Exhausted from carrying water up a hill to keep her small farm in Kenya thriving, Josephine Waweru received an unexpected call that offered a nearly unbelievable solution. She shares how one simple device allowed her crops (and her...

There's a tree species that used to be all over the world. And now, they can only be found in a secret valley in the mountains in Australia. This is the story of the rise and fall of the Wollemi Pine, including how some new tech might...

Every day, airplanes fly over the Panama-Colombia border and drop millions of flies from the sky. It's part of an intense effort to control a deadly pest called screwworms, and believe it or not, it works.



Hosted by: Stefan...

Sharing his accidental journey to viral fame, digital pioneer Joshua Schachter reveals how programming a robot to make deliberate mistakes in otherwise deeply satisfying plotter art sparked millions of views (and hilariously strong...

Look around — almost everything you see was manufactured, from baby formula to AI data centers and beyond. Yet we rarely think about how it’s all made. Factory fixer Lauren Dunford pulls back the curtain on modern manufacturing,...

From cosmetics to nutrition, collagen is seemingly everywhere — but we don't often discuss its ethically questionable sources, says chemical engineer Fei Luo. She delves into the groundbreaking technology that uses genetically modified...

Mount Teide is one of the world’s largest active volcanoes, and there may be a way to use the basalt rock inside it to save humanity. Obviously, destroying an ancient volcano would cause catastrophic and unpredictable ecological fallout....

Amir Nizar Zuabi and Kristine McDivitt Tompkins discuss their shared concerns about humanity's lack of compassion and the interconnected crises of climate change, social injustice, and species extinction. Zuabi reflects on storytelling...

The future of Telegram remains uncertain as it faces legal challenges and regulatory scrutiny from multiple governments. While the platform has adopted a combative stance, its model—offering partially open communication but resisting...

Currently, governments individually regulate platforms like Telegram within their jurisdictions, leading to fragmented oversight despite the global nature of these platforms. This raises questions about how to create a balanced...

It's time for our periodic update of good news from Angus Hervey, founder of Fix the News, an independent publication that reports stories of global progress. In a quick talk, he shares three major updates of recent human progress on...

Thanks to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope for supporting this video! In particular, thanks to Dan Coe of STScI for taking the time to chat with me about what we do and don't know about...

Pot Theft (A Radiolab Adventure)

In the millions of years since oxygen began saturating Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, most organisms have evolved to rely on this gas. However, there are some places where oxygen-averse microorganisms like those from Earth’s earliest...

Whether or not you believe the world is doomed might depend on where you get your news, says journalist Angus Hervey. He delivers stories of progress that mainstream media organizations missed last year — from advances in clean energy to...

Natural history is full of living things that were long thought to have gone extinct only to show up again, alive and well. Paleontologists have a word for these kinds of organisms: They call them Lazarus taxa.

What would happen to humanity if generosity went viral? Sharing transformative stories from around the world, head of TED Chris Anderson outlines why the time has come for the internet to realize its power to supercharge small acts of...

Chantale Zuzi Leader is one of the millions of displaced people around the world. In a deeply moving talk, she reflects on losing her family, home and sense of safety — only to break through and ultimately find community and hope. It's...

Theater has the power to transform the most pressing issues of our time from news stories into human stories, says director and playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi. Recounting his work on the journey of Little Amal — a 13-foot puppet symbolizing...

We underestimate the power of our own generous actions, says Asha Curran, CEO of the global generosity movement GivingTuesday. Sharing stories of people making a difference through simple acts of kindness, she shows how generosity, even...

Social progress in the United States often seems to take two steps forward and one step back, with hard-fought civil rights wins countered by a seemingly inevitable backlash. In this spirited talk, writer Charles M. Blow makes the case...

By the mid-1700s, many Plains nations survived on North America’s largest land mammals: bison. They ate its meat, made the hides into winter coats and blankets, and used the bones and horns for tools. But in the following decades,...

Figuring out the age of a blinking speck in the sky is a difficult feat, especially if considering how many types of stars there are. This is where a Hertzsprung-Russell meets a gyrochronologist.

Astrophysicists have discovered a black hole that for millions of years has been blasting vast particle beams in opposite directions across the sky. And has recently swiveled to point its one of these jets directly at us. Is this an...