This video discusses Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and how it was received at the time it was published. It starts with Darwin's observations during his world expedition in the 19th century, particularly on the finches of the...

Scientific discovery often dabbles in the extreme, challenging and exceeding what we think of as "possible." And this year's discoveries were no different! We present to you three scientific discoveries made this year that set out to...

Scientific discovery often dabbles in the extreme, challenging and exceeding what we think of as "possible." And this year's discoveries were no different! We present to you three scientific discoveries made this year that set out to...

Fossils are preserved specimens that provide us with information about plants and animals of the past. They contribute to our understanding of evolution and the history of life on Earth. Learn about different types of fossils and how...

What's going on inside the brains of animals? Can we know what, or if, they're thinking and feeling? Carl Safina thinks we can. using discoveries and anecdotes that span ecology, biology and behavioral science, he weaves together stories...

The ancestors of gars, horseshoe crabs and coelacanths looked almost the same as their modern relatives. Darwin called species like these “living fossils'' because they seem like they are evolutionarily frozen in time. But Darwin was wrong.

This video explains the use of fossils as evidence for the theory of evolution by natural selection. It describes the three main ways in which fossils can be formed, and how they provide evidence of organisms that lived millions of years...

The video discusses two theories that try to explain the expansion and evolution of the universe - the steady state theory and the Big Bang theory. The video covers the concept of redshift of light exhibited by galaxies moving away from...

Congratulations! By being here, alive, you are one of history's winners -- the culmination of a success story four billion years in the making. The other 99 percent of species who have ever lived on earth are dead -- killed by fire,...

Planet Earth was created under the force of gravity, when stellar dust and rocky debris from the solar nebula combined. “Proto-Earth” was completely molten, its atmosphere toxic. A collision with planetoid Theia formed the Moon. Earth...

While humanity’s past is firmly grounded on our home planet, the humans of the future may live on the moon, Mars, or interstellar ships bound for distant worlds. To prepare for this cosmic migration, today’s scientists are exploring how...

Experts now agree that Africa was the birthplace of humankind. Many of the oldest fossils have been discovered in Africa. Climatic changes and the Ice Age, which began close to three million years ago, gave rise to the spread of our...

Scientists say they’re finding clues that support a theory that the early moon and Earth’s magnetospheres combined <br/>

Describes the Miller-Urey experiment and how it described the beginning of life on Earth.

Paul Andersen describes our place on the Earth in the Solar System within the Milky Way Galaxy in the Universe. The make-up and origins of the Universe are included along with stellar evolution. A teaching progression K-12 is also...

The video discusses how the Earth's atmosphere has evolved over the past 4.6 billion years, with a focus on the composition of gases present over different periods of time. It highlights the role of volcanoes, oceans, plants, and fossil...

More than 90% of the plants on Earth are angiosperms, flowering plants whose seeds are enclosed inside fruit. And they’re everywhere -- but exactly how and when these plants came to be so ubiquitous is one of the most stubborn questions...

My friend Eric Schulze, awesome science guy and leader of Thirst DC helps me understand how genes and DNA write the book of life, and how reading that book has helped us learn that everything on Earth is descended from a common ancestor....

Did humans evolve from monkeys or from fish? In this enlightening talk, ichthyologist and TED Fellow Prosanta Chakrabarty dispels some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging us to remember that we're a small part of a complex,...

Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to point at a fossil and know that it’s the first, say, plant? Well... yeah! But it's not that easy! Scientists are always making new discoveries that throw all our old assumptions into...

Seemingly distant ecosystems, even half a world apart, are connected in surprising ways. In this special limited series, Emily Graslie and Trace Dominguez join me as we explore the universal rules of life that tie together Earth’s living...

In November 1986, Australian miners climbed Lunatic Hill and bored 20 meters into the Earth. They were rewarded with a fist-sized, record breaking gemstone, which they named the Hailey's Comet opal. Thanks to a characteristic called...

In the millions of years since oxygen began saturating Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, most organisms have evolved to rely on this gas. However, there are some places where oxygen-averse microorganisms like those from Earth’s earliest...

Scientists have been trying to solve the mystery of why plate tectonics works the way it does for over a hundred years. And they might have just uncovered a key to cracking it.