The energy in the universe never increases or decreases -- but it does move around a lot. Energy can be potential (like a stretched-out rubber band waiting to snap) or kinetic (like the molecules that vibrate within any substance). And...

The Greeks had a simple and elegant formula for the universe: just earth, fire, wind, and water. Turns out there's more to it than that -- a lot more. Visible matter (and that goes beyond the four Greek elements) comprises only 4% of the...

Nostalgia was once considered an illness confined to specific groups of people. Today, people all over the world report experiencing and enjoying nostalgia. But how does nostalgia work? And is it healthy? Clay Routledge details the way...

Tornadoes are the most violent storms on Earth, with wind velocities that can exceed 200 miles per hour. How do these terrifying cyclones form? Meteorologist James Spann sheds light on the lifespan of tornadoes as they go from supercell...

Why would a fish throw up its stomach? What makes a scuba diver develop painful microbubbles in their joints? Neosha S Kashef details the basics of barotrauma, shedding light on how humans and fish alike are influenced by laws of physics...

Scientists have been staking out a forest in Montana for an animal that's notoriously tricky to find. Camera traps haven't offered definitive evidence, and experts can't identify its tracks with certainty. But within the past decades,...

How can animation convey complex, intangible concepts? A visual metaphor, or an idea represented through imagery, can take an idea as massive as Big Data and tie it to the familiar depiction of a growing tree. TED-Ed animators explain...

What's the best country to live in? Is it the one with the best food? The longest life expectancy? The best weather? For the past 70 years, most governments have relied heavily on a single number: the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. But...

It was one of the strangest trials in Dutch history. The defendant in a 1947 case was an art forger who had counterfeited millions of dollars worth of paintings. But he wasn’t arguing his innocence— in fact, his life depended on proving...

Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad rap in high schools for his complex plots and antiquated language. But a quick peek into the rhythm of his words reveals a poet deeply rooted in the way people spoke in his time - and still speak today....

Elementary particles are the smallest known building blocks in the universe-and the neutrino is one of the smallest of the small. These tiny neutrinos can tell us about the furthest reaches and most extreme environments of the universe...

Is teleportation possible? Could a baseball transform into something like a radio wave, travel through buildings, bounce around corners, and change back into a baseball? Oddly enough, thanks to quantum mechanics, the answer might...

Although only boys were allowed at the Confucius Academy, what Zhu Yingtai wanted was to go to school. She begged her parents to let her attend dressed as a boy and, seeing her determination and clever disguises, they finally agreed— as...

Your antivirus squad is up against a code that's hijacked your mainframe. What you've learned from other infected systems, right before they went dark, is that it likes to toy with antivirus agents in a very peculiar way— and you're the...

Pandora was the first mortal woman, breathed into being by Hephaestus, god of fire. The gods gave her gifts of language, craftsmanship and emotion. From Zeus she received two gifts: the trait of curiosity and a heavy box screwed tightly...

What makes a book a book? Is it just anything that stores and communicates information? Or does it have to do with paper, binding, font, ink, its weight in your hands, the smell of the pages? To answer these questions, Julie Dreyfuss...

We hear anywhere from 10 to 200 lies a day. And although we've spent much of our history coming up with ways to detect these lies by tracking physiological changes in their tellers, these methods have proved unreliable. Is there a more...

Our best technology can send men to the Moon and probes to the edge of our solar system, but these distances are vanishingly small compared to the size of the universe. How then can we learn about the galaxies beyond our own? Yuan-Sen...

The cotton-top tamarin is a very vocal monkey -- the species communicates using a sophisticated language of 38 distinct and grammatically structured calls! Anne Savage teaches a few of these chirps and whistles, taking us through a day...

What if manipulating body mass wasn't just the stuff of epic comic book stories? Is it scientifically possible to manipulate your body mass? In this series, Joy Lin tackles six superpowers and reveals just how scientifically realistic...

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.

A single determined termite braves countless threats to participate in the only flight of her lifetime. She evades the onslaught of predators as she lands, flips off her wings, secretes pheromones, and attracts a mate. But she's not...

More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato recounted the legend of the Ring of Gyges in "Republic." The story of the ring surfaces as the philosopher, Socrates, and his student discuss why people act justly: is it because...

As the Roman Empire flourished, Scandinavians had small settlements and no central government. Yet by the 11th century, they had spread far from Scandinavia, gaining control of trade routes throughout Europe, conquering kingdoms as far...