You know nothing.

Have you heard of Alexander von Humboldt? Not likely. The geologist turned South American explorer was a bit of an 18th century super scientist, traveling over 24,000 miles to understand the relationship between nature and habitat....

There’s no denying that fungus is all around us all the time. And not all of it is helpful, but neither is all of it harmful. Here are some of the many functions of fungi.

Camels are famous for adaptations that have allowed them to flourish where most other large mammals would perish. But their story begins over 40 million years ago in North America, and in an environment you'd never expect: a rainforest.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest on Earth, and yet there are no sea snake populations to be found there. What’s keeping aquatic serpents from making a home in these waters?

A skyrocketing demand for food means that agriculture has become the largest driver of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental destruction. Jonathan Foley shows why we desperately need to begin "terraculture" -- farming for...

Sometimes, species end up in places we wouldn't expect, like when the same or very similar species end up on opposite parts of the globe. It's called disjunct distribution, and here are 6 ways that it can happen.

Fifty years of armed conflict in Colombia has left the countryside riddled with land mines that maim and kill innocent people who happen across them. To help keep communities safe from harm, TED Resident Carlos Bautista is developing an...

The story of sloths is one of astounding ecological variability, with some foraging in the seas, others living underground, and others still hiding from predators in towering cliffs. So why are their only living relatives in the trees?

Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture...

There are creatures who get some super important and recognizable part of their biology from their diets.

When Andres Ruzo was a young boy in Peru, his grandfather told him a story with an odd detail: There is a river, deep in the Amazon, which boils as if a fire burns below it. Twelve years later, after training as a geoscientist, he set...

What is it about snakes that intrigues us so much? Is it their deadly venom, their spongey mouths, or their international travel?

Jen Fowler of the Montana Space Grant Consortium joins us this week to talk about her work with weather balloons and the upcoming solar eclipse, and Jessi from Animal Wonders brings along Gaia the Southern Three-Banded Armadillo!

Imagine you're a shipwrecked sailor adrift in the enormous Pacific. You can choose one of three directions and save yourself and your shipmates -- but each choice comes with a fearful consequence too. How do you choose? In telling the...

SciShow News shares the latest insights into two powerful natural forces: El Nino and barfing.

All animals have adaptations that help them survive in the wild...some just focus more on back-end development than others. Whether for offense, defense, or both, here are five creatures with butt-kicking behinds!

While we can’t explore every cultural trait in the world, language is an important system of spoken, signed, or written symbols humans use to express themselves. It’s a major marker of identity that often unites members of the same...

Around the world, hundreds of thousands of lost ancient sites lie buried and hidden from view. Satellite archaeologist Sarah Parcak is determined to find them before looters do. With the 2016 TED Prize, Parcak is building an online...

"An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport," argues Enrique Peñalosa. In this spirited talk, the mayor of Bogotá shares some of the tactics he used to change the...

Before she left for Chicago, Emily Graslie of The Brain Scoop sat down with Hank to discuss one of her favorite skulls from the from the Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum. Then Jessi Knudsen Castañeda from Animal Wonders joined in with...

Sloths spend most of their time eating, resting, or sleeping; in fact, they descend from their treetops canopies just once a week, for a bathroom break. How are these creatures so low energy? Kenny Coogan describes the physical and...

Unless you saw the spider bite you, that swollen, bite-looking lesion on your arm is probably something else, and blaming it on an innocent 8-legged critter might do more harm than good.

Jaime Lerner reinvented urban space in his native Curitiba, Brazil. Along the way, he changed the way city planners worldwide see what's possible in the metropolitan landscape.