So last week we talked about what special interest groups are and how they influence the political system, and today we’re going to focus on why we even have them in the first place. As to avoid getting too cynical, we’re going to focus...

A king cobra has enough venom to kill 10 people in a single bite. Recounting his near-death experience after being bitten by one of these majestic yet deadly snakes, conservationist and TED Fellow Gowri Shankar shares the epiphany he had...

We all know it's awesome, and we could watch Chris Hadfield sing all day, but do you know about the awesome science that's being done on the International Space Station? Hank explains three big discoveries made on the ISS that you should...

Hank discusses the chemistry of sarin, the nerve agent that killed more than 1400 people in a chemical weapons attack in Syria.

Wave power hasn’t yet made a splash because it’s hard to use waves to spin turbines, and because the sea is a harsh place to build...

We're raising our girls to be perfect, and we're raising our boys to be brave, says Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Saujani has taken up the charge to socialize young girls to take risks and learn to program -- two skills...

What is AI, really? Jeff Dean, the head of Google's AI efforts, explains the underlying technology that enables artificial intelligence to do all sorts of things, from understanding language to diagnosing disease -- and presents a...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has destroyed so much -- including hundreds of schools, where the country's children were forging their futures -- but it has not stopped Ukrainians from pursuing knowledge and curiosity. In a deeply...

So, how do engineers even figure out what problem needs to get fixed? And what's the difference between identifying a problem and just complaining about something. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina talks about how we can all...

You don't have to be a scientist to help protect the world's oceans, says underwater drone expert and TED Fellow David Lang -- in fact, ordinary citizens have pulled together to save the planet's natural treasures many times in history....

What if an advanced civilization ran out of room to grow on their home planet? Their best bet might be to build settlements in space, so they could capture more of their star's energy.

Engineers would love it if concrete bridges and skyscrapers didn't require so much maintenance, and they might have found the perfect solution using bacteria.

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences.

When Nancy Lublin started texting teenagers to help with her social advocacy organization, what she found was...

Within each of us are two selves, suggests David Brooks in this meditative short talk: the self who craves success, who builds a résumé, and the self who seeks connection, community, love -- the values that make for a great eulogy....

Venus was once thought to have been very earth-like and pleasant, but now it's considered a harsh wasteland that we wouldn't even send a robot to.

The old combined sewer systems of many major cities are no match for modern storms and impermeable surfaces.

I took a trip to Washington D.C. to check out some of our nation's most famous monuments. Where do they come from? From the depths of the Earth to the distant reaches of the cosmos, you'll never look at history the same way again

In Agbogbloshie, a community in Accra, Ghana, people descend on a scrapyard to mine electronic waste for recyclable materials. Without formal training, these urban miners often teach themselves the workings of electronics by taking them...

A hearty bowl of cereal gives you the energy to start your day, but how exactly did that energy make its way into your bowl? It all begins with photosynthesis, the process that converts the air we breathe into energizing glucose. Cathy...

A quantum computer isn't just a more powerful version of the computers we use today; it's something else entirely, based on emerging scientific understanding -- and more than a bit of uncertainty. Enter the quantum wonderland with TED...

Kristen Marhaver studies corals, tiny creatures the size of a poppyseed that, over hundreds of slow years, create beautiful, life-sustaining ocean structures hundreds of miles long. As she admits, it's easy to get sad about the state of...

Building a perfect igloo takes cool science!

We've been learning a whole lot about the ocean lately, so we thought it might be fun to put all that knowledge to use with a fun project! Join us as we make an ocean in a jar and learn a little more about the different ocean zones!

Would a mile-high skyscraper ever be possible? Explore the physics behind some of the tallest buildings and megastructures in the world. -- In 1956, architect Frank Lloyd Wright proposed a mile-high skyscraper, a building five times...