Crash Course
Netflix & Chill: Crash Course Philosophy
Last week we talked about language and meaning. Today, Hank explores some of the things that complicate meaning and how we get around that. We’ll explain conversational implicature, the cooperative principle, and the four main maxims of...
TED Talks
Steven Petrow: 3 ways to practice civility
What does it mean to be civil? Journalist Steven Petrow looks for answers in the original meaning of the word, showing why civility shouldn't be dismissed as conversation-stifling political correctness or censorship. Learn three ways we...
SciShow Kids
Birds that Talk!
Birds can communicate with each other in lots of ways, but some types of birds can learn human words! But just because they learn human words, does that mean that they can understand them?
Crash Course
DNA, Hot Pockets, & The Longest Word Ever: Crash Course Biology
Hank imagines himself breaking into the Hot Pockets factory to steal their secret recipes and instruction manuals in order to help us understand how the processes known as DNA transcription and translation allow our cells to build proteins.
SciShow
Why Does a Word Sometimes Lose All Meaning?
You may have experienced this before: When you repeat the same word over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, the words suddenly sound foreign and lose all meaning, but why?
SciShow
Mendeleevs Periodic Table
Hank tells us about the awesomeness of the periodic table and the genius of the man who invented it.
TED Talks
David Peterson: Why language is humanity's greatest invention
Civilization rests upon the existence of language, says language creator David Peterson. In a talk that's equal parts passionate and hilarious, he shows how studying, preserving and inventing new languages helps us understand our...
SciShow
Hydras: Our Immortal, Tentacled Friends
While humans age and die (which is kind of a bummer), it looks like hydras will stay young and fertile forever. Why is this? And what can we learn from these tentacular microscopic organisms?
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Aphasia: The disorder that makes you lose your words - Susan Wortman-Jutt
Language is an essential part of our lives that we often take for granted. But, if the delicate web of language networks in your brain became disrupted by stroke, illness, or trauma, you could find yourself truly at a loss for words....
MinutePhysics
Why Do Mirrors Flip Left & Right (but not up & down)?
This video is about why words flip left & right (aka horizontally) in a mirror but not up & down (aka vertically). The answer has to do with specular reflection, mirrors being like windows into another world (alternate universes, just...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Where do new words come from? - Marcel Danesi
There are over 170,000 words currently in use in the English language. Yet every year, about a thousand new words are added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Where do they come from, and how do they make it into our everyday lives?...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is dyslexia? - Kelli Sandman-Hurley
Dyslexia affects up to 1 in 5 people, but the experience of dyslexia isn't always the same. This difficulty in processing language exists along a spectrum -- one that doesn't necessarily fit with labels like "normal" and "defective."...
Crash Course
Web Search
Today we’re going to talk about search engines, which are just AI systems that try to help us find what we’re looking for. Search engines can be the sort that serve up a list of results, like during a Google or Bing search, using web...
Bozeman Science
Probability in Genetics: Multiplication and Addition Rules
Paul Andersen shows you how to use the rules of multiplication and addition to correctly solve genetics problems. The rule of multiplication can be applied to independent events in sequence. The rule of addition can be applied to...
Crash Course
How We Make Memories - Crash Course Psychology
Remember that guy from 300? What was his name? ARG!!! It turns out our brains make and recall memories in different ways. In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank talks about the way we do it, what damaging that process can do to...
Crash Course
George Orwell's 1984, Part 2: Crash Course Literature 402
In which John Green continues discussing George Orwell's 1984. Today we're talking about what the novel 1984 has to say about what some have called today's surveillance society. We'll also look at the idea that language can be used as a...
TED Talks
George Takei: Why I love a country that once betrayed me
When he was a child, George Takei and his family were forced into an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, as a "security" measure during World War II. 70 years later, Takei looks back at how the camp shaped his surprising, personal...
TED Talks
TED: This is your brain on communication | uri Hasson
Neuroscientist uri Hasson researches the basis of human communication, and experiments from his lab reveal that even across different languages, our brains show similar activity, or become "aligned," when we hear the same idea or story....
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Become a slam poet in five steps - Gayle Danley
With enough passion and practice, becoming a slam poet is within your reach. Explore a distant memory on paper, then read it out loud. Edit. Try reading it out loud again, and add your finishing touches. Gayle Danley offers five steps to...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What did democracy really mean in Athens? - Melissa Schwartzberg
While we might consider elections to be the cornerstone of democracy, the Athenians who coined the term actually employed a lottery system to choose most of their politicians. Melissa Schwartzberg describes the ins and outs of the...
TED Talks
TED: An honest history of an ancient and "nasty" word | Kate Lister
With candor and cunning, sex historian Kate Lister chronicles the curious journey of an ancient, honest word with innocent origins and a now-scandalous connotation in this uproarious love letter to etymology, queens, cows and all things...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: When to use "me", "myself" and "I" - Emma Bryce
Me, myself, and I. You may be tempted to use these words interchangeably, because they all refer to the same thing. But in fact, each one has a specific role in a sentence: 'I' is a subject pronoun, 'me' is an object pronoun, and...
Curated Video
Islam, the Quran, and the Five Pillars All Without a Flamewar: Crash Course World History
In which John Green teaches you the history of Islam, including the revelation of the Qu'ran to Muhammad, the five pillars of Islam, how the Islamic empire got its start, the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and more. Learn about hadiths, Abu...
TED Talks
TED: The unexpected beauty of everyday sounds | Meklit Hadero
using examples from birdsong, the natural lilt of emphatic language and even a cooking pan lid, singer-songwriter and TED Fellow Meklit Hadero shows how the everyday soundscape, even silence, makes music. "The world is alive with musical...