Before he hit eighteen, Fred Swaniker had lived in Ghana, Gambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. What he learned from a childhood across Africa was that while good leaders can't make much of a difference in societies with strong institutions, in...

Christian Benimana wants to build a network of architects who can help Africa's booming cities flourish in sustainable, equitable ways -- balancing growth with values that are uniquely African. From Nigeria to Burkina Faso and beyond, he...

A liberal arts education is critical to forming true leaders, says university head Patrick Awuah -- because it builds decision-making skills, an ethical framework and a broad vision. Awuah himself left a career at Microsoft in the US to...

Explaining strange Earth geology is often straightforward — combine a volcanic eruption a dash of erosion, and boom, you’ve got a striking cliff! But not all the features on this planet are so easy to figure out. From the ground randomly...

South African investment banker Euvin Naidoo explains why investing in Africa can make great business sense.

It requires a certain attitude to brave the elements of Antarctica. Luckily, the Antarctic midge has a set of adaptations that fit the bill.

Sometimes, species end up in places we wouldn't expect, like when the same or very similar species end up on opposite parts of the globe. It's called disjunct distribution, and here are 6 ways that it can happen.

Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, physicist Neil Turok speaks out for talented young Africans starved of opportunity: by unlocking and nurturing the continent's creative potential, we can create a change in Africa's future.

A volcanic eruption and series of earthquakes in 2005 were important not because they did a great deal of damage to humans, but because they’re geologic evidence of where Earth’s next ocean will most likely pop up.

Hank gives us a summary of a strange new calculation, which estimates the total body mass of all the humans on earth.

Between 1840 and 1914, an estimated 40 million people left Europe. This is one of the most significant migrations in human history. So, who was leaving Europe? And why? Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing...

Prehistoric teeth prove that hyenas once roamed the Arctic and the relationship between ancient crocodiles and climate is more complicated than we thought.

How can Africans find solutions to Africa's problems? Conservation biologist Kevin Njabo tells his personal story of how he nearly became part of the group of African scientists who seek an education abroad and never return -- and why...

George Steinmetz's spectacular photos show Africa from the air, taken from the world's slowest, lightest aircraft. Join Steinmetz to discover the surprising historical, ecological and sociopolitical patterns that emerge when you go low...

Locusts are a huge agricultural pest...except in North America. What happened to the Rocky Mountain locusts that once swarmed this continent? Researchers think that the colonization of the North American West might have had something...

What can a young woman with an idea, an Internet connection and a bit of creativity achieve? That's all Siyanda Mohutsiwa needed to unite young African voices in a new way. Hear how Mohutsiwa and other young people across the continent...

The past decade has seen slow and steady economic growth across the continent of Africa. But economist Charles Robertson has a bold thesis: Africa's about to boom. He talks through a few of the indicators -- from rising education levels...

How can Africa, the home to some of the largest bodies of water in the world, be said to have a water crisis? It doesn't, says Olufemi Taiwo -- it has a knowledge crisis. Taiwo suggests that lack of knowledge on important topics like...

With infectious energy, singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo ties together the threads of her legendary career as a creative force and global activist. In conversation with journalist Femi Oke, she discusses how joy powers her music (and...

Business in Africa is booming -- but international companies are missing out, says emerging markets expert Nomava Zanazo. Rushing in without knowing their customers, businesses underestimate Africans and make costly assumptions about...

Significant pieces of the globe are literally not on the map: they're missing from the most widely used mapping platforms, like Google Street View, leaving communities neglected of vital services and humanitarian aid. In this...

Both North and South America have their own species of marsupial, the opossum, but how they got so far away from their Australian relatives is a bit of a mystery.

Today, our closest evolutionary relatives, the apes, live only in small pockets of Africa and Asia. But back in the Miocene epoch, apes occupied all of Europe. Why aren't there wild apes in Europe today?

Two new studies challenge what we thought we knew about the first humans in the Americas, sending the archaeology community buzzing. Could people have been on these continents 10 to 15 thousand years earlier than archaeologists...