Some people take aspirin or ibuprofen to treat everyday aches and pains, but how exactly do the different classes of pain relievers work? Learn about the basic physiology of how humans experience pain, and the mechanics of the medicines...

Neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demonstrates a new way to use fMRI to show brain activity -- thoughts, emotions, pain -- while it is happening. In other words, you can actually see how you feel.

About 150 years ago, scientists found the two main areas that are responsible for language production and comprehension in the brain. But it turns out they might have over-exaggerated what these parts actually do.

How do cells in your body differentiate into other types of cells? Explore cell specialization featuring stem cells and their role in cell differentiation.

You'd think if we can tell when a star is about to implode that we could predict when a giant hole is about to open up here on earth and ruin our day. So why are sinkholes still so hard to predict?

As far as we know, there's only one thing in our solar system sophisticated enough to study itself: the human brain. But this self-investigation is challenging because a living brain is shielded by skull, swaddled in tissue, and made up...

Today humanity produces more than 1,400 tons of carbon every minute. To combat climate change, we need to reduce fossil fuel emissions, and draw down excess CO2 to restore the balance of greenhouse gases. Like all plants, trees consume...

The rat's tail plant, or Babiana ringens earns its name for the distinct stem that grows above its flowers. But what's the purpose of this odd looking appendage?

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Today we're going to take a look at mineral extraction -- or the removal of rocks and minerals from the Earths' crust -- and examine how this human activity impacts all aspects of Geography. We'll focus on the Democratic Republic of the...

Keith Bellows gleefully outlines the engineering marvels of the camel, a vital creature he calls "the SUV of the desert." Though he couldn't bring a live camel to TED, he gets his camera crew as close as humanly possible to a one-ton...

The HMS Challenger embarked in the 1870s to survey the world’s oceans. The data the expedition collected is still being used over 100 years later to inform what we know about climate change.

Oceanographer Paul Snelgrove shares the results of a ten-year project with one goal: to take a census of all the life in the oceans. He shares amazing photos of some of the surprising finds of the Census of Marine Life.

In this video Paul Andersen explains how matter can act as a wave at the nanoscale. Louis de Broglie showed that the wavelength of matter can be calculated using the momentum of an object and Planck's constant. The Davisson-Germer...

Some of the world's most baffling social problems, says Peter Eigen, can be traced to systematic, pervasive government corruption, hand-in-glove with global companies. In his talk, Eigen describes the thrilling counter-attack led by his...

Earth's ocean water is continuous. How can we divide it into sections that are more useful?

The average global temperature is on the rise, evidenced by the ten warmest years on record happening since 2005. But this isn’t just about greenhouse gases preventing heat from escaping. Another culprit comes in the form of…clouds.

You may have noticed that checkout lines often have whozits and whatzits galore, but your opinion of them mostly depends on how a couple different regions of your brain work.

Grizzly bears stick to a mostly vegetarian diet in sync with plant growing seasons. However, as grizzlies' habitats grow smaller, food is harder to come by. Using NASA satellites, scientists track the shifting, interrelated patterns of...

Wolves were once native to the US' Yellowstone National Park -- until hunting wiped them out. But when, in 1995, the wolves began to come back (thanks to an aggressive management program), something interesting happened: the rest of the...

Scientists have developed reliable early warning systems for tsunamis caused by earthquakes. The problem is, earthquakes aren't the only things that cause tsunamis.

Save the rainforest is an environmental slogan as old as time — but Tasso Azevedo catches us up on how the fight is actually going these days. Spurred by the jaw-dropping losses of the 1990s, new laws (and transparent data) are helping...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the average value of the electric field can be determined by dividing the potential difference by the displacement. Equipotential lines can be used to determine the potential in an electric field...

Sure, throwing grease down the drain is not great for the plumbing in your home, but it can actually cause problems on a much bigger scale in the form of FOGs - also known as fatbergs. And yes, those are as gross as they sound.

Modern buildings with floor-to-ceiling windows give spectacular views, but they require a lot of energy to cool. Doris Kim Sung works with thermo-bimetals, smart materials that act more like human skin, dynamically and responsively, and...