This week Craig is going to give you a broad overview of elections in the United States. So as you may have noticed, there are kind of a lot of people in the U.S, and holding individual issues up to a public vote doesn't seem...

Preventing heartworm disease in your dog isn't just good for your furry friend. It turns out that humans can be infected with heartworm, too!

Hank delves into the scientific reasons behind why we are attracted to the people we're attracted to. It's complicated.

Find out why Flannery O’Connor, an American novelist, is known as a master of the grotesque in Southern Gothic literature. -- Flannery O’Connor scribbled tales of outcasts, intruders and misfits staged in the world she knew best: the...

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. TED's Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated...

In the century-old statues that occupy Cape Town, Sethembile Mzesane didn't see anything that looked like her own reality. So she became a living sculpture herself, standing for hours on end in public spaces dressed in symbolic costumes,...

Many economists think that an eternally growing economy is necessary to keep improving people's lives, and that if the global economy stops growing, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working...

In which Craig Benzine tells you how we keep bureaucracy in check. So we've spent the last few episodes telling you all about what bureaucracies are and why they are formed. And throughout we've hinted about this ever-expanding power...

His Holiness the Karmapa talks about how he was discovered to be the reincarnation of a revered figure in Tibetan Buddhism. In telling his story, he urges us to work on not just technology and design, but the technology and design of the...

Every city has its neighborhoods, cliques and clubs, the hidden lines that join and divide people in the same town. What can we learn about cities by looking at what people share online? Starting with his own home town of Baltimore, Dave...

At Serious Play 2008, Charles Elachi shares stories from NASA's legendary Jet Propulsion Lab -- including tales and video from the Mars Rover project.

Thor-son of Odin, god of thunder, and protector of mankind-struggled mightily against his greatest challenge yet: opening a bag of food. How had the mighty god fallen so far? Scott Mellor tells the myth of Thor's journey to Utgard.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Laboratory, describes how the One Laptop Per Child project will build and distribute the "$100 laptop."

It is important to get enough sleep, but what happens when you get those eight hours in little naps instead of in one big chunk at night?

How can an anti-hero teach us about the heroic--and sometimes, the unheroic--characteristics that shape a story's protagonist? From jealousy to self-doubt, Tim Adams challenges us to consider how anti-heroes reflect the very mortal...

Paul Andersen explains how graphs are used to visually display data that is collected in experimentation. He describes five main types of graphs; line graph, scatter plot, bar graph, histogram and pie chart. He describes the important...

X-rays leaking from dead stars could breathe new life into a hypothetical particle theory, plus an ancient Titanic force may have helped twist Saturn’s axis.

Medical, legal, and financial documents should be easy to read, but too often they aren't. With spot-on (and funny) examples, Sandra Fisher Martins shows how overly complex language separates us from the information we need -- and three...

Eythor Bender of Berkeley Bionics brings onstage two amazing exoskeletons, HULC and eLEGS -- robotic add-ons that could one day allow a human to carry 200 pounds without tiring, or allow a wheelchair user to stand and walk. It's a...

Lawrence Lessig, the Net’s most celebrated lawyer, cites John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights and the "ASCAP cartel" in his argument for reviving our creative culture.

It's been said that when an elder dies, it's as if a library is burned. Anthropologist Elizabeth Lindsey, a National Geographic Fellow, collects the deep cultural knowledge passed down as stories and lore.

Pot Theft (A Radiolab Adventure)

Ten days after 9/11, a shocking attack at a Texas mini-mart shattered the lives of two men: the victim and the attacker. In this stunning talk, Anand Giridharadas, author of "The True American," tells the story of what happened next....

A huge amount of viewers of the HBO series Game of Thrones (not us of course, no no no) are downloading the show illegally. But despite being the most pirated show of 2012, the Game of Thrones DVDs are top sellers, breaking HBO's own...