TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The Taino myth of the cursed creator | Bill Keegan
Before the world of humans began, there was the world of the gods. Four brothers wandered this celestial realm. One day, the brothers snuck into a spirit's house and spotted a giant gourd hanging in the corner. But as they tried to look...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The sibling rivalry that divided a town | Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer
One day a pair of brothers working together as shoemakers had an explosive fight that split the family business in two. Over the coming years, this disagreement divided their town— residents and businesses chose sides. Could such a...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The kingdom hidden in Brazil | Marc Adam Hertzman and Flavio dos Santos Gomes
In the 1600s, an expansive autonomous settlement called Palmares reached its height in Brazil. It was founded and led by people escaping from slavery, also called maroons. It was one of the world's largest maroon communities, its...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Does Time Exist? - Andrew Zimmerman Jones
The earliest time measurements were observations of cycles of the natural world, using patterns of changes from day to night and season to season to build calendars. More precise time-keeping eventually came along to put time in more...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How memories form and how we lose them - Catharine Young
Think back to a really vivid memory. Got it? Now try to remember what you had for lunch three weeks ago. That second memory probably isn't as strong-but why not? Why do we remember some things, and not others? And why do memories...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: When will the next mass extinction occur? - Borths, D'Emic, and Pritchard
About 66 million years ago, a terrible extinction event wiped out the dinosaurs. But it wasn't the only event of this kind -- extinctions of various severity have occurred throughout the Earth's history -- and are still happening all...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Does "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" have a hidden message? - David B. Parker
In his introduction to "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," L. Frank Baum claims that the book is simply an innocent children's story. But some scholars have found hidden criticisms of late-nineteenth-century economic policies in the book. Is...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can plants talk to each other? - Richard Karban
Can plants talk to each other? It certainly doesn't seem that way: They don't have complex sensory or nervous systems, like animals do, and they look pretty passive. But odd as it sounds, plants can communicate with each other "...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The sonic boom problem - Katerina Kaouri
Objects that fly faster than the speed of sound (like really fast planes) create a shock wave accompanied by a thunder-like noise: the sonic boom. These epic sounds can cause distress to people and animals and even damage nearby...
TED-Ed
Can you outsmart the apples and oranges fallacy? | Elizabeth Cox
It's 1997. The United States Senate has called a hearing about global warming. Some expert witnesses point out that past periods in Earth's history were warmer than the 20th century. Because such variations existed long before humans,...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How brain parasites change their host's behavior - Jaap de Roode
The biggest challenge in a parasite's life is to move from one host to another. Intriguingly, many parasites have evolved the ability to manipulate the behavior of their hosts to improve their own survival -- sometimes even by direct...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The fundamentals of space-time: Part 1 - Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie
Space is where things happen. Time is when things happen. And sometimes, in order to really look at the universe, you need to take those two concepts and mash them together. In this first lesson of a three-part series on space-time,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Solving the puzzle of the periodic table - Eric Rosado
How did the periodic table of elements revolutionize our understanding of the world? What scientists contributed to the table we have today? Eric Rosado discusses the key people and discoveries that have molded our understanding of...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The history of marriage - Alex Gendler
A white, puffy dress. Eternal love. A joint tax return. Marriage means something different to everyone and has changed over time and across cultures. Alex Gendler traces the history of getting hitched, providing insights on polygamy,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Blood, concrete, and dynamite: Building the Hoover Dam | Alex Gendler
In the early 20th century, the US had expanded from coast to coast, but many cities in the southwest still lacked reliable water sources. The Colorado River's erratic flow and frequent floods made it unreliable for agriculture, and the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How smart are dolphins? - Lori Marino
Dolphins are one of the smartest animal species on Earth. In fact, their encephalization quotient (their brain size compared to the average for their body size) is second only to humans. But exactly how smart are they? Lori Marino...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do the lungs work? - Emma Bryce
When you breathe, you transport oxygen to the body's cells to keep them working, while also clearing your system of the carbon dioxide that this work generates. How do we accomplish this crucial and complex task without even thinking...
TED-Ed
Can you solve the monster duel riddle? | Alex Gendler
You've come a long way to compete in the great Diskymon league and prove yourself a Diskymon master. Now that you've made it to the finals, you're up against some tough competition. In round one, you'll face a single opponent and get to...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why does ice float in water? - George Zaidan and Charles Morton
Water is a special substance for several reasons, and you may have noticed an important one right in your cold drink: ice. Solid ice floats in liquid water, which isn't true for most substances. But why? George Zaidan and Charles Morton...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The fundamentals of space-time: Part 3 - Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie
In the first two lessons of this series on space-time, we've dealt with objects moving at constant speeds, with straight world lines, in space-time. But what happens when you throw gravity into the mix? In this third and final lesson,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Ugly History: Cambodian Genocide | Timothy Williams
From 1975 to 1979, the Communist Party of Kampuchea ruled Cambodia with an iron fist, perpetrating a genocide that killed one fourth of the country's population. Roughly one million people were executed as suspected political enemies or...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Hawking's black hole paradox explained | Fabio Pacucci
Today, one of the biggest paradoxes in the universe threatens to unravel modern science: the black hole information paradox. Every object in the universe is composed of particles with unique quantum properties and even if an object is...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The dangerous race for the South Pole - Elizabeth Leane
By the early 1900’s, nearly every region of the globe had been visited and mapped, with only two key locations left: the North and South Poles. After two Americans staked claim to reaching the North Pole, a Norwegian explorer and a...
TED-Ed
Why are airplanes slower than they used to be? | Alex Gendler
In 1996, a British Airways plane flew from New York to London in a record-breaking two hours and fifty-three minutes. Today, however, passengers flying the same route can expect to spend no less than six hours in the air — twice as long....