In 2009, a satellite circled Earth, scanning and sorting the wavelengths reflecting off the planet's surface. Researchers noticed something baffling: an unexpected wavelength of unknown origin. They tried looking at Earth with only this...

We need to eat food to fuel our bodies, but this special slug, called emerald elysia, can make food using sunlight - just like plants do!



All organisms have external parts. Different animals use their body parts in...

You might think of plate tectonics as destructive since it's the ultimate force behind earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. But the slow movement of our planet's surface does a lot more than shake things up now and then. Some...

For most of the year, the Gulf of Mexico is teeming with marine life, from tiny crustaceans to massive whales. But every summer, disaster strikes. Around May, animals begin to flee the area. And soon, creatures that can't swim or can't...

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on inputs, processes and outputs in a system.

T
ERMS:
System models - a representation o
f a system
Interactions - reciprocal (two-way) acti
on...

Selecting which solution is the best solution to a problem may seem difficult at first. But if you are patient and think about what you need an effective solution to be, you can do it. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina shows...

So we know what life needs here to work, and we've talked a little about what life COULD look like on other planets. But what about plant life? What could plant life look like on other planets? In this episode of Crash Course Kids,...

The nara melon is as juicy as any other, so how is it able to grow in the hyper-arid Namib desert?

You know, it's probably best to just not put snow in your mouth regardless of color.

Every spring, around 20% of the population enters the season of sniffles, and some years are worse than others. But lately, there just don’t seem to be any better years because the different effects of climate change seem to be working...

Although plants are great carbon-removing tools, plant agriculture produces a significant carbon footprint. So, some researchers think we could turn to the oceans (specifically, seaweed) to help reverse some of the effects of climate...

Hank introduces us to ecology - the study of the rules of engagement for all of us earthlings - which seeks to explain why the world looks and acts the way it does. The world is crammed with things, both animate and not, that have been...

Some lizards will lose a tail to avoid becoming a meal, but there's more than one reason for animals to self-amputate.

Plants are amazing. Really! Photosynthesis is an incredible thing. But it also means that some plants can't live everywhere. They need to get the right amount of sunlight for the right amount of time. In this episode of Crash Course...

In 1986, a prospecting crew in southern Romania was looking for a good place to build a geothermal power plant, when they accidentally discovered one of the oddest caves of all

In this video Paul Andersen explains the topic of biogeology. Life only exists where the geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere allow life to exist. The interactions between the organisms on the planet and the planet itself is known as...

Scientists are turning wastewater into fuel, using special bacteria, and other scientists have unveiled bionic mushrooms that can produce electricity!

You’d never tell just by staring out from a sandy beach, but the coasts are gradually getting darker, and the effects of this darkening are only beginning to be understood.

There are incredible creatures living in the ocean that have the power to reshape the planet’s atmosphere - and you’ve probably never even seen them before. These microscopic critters are called phytoplankton, and almost all life, both...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how you can drive non spontaneous processes by adding external energy (like electricity or light) or by coupling it to a spontaneous process (like the conversion of ATP to ADP)

Get introduced to protists and fungi with the Amoeba Sisters! This video explores basic cell type, mode of feeding, habitat examples, and ecology of both protists and fungi. This video also mentions a few examples of how protists and...

There's an organism that changed the world. It caused the first mass extinction in Earth's history and also paved the way for complex life. How? Anusuya Willis explains how cyanobacteria, simple organisms that don't even have nuclei or...

Scientists conduct some pretty cool research experiments for Mars here on Earth. These terrestrial analogues have revealed some incredible discoveries!

Reaching heights of over 100 meters, Californian sequoias tower over Earth's other 60,000 tree species. But even these behemoths seem to have their limits: no sequoia on record has been able to grow taller than 130 meters. So what...