TED Talks
TED: A smarter, more precise way to think about public health | Sue Desmond-Hellmann
Sue Desmond-Hellmann is using precision public health -- an approach that incorporates big data, consumer monitoring, gene sequencing and other innovative tools -- to solve the world's most difficult medical problems. It's already helped...
TED Talks
TED: A secret weapon against Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases | Nina Fedoroff
Where did Zika come from, and what can we do about it? Molecular biologist Nina Fedoroff takes us around the world to understand Zika's origins and how it spread, proposing a controversial way to stop the virus -- and other deadly...
TED Talks
Chera Kowalski: The critical role librarians play in the opioid crisis
Public libraries have always been about more than just books -- and their mission of community support has taken on new urgency during the current opioid epidemic. After witnessing overdoses at her library in Philadelphia, Chera Kowalski...
SciShow
Can’t Sleep? Blame the Climate Crisis
Today, we bring you two surprising effects of the climate crisis: less sleep and more dying trees.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What we know (and don't know) about Ebola - Alex Gendler
The highly virulent Ebola virus has seen a few major outbreaks since it first appeared in 1976 -- with the worst epidemic occurring in 2014. How does the virus spread, and what exactly does it do to the body? Alex Gendler details what...
SciShow
Arctic Bison Mummy!
SciShow News explains how Wikipedia has been used to track, and even predict, outbreaks of disease all over the world, and then introduces you to the most complete naturally mummified bison ever found.
TED Talks
TED: How to end the pandemic -- and prepare for the next | Maria Van Kerkhove
We will get out of this pandemic, says Maria Van Kerkhove, the COVID-19 Technical Lead of the World Health Organization (WHO). The question is how fast -- and if we'll take what we've learned from the past two years and apply it to the...
TED Talks
Andrew Bastawrous: Get your next eye exam on a smartphone
Thirty-nine million people in the world are blind, and the majority lost their sight due to curable and preventable diseases. But how do you test and treat people who live in remote areas, where expensive, bulky eye equipment is hard to...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why do people join cults? - Janja Lalich
Today, there are thousands of cults around the world. Broadly speaking, a cult is a group or movement with a shared commitment to a usually extreme ideology that's typically embodied in a charismatic leader. But what exactly...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What causes headaches? - Dan Kwartler
In ancient Greece, the best-known remedy for a long-standing headache was to drill a small hole in the skull to drain supposedly infected blood. Fortunately, doctors today don't resort to power tools to cure headaches, but we still have...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What would happen if you didn't sleep? - Claudia Aguirre
In the United States, it's estimated that 30 percent of adults and 66 percent of adolescents are regularly sleep-deprived. This isn't just a minor inconvenience: staying awake can cause serious bodily harm. Claudia Aguirre shows what...
TED Talks
Mitch Zeller: The past, present and future of nicotine addiction
Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, killing more people each year than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murder and suicide combined. Follow health policy expert Mitch...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why do we harvest horseshoe crab blood? - Elizabeth Cox
During the warmer months, especially at night during the full moon, horseshoe crabs emerge from the sea to spawn. Waiting for them are teams of lab workers, who capture the horseshoe crabs by the hundreds of thousands, take them to labs,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Network theory - Marc Samet
From social media to massive financial institutions, we live within a web of networks. But how do they work? How does Googling a single word provide millions of results? Marc Samet investigates how these networks keep us connected and...
TED Talks
TED: In praise of conflict | Jonathan Marks
Conflict is bad; compromise, consensus and collaboration are good -- or so we're told. Lawyer and bioethicist Jonathan Marks challenges this conventional wisdom, showing how governments can jeopardize public health, human rights and the...
TED Talks
Rishi Manchanda: What makes us get sick? Look upstream
Rishi Manchanda has worked as a doctor in South Central Los Angeles for a decade, where he’s come to realize: His job isn’t just about treating a patient’s symptoms, but about getting to the root cause of what is making them ill—the...
TED Talks
TED: Can light stop the coronavirus? | David Brenner
Far-UVC light is a type of ultraviolet light that kills microbes and viruses and, crucially, seems to be safe to use around humans. Radiation scientist David Brenner describes how we could use this light to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2,...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Will the ocean ever run out of fish? - Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Jennifer Jacquet
When most people think of fishing, we imagine relaxing in a boat and patiently reeling in the day's catch. But modern industrial fishing -- the kind that stocks our grocery shelves -- looks more like warfare. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What causes constipation? - Heba Shaheed
Visiting the bathroom is part of the daily human experience. But occasionally, constipation, a condition that causes a backup in your digestive system, strikes. In some especially uncomfortable cases, the food you eat can take several...
TED Talks
Stefan Larsson: What doctors can learn from each other
Different hospitals produce different results on different procedures. Only, patients don’t know that data, making choosing a surgeon a high-stakes guessing game. Stefan Larsson looks at what happens when doctors measure and share their...
TED Talks
Hadyn Parry: Re-engineering mosquitos to fight disease
In a single year, there are 200-300 million cases of malaria and 50-100 million cases of dengue fever worldwide. So: Why haven't we found a way to effectively kill mosquitos yet? Hadyn Parry presents a fascinating solution: genetically...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The treadmill's dark and twisted past - Conor Heffernan
The constant thud underneath your feet. The constrained space. The monotony of going nowhere fast. Running on a treadmill can certainly feel like torture, but did you know it was originally used for that very purpose? Conor Heffernan...
TED Talks
TED: How barbershops can keep men healthy | Joseph Ravenell
The barbershop can be a safe haven for black men, a place for honest conversation and trust -- and, as physician Joseph Ravenell suggests, a good place to bring up tough topics about health. He's turning the barbershop into a place to...
TED-Ed
A brief history of toilets | Francis de los Reyes
On sunny days, citizens of ancient Rome could be found exchanging news and gossip while attending to more urgent business at the public latrines. Today, most cultures consider trips to the restroom to be a more private occasion. But even...