The James Webb Telescope just took a photo of a newly discovered exoplanet. Exciting stuff but the raw image just looks like a small, faint dot—not a fully detailed world. The question is, just how big would a telescope need to be to...

Human language is an incredible thing: a combination of mouth sounds that we combine into words, sentences, poems, and constitutions. They carry meaning, emotion, and power. But underneath it all, language is really just physics. In this...

In 1995, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a top-secret, first-of-its-kind US spy satellite program was declassified, leading to the unexpected story of how former enemies would become scientific allies, and technology...

Life’s been around on Earth for at least 3.7 billion years. But for most of that time, it was incredibly boring — just simple little cells squirming around in water. It only got interesting in the last few hundred million years. And that...

Our appetite for meat is one of the greatest environmental challenges we face. Join me on a mind-blowing visit to UPSIDE Foods, the world's most advanced cultivated meat production facility, as we ask whether cultivated meat can deliver...

Scorpions are a frightening and deadly group of animals. But their venom is one of nature's most unique chemical cocktails. Here’s how scientists are using it for inspiration to design new medicines and pain killers.

Does any other creature on Earth undergo a life transformation as dramatic as the butterfly? I think not. Unfortunately, children's books about very hungry caterpillars skip all the COOL and WEIRD and GROSS stuff that happens along the...

Over 200 years ago, scientists were looking at sunlight through a prism when they noticed that part of the rainbow was missing. There were dark lines where there should have been colors. Since then, scientists have unlocked the secrets...

The idea of the lone genius creating everything isn’t just misleading. It’s harmful and wrong. Innovation thrives when people work together, and rather than nice linear paths, new ideas come from chance events and unexpected connections....

We may not know it, but averages affect our lives every day. Designers and manufacturers use averages to make our houses, cars, shoes and airline seats safer and more comfortable(ish). But calculating averages is way more complicated...

X is everywhere and it’s probably thanks to math. But why is x the symbol for the unknown?

When people picture New York City they see skyscrapers, subways, and a concrete jungle. But the Big Apple is really a seaside city built on an archipelago. In the wake of a century of industrial pollution and climate change-fueled...

At CERN, physicists are searching for answers to some of the biggest questions ever — like how the universe started and where everything comes from. To get one step closer to an answer, CERN scientists recreated the first moment after...

2023 was a wild year with everything from scorching temperatures to massive wildfires. Even with more renewable energy than ever, 2023’s climate data still seems really bad. So how should we think about climate change today? And what can...

There are hundreds of billions of planets in our galaxy. Scientists now think hundreds of millions of them have conditions where life could arise. What do scientists think are the best ways of reaching out to them? And why do some...

Where did life come from? It’s one of the biggest questions humans have ever asked — and the answer might be locked in ancient space rocks that were around before life began. To find out, NASA pulled off one of its most ambitious...

We know pollution is a problem on earth, but we’re filling space with our junk too. And if we don’t figure out a way to clean up space junk, we could end our interstellar dreams before they even get started. Today, we’re visiting some...

On April 8, 2024, the Moon’s shadow will fall on Earth, creating a total solar eclipse across North America, and if you have the chance to see it, you don’t want to miss it. It’s an amazing coincidence that total eclipses happen at all —...

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scientists have been constructing a cosmic measuring tape to measure the universe from our own backyard all the way to its ever-expanding edge: the cosmic distance ladder. In this video, we climb...

Predictive analytics uses math and historical data to make predictions about the future. It’s used in commerce, sports, politics, social media and tons of other places. And as it turns out, people have been using math to predict people’s...

We all know Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, right? Natural selection? But what about his lesser-know theory of evolution: sexual selection. Let’s talk about how animals like peacocks, whose eye-catching physical traits make them...

Would it surprise you to learn that fish and birds count in pretty much the same way that we do? And that infants can do math? Our animal brains deal with quantities in very specific ways, from quick counts of a few dots to how we...

Why do the same, self-repeating patterns appear in trees, rivers, lightning, and even our bodies? Is there some essential, hidden rule of nature that makes these intricate designs appear all over the place? Let’s talk about fractals.

Have you ever looked at a cloud and seen a face? Or the front of a car and seen a face? Or an electrical outlet and seen a face? You definitely have. We all see faces everywhere we look thanks to a fun quirk of the human brain called...