About 5 million years ago, a new predator made its way from the south and onto the coastal plains of North America. It was a giant, flightless, carnivorous bird and came to be known by one of the coolest and most richly earned nicknames...

Feeling disconnected from creating art within classical conventions, artist Georgia O'Keeffe began experimenting with abstract drawings that defied easy classification. Using the shapes and rhythms of nature to capture her internal...

With the Climate Reality Project, Al Gore is helping mold future leaders to build the movement for climate survival and social justice from the ground up. He introduces us to four of the Project's graduates, each of whom confronts...

Everyone's talking about the "Internet of Things," but what exactly does that mean for our future? In this thoughtful talk, economist Marco Annunziata looks at how technology is transforming the industrial sector, creating machines that...

The ancestors of modern, squishy cephalopods like the octopus and the squid all had shells. In ancient times, their shell was their greatest asset but it eventually proved to be their biggest weakness.

Natasha Tsakos presents part of her one-woman, multimedia show, "Upwake." As the character Zero, she blends dream and reality with an inventive virtual world projected around her in 3D animation and electric sound.

A new study provides mathematical evidence that dark matter could be much older than we thought and we've found a weird glitch in a neutron star.

Juan Enriquez challenges our definition of bioenergy. Oil, coal, gas and other hydrocarbons are not chemical but biological products, based on plant matter -- and thus, growable. Our whole approach to fuel, he argues, needs to change.

Science, Religion, and the Big Bang

We have personal computing -- why not personal biotech? That's the question biologist Ellen Jorgensen and her colleagues asked themselves before opening Genspace, a nonprofit DIY bio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science, where...

Let's look further into what we don't yet know about the Big Bang, and how the theory could progress in the future. Since there is a discrepancy between general relativity and quantum mechanics, we continue to search for a grand unifying...

Every new invention changes the world -- in ways both intentional and unexpected. Historian Edward Tenner tells stories that illustrate the under-appreciated gap between our ability to innovate and our ability to foresee the consequences.

Near the end of 2020, we got some puzzling but good news: COVID-19 fatality rates have been dropping. Here are a few factors that might help explain why we’re seeing this trend.

Chris Milk uses cutting edge technology to produce astonishing films that delight and enchant. But for Milk, the human story is the driving force behind everything he does. In this short, charming talk, he shows some of his...

From packing peanuts to disposable coffee cups, each year the uS alone produces some two billion pounds of Styrofoam -- none of which can be recycled. Frustrated by this waste of resources and landfill space, Ashton Cofer and his science...

When Julius Maada Bio first seized political power in Sierra Leone in 1996, he did so to improve the lives of its citizens. But he soon realized that for democracy to flourish, its foundation needs to be built on the will of the people....

Technology architect Fadi Chehade helped set up the infrastructure that makes the internet work -- essential things like the domain name system and IP address standards. Today he's focused on finding ways for society to benefit from...

In this captivating video narrated by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, viewers are taken on a journey through the history of the universe, from its explosive beginnings to the evolution of life on Earth. Through a mix of science and...

The James Webb Space Telescope is a miracle of modern science and engineering. With a 21-foot, gold-coated mirror protected by a sunshield that's the size of a tennis court, it's the world's most powerful telescope and humanity's latest...

For sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor, the ocean is more than a muse -- it's an exhibition space and museum. Taylor creates sculptures of human forms and mundane life on land and sinks them to the ocean floor, where they are subsumed by the...

Hank explains how a recent astronomical discovery made in Antarctica could change what we know about the birth of the universe, and the rules of physics that govern it.

Jacek Utko is an extraordinary Polish newspaper designer whose redesigns for papers in Eastern Europe not only win awards, but increase circulation by up to 100%. Can good design save the newspaper? It just might.

Combining projection mapping and a pop-up book, Marco Tempest tells the visually arresting story of Nikola Tesla -- called "the greatest geek who ever lived" -- from his triumphant invention of alternating current to his penniless last...

It turns out that dogs are born with a lot of their ability to interact with people, and songbirds have to mute their minds to stay in sync during their quick back and forth duets.