite. Mythril, Netherite, Orichalcum, Unobtanium. We love the idea of fictional elements with miraculous properties that science has yet to discover. But is it really possible that...
Be Smart
The Strange Cosmic Origin of Earth’s Most Precious Metals
Precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, and rhodium are expensive because they're rare in Earth's crust. But are they rare in the universe? Why is it so hard to make some of the chemical elements? Where do heavy metals come from,...
Be Smart
Why Soap Is Our Secret Weapon Against Germs
One of the most effective things you can do to protect yourself from catching a germ and becoming a statistic, whether it’s a global pandemic like COVID-19 or just every single other day of your life, is something that people have been...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why your phone battery gets worse over time | George Zaidan
Almost all batteries, even single-use batteries, are theoretically rechargeable. That's because the metals and other chemicals are still there in the battery. So chemically speaking, a dead battery is actually not that different from a...
SciShow
Fentanyl is Very Deadly… Here's Why
Fentanyl has become a primary cause of the opioid overdose epidemic in the past decade. But what is it about this drug that's so dangerous? There's more to the story than meets the eye. If you’re ever in the position where you think...
SciShow
The New Addiction Treatment We Found By Mistake
It's no secret that substance use disorders can wreak havoc on peoples' lives, so anything that we could do to mitigate those cravings and addictions is really important. Which is why it's such good news that research into drugs like...
SciShow
How We Fixed the Most Radioactive Place on Earth
Once upon a time, there was a lake that was so radioactive, that standing on its shore for more than an hour would almost definitely kill you. Join Olivia to learn how it got that bad in the first place, and what was done to fix it!
SciShow
The Truth About Asparagus and Your Pee
An astonishing amount of research has gone into the question of whether asparagus really makes your urine smell funny. Sci Show explains it all inside!
SciShow
The "Disease" That Struck Medieval Church Organs
During long, cold winters in medieval Europe, church organs grew gray, sickly-looking circles that spread over their pipes. People back then believed that this was the work of the devil, but as it turns out, it’s just some pretty simple...