South Korea is among the countries working to increase automation in the manufacturing sector, with some large companies seeing robots as a cost-effective way to replace expensive human labor. But how will the expansion of this...

A mysterious, chronic kidney disease is wreaking havoc on farm workers in Central America, particularly those who harvest sugar. Despite the risks, Salvadoran cane cutters continue the grueling work, pushed by economic troubles. Special...

Some 13,000 migrants, mainly from Africa, have landed in Italy so far this

year — three times the number from the same period in 2020. The str
uggle
for migrants doesn't end when they reach European shores. Senio
r...

At the tip of Cape Cod, the iconic summer getaway Provincetown has a small year-round population that swells when the weather gets nice, welcoming an estimated 4 to 5 million tourists every year. Businesses there depend on foreign...

The British city of Leicester has spent more than two months as the United Kingdom’s most notorious coronavirus hot spot. Its problems originally sprang from a district that houses garment factories -- where some unscrupulous owners have...

The post-World War II decades in Europe are sometimes called the Thirty Glorious Years. As those years wore on, tensions between East and West grew, and economic growth slowed or was unevenly distributed across Europe, protests and...

The March on Washington of 1963 is an enduring and widely-known event of the Civil Rights movement. But the March has its roots in an earlier planned March on Washington that didn't happen. In 1941, labor leader A. Philip Randolph began...

This week on SciShow News, toxic waste from an abandoned mine turned a river yellow, and new research shows that threatened fruit flies may have more diverse offspring.

Hank shares the latest developments in science, this week demystifying three freaky things in nature: the polar vortex, why some bugs are infertile, and how a chain can appear to defy gravity. You're welcome!

World War I was very hard on the Russian Empire. So hard, in fact, that it led to the end of the Russian Empire. As the global conflict ground on, Tsar Nicholas II faced increasing unrest at home. Today we'll learn about the Revolutions...

What mammal has the social life of an insect, the cold-bloodedness of a reptile, and the metabolism of a plant? Bald and buck-toothed, naked mole rats may not be pretty, but they are extraordinary. Thomas Park explains how mole rats'...

As we get into our unit on stratification, we inevitably return to our old friends, the three sociological paradigms. How to structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism each think about stratification?...

The United States can create a more humane immigration system; in fact, it's been done before, says policy analyst David J. Bier. Pointing to the historical success of the US guest worker program, which allows foreign workers to legally...

Corporations and big business have wrecked the environment, but disadvantaged communities living in "sacrifice zones" -- urban areas heavily polluted and poisoned by industry -- are paying the price, says climate justice leader Angela...

The first pairs of jeans were designed for durability; denim was constructed as a sturdy weave worn by sailors and miners. But over the course of the 20th century, as the demand for jeans has gone up, their durability has gone down....

In 2013, international migrants sent $413 billion home to families and friends — three times more than the total of global foreign aid (about $135 billion). This money, known as remittances, makes a significant difference in the lives of...

As the sun rises, something royal stirs inside a pile of firewood. It's the wasp queen; one of thousands who mated in late autumn and hibernated through the winter. Now she must emerge into the spring air to begin her reign. This queen...

When you work, you expect to be paid for it. Except, for millions of Americans employed across a range of industries like restaurants and construction, that's not always the case. Anthropologist Rebecca Galemba explores the...

Rising inequality and growing political instability are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory, says entrepreneur Nick Hanauer. In a visionary talk, he dismantles the mantra that "greed is good" -- an idea he describes as...

The legal system can seem like a complicated tangle of arcane rules and loopholes, and it can sometimes seem like it is designed to confuse. But it is possible, with the right application, for the legal system to rectify injustices....

Behind the everyday bargains we all love -- the $10 manicure, the unlimited shrimp buffet -- is a hidden world of forced labor to keep those prices at rock bottom. Noy Thrupkaew investigates human trafficking – which flourishes in the US...

Domestic workers are entrusted with the most precious aspects of people's lives -- they're the nannies, the elder-care workers and the house cleaners who do the work that makes all other work possible. Too often, they're invisible, taken...

Large clumps of wasps can occasionally be found on the tops of tall structures, and although you probably still don’t want to mess with them, these aren’t angry swarms—they’re actually super chill parties.

We make millions of online purchases daily, but who (or what) actually puts our items into packages? In this talk, Mick Mountz weaves a fascinating, surprisingly robot-filled tale of what happens inside a warehouse.