TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Self-assembly: The power of organizing the unorganized - Skylar Tibbits
From something as familiar as our bodies to things vast as the formation of galaxies, we can observe the process of self-assembly, or when unordered parts come together in an organized structure. Skylar Tibbits explains how we see...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do our brains process speech? | Gareth Gaskell
The average 20-year-old knows between 27,000 and 52,000 different words. Spoken out loud, most of these words last less than a second. With every word, the brain has a quick decision to make: which of those thousands of options matches...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do vaccines work? - Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut
The first ever vaccine was created when Edward Jenner, an English physician and scientist, successfully injected small amounts of a cowpox virus into a young boy to protect him from the related (and deadly) smallpox virus. But how does...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can you solve the feeding frenzy riddle? | Henri Picciotto
As Numberland's best detective, you thought you'd seen it all. But the desiccated corpses of prominent natural numbers have been showing up all over the city. A lockdown is ordered from sundown to sunrise, and it's still not enough to...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why sitting is bad for you - Murat Dalkilinc
Sitting down for brief periods can help us recover from stress or recuperate from exercise. But nowadays, our lifestyles make us sit much more than we move around. Are our bodies built for such a sedentary existence? Murat Dalkilin�c...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why do women have periods?
A handful of species on Earth share a seemingly mysterious trait: a menstrual cycle. We're one of the select few mammals on Earth that menstruate, and we also do it more than any other animal, even though it's a waste of nutrients, and...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why can't we see evidence of alien life? - Chris Anderson
Stand by for an animated exploration of the famous Fermi Paradox. Given the vast number of planets in the universe, many much older than Earth, why haven't we yet seen obvious signs of alien life? The potential answers to this question...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Should we be looking for life elsewhere in the universe? - Aomawa Shields
As the number of _potentially habitable" planets that astronomers find continues to rise, we seem ever closer to answering the question, _Are we alone in the universe?" But should we be looking for life elsewhere? If we were to find life...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A day in the life of an ancient Peruvian shaman
The year is 1400 BCE. At the temple of the fisherman, the morning is unusually still and this is just the latest in a series of troubling signs for Quexo, the village shaman. The villagers live off the sea, but this year the winds have...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The wild sex lives of marine creatures | Luka Seamus Wright
On a reef in the Pacific Ocean, 17,000 camouflage groupers dart about in the cloudy water. It is, in fact, an underwater orgy— turned feeding frenzy. An orgy might seem like a rather flamboyant way to breed, but sex in the sea is a...
TED-Ed
3 bizarre (and delightful) ancient theories about bird migration | Lucy Cooke
In 1822, Count von Bothmer shot down a stork in Germany. However, the bird had already been impaled by a yard-long wooden spear. The stork had been speared in Africa and then flew over 2,500 km. This astonishing flight proved to be an...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How tsunamis work - Alex Gendler
The immense swell of a tsunami can grow up to 100 feet, hitting speeds over 500 mph -- a treacherous combination for anyone or anything in its path. Alex Gendler details the causes of these towering terrors and explains how scientists...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why are manhole covers round? - Marc Chamberland
Why are most manhole covers round? Sure it makes them easy to roll, and slide into place in any alignment. But there's another, more compelling reason, involving a peculiar geometric property of circles and other shapes. Marc Chamberland...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Claws vs. nails | Matthew Borths
Consider the claw. Frequently found on animals around the world, it's one of nature's most versatile tools. Bears use claws for digging as well as defense. An eagle's needle-like talons can pierce the skulls of their prey. Even the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The ingredient in almost everything you eat | Francesca Bot
Soybeans have been cultivated in Asia for thousands of years, and have since spread across the globe. Today, soy is in so many foods that most people consume it every day without even knowing it. So, what makes soybeans so versatile? And...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How the food you eat affects your brain - Mia Nacamulli
When it comes to what you bite, chew and swallow, your choices have a direct and long-lasting effect on the most powerful organ in your body: your brain. So which foods cause you to feel so tired after lunch? Or so restless at night? Mia...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Would winning the lottery make you happier? - Raj Raghunathan
Imagine winning a multi-million dollar lottery tomorrow. If you're like many of us, you'd be ecstatic, unable to believe your good luck. But would that joy still be there a few years later? Raj Raghunathan describes a phenomenon called...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The science of attraction - Dawn Maslar
Romantic chemistry is all about warm, gooey feelings that gush from the deepest depths of the heart-right? Not quite. Actually, the real boss behind attraction is your brain, which runs through a very quick, very complex series of...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: A poetic experiment: Walt Whitman, interpreted by three animators - Justin Moore
Take a journey through Walt Whitman's poem 'A Noiseless Patient Spider' with the help of three animators who each used a different animation style to bring this beautiful poem to life.
TED-Ed
Meet the bluefin tuna, the toughest fish in the sea | Grantly Galland and Raiana McKinney
What's as big as a polar bear, swallows its prey whole, and swims at forty miles an hour? It's not a shark or a killer whale... it's the Atlantic bluefin tuna— the largest and longest-lived of the 15 tuna species. Its unique set of...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The surprising reason you feel awful when you're sick - Marco A. Sotomayor
It starts with a tickle in your throat that becomes a cough. Your muscles begin to ache, you grow irritable, and you lose your appetite. It's official: you've got the flu. It's logical to assume that this miserable medley of symptoms is...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why is it so hard to cure ALS? - Fernando Vieira
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also called motor neuron disease and Lou Gehrig's Disease, affects about two out of every 100,000 people worldwide. When a person has ALS, their motor neurons - the cells responsible for all voluntary...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Is DNA the future of data storage? - Leo Bear-McGuinness
In the event of a nuclear fallout, every piece of digital and written information could all be lost. Luckily, there is a way that all of human history could be recorded and safely stored beyond the civilization's end. And the key...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How spontaneous brain activity keeps you alive - Nathan S. Jacobs
The wheels in your brain are constantly turning, even when you're asleep or not paying attention. In fact, most of your brain's activities are ones you'd never be aware of - unless they suddenly stopped. Nathan S. Jacobs takes us inside...