This week, we're headed to the Americas to learn about the theater that existed there prior to the arrival of Europeans, how the theater of the Spanish influenced it, and the impact of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, playwrighting Spanish nun...

So far in this series, we've mostly focused on how AI can interpret images, but one of the most common ways we interact with computers is through language - we type questions into search engines, use our smart assistants like Siri and...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how a spontaneous process may take either the thermodynamically controlled or the kinetic controlled pathway. If the activation energy determines the path taken then the process is under kinetic...

Dan Bricklin changed the world forever when he codeveloped VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet and grandfather of programs you probably use every day like Microsoft excel and Google Sheets. Join the software engineer and computing...

Hank brings you the SciShow news of the week. Recent record high temperatures and other extreme weather events around the world are climate change in action; a new fossil of an ancient human ancestor; some disturbing discoveries about...

You’ve heard that dogs are basically furry toddlers, with cognitive abilities on par with a 2 year old human. But while that might make sense on some levels, the minds of distinct species can work very differently.

In this video Paul Andersen defines Q10 as the ratio between reactions at different temperatures. He then gives you an example of how it could be calculated. He also includes extensions of other scientific phenomenon that could created...

Beginning in the third century BCE, the Romans conquered the Iberian peninsula. This period gave rise to several regional languages in the area that's now Spain, including Castilian, Catalan, and Galician. One of these would become...

Can the way you speak and write today predict your future mental state, even the onset of psychosis? In this fascinating talk, neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reflects on ancient Greece and the origins of introspection to investigate how...

Paul Andersen explains how a respirometer can be used to measure the respiration rate in peas, germinating peas and the worm. KOH is used to solidify CO2 produced by a respiring organism.

A simple Q&A

Aphorism enthusiast and author James Geary waxes on a fascinating fixture of human language: the metaphor. Friend of scribes from Aristotle to Elvis, metaphor can subtly influence the decisions we make, Geary says.

James Baldwin was an American novelist and social critic whose essays in “Notes of a Native Son” explored race, sex and class distinctions. -- In the 1960s, the FBI amassed almost 2,000 documents in an investigation into one of...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the conservation of mass was replaced with the conservation of mass-energy when it was determined that they are equivalent. This famous equation not only show the mass-energy equivalence but can...

Today we’re going to talk about how computers understand speech and speak themselves. As computers play an increasing role in our daily lives there has been an growing demand for voice user interfaces, but speech is also terribly...

As the saying goes, less is more. The same goes for words. Listen as Politico and Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei shares what he's learned leading two media companies -- and how to radically rethink the way you write to keep people's...

Farmers stand at the center of the world, says Andrew Youn, cofounder of One Acre Fund, an agricultural organization that's empowering sub-Saharan farm families with the loans, seeds, fertilizer and training needed to increase crop...

Whether or not you think of yourself as "the smart kid" might affect your grades a lot more than how smart you are.

At 16, Rana Abdelhamid started teaching self-defense to women and girls in her neighborhood. Almost 10 years later, these community classes have grown into Malikah: a global grassroots network creating safety, power and solidarity for...

After a friend of mine got a tattoo with a representation of the cosecant function, it got me thinking about how there's another sense in which this function is a tattoo on math, so to speak.

Paul Andersen explains how the behavior of various organisms is shaped by natural selection. The action of phototropism and the timing of photoperiodism have both been shaped by the relative availability of light. Courtship in the...

"We're all going to die -- and poems can help us live with that." In a charming and funny talk, literary critic Stephen Burt takes us on a lyrical journey with some of his favorite poets, all the way down to a line break and back up to...

T. Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison, founders of the health nonprofit GirlTrek, are on a mission to reduce the leading causes of preventable death among Black women -- and build communities in the process. How? By getting one million...

Baby brain, pregnancy brain, momnesia—the fogginess that can appear during pregnancy goes by many names, but memory loss is only one of the changes that occurs while the brain prepares for an upcoming baby.