At some point, you’ve probably heard someone use any or all of these four words to describe someone. But there’s a really excellent chance that person had no idea what these terms mean. But SciShow is here to help clear up some of these...

Regular brushing and flossing might not just keep your mouth in good shape—they might also be good for your brain.

Scientists may have found a recombinant variant of COVID-19 in the wild, and its mixed DNA could be essential to the coronavirus life cycle.

Some people are capable of concentrating in a storm of noise and motion, and some get distracted by the slightest squeak of a classmate’s chair. This has to do with our brain’s ability to filter, and not only are both entirely natural,...

Some people don’t have or use visual imagination, or the “mind’s eye.” Many with this condition, called aphantasia, might not even realize that they’re experiencing the world differently, but this difference offers a new window into how...

"Life comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do is take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it." In this funny, enlightening talk, educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance --...

Axolotls are special salamanders. Not only to they stay in their juvenile form their whole lives, they can regenerate entire limbs! Studying how they do it could change the way we treat human limb injuries.

What if human flight wasn't just the stuff of epic comic book stories? Is it scientifically possible to fly? In this series, Joy Lin tackles six superpowers and reveals just how scientifically realistic they can be to us mere mortals.

Esha Alwani began writing songs when she was six years old, shortly after being diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. And she noticed something amazing: whenever she played music, her involuntary tics suddenly went away. Listen along as...

Developers are working to make softer, squishier robots that are flexible enough to maneuver in extreme environments, including inside the human body!

Insects were the first animals to ever develop the ability to fly, and, arguably, they did it the best. But this development was so unusual that scientists are still working on, and arguing about, how and when insect wings first came about.

Another aging rock star, another baby, does age have any affect on sperm, or are these little swimmers seemingly viable until death?

Hacking, fake news, information bubbles ... all these and more have become part of the vernacular in recent years. But as cyberspace analyst Laura Galante describes in this alarming talk, the real target of anyone looking to influence...

Replication (re-running studies to confirm results) and reproducibility (the ability to repeat an analyses on data) have come under fire over the past few years. The foundation of science itself is built upon statistical analysis and yet...

Could an everyday clothing item help protect your health? In this quick talk, TED Fellow Alicia Chong Rodriguez introduces us to a smart bra designed to gather real-time data on biomarkers like heartbeat, breath and temperature. Learn...

Do you ever talk to your dog? Do they ever talk back? Humans and dogs have a truly amazing relationship, developed along an evolutionary journey that goes back nearly 10,000 years. Do they really understand what we say, think, and feel?...

Nearly all life on Earth is ultimately powered by light. But many creatures have learned how to make their own. This week we investigate the beautiful phenomenon of bioluminescence. From blinking fireflies on summer nights to glowing...

Sometimes the hairs on the back of your neck raise up when you sense that danger might be near, but what if you were also able to bulk yourself up like a muscular balloon to fend off that danger? This fish, it turns out, can do exactly...

We don't have to live in a world where 99 percent of rapists get away with it, says TED Fellow Jessica Ladd. With Callisto, a new platform for college students to confidentially report sexual assault, Ladd is helping survivors get the...

Is there an equation for intelligence? Yes. It's F = T ∇ Sτ. In a fascinating and informative talk, physicist and computer scientist Alex Wissner-Gross explains what in the world that means.

Very few of us hold jobs that line up directly with our past experiences or what we studied in college. Take TED Resident Jason Shen; he studied biology but later became a product manager at a tech company. In this quick, insightful talk...

We thought that we taught dogs how to play fetch, but some adorable wolf pups may have just proved us wrong. Also some plants may be immortal?

If you've ever spent too much time in the sun and forgotten to put on sunscreen, you know how painful a sunburn can be. But for some animals, forgetting the sunscreen wouldn't be a problem because they can just produce their own!

Calling them "our bodies' own repair kits," Susan Solomon advocates research using lab-grown stem cells. By growing individual pluripotent stem cell lines, her team creates testbeds that could accelerate research into curing diseases --...