TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to squeeze electricity out of crystals - Ashwini Bharathula
It might sound like science fiction, but if you press on a crystal of sugar, it will actually generate its own electricity. This simple crystal can act like a tiny power source because sugar happens to be piezoelectric. Ashwini...
TED-Ed
Demolition, disease, and death: Building the Panama Canal | Alex Gendler
In the 19th century, the California gold rush brought thousands of settlers to America's west coast. But finding gold may have been easier than transporting it back east. The only hope for avoiding a grueling six month wagon journey was...
MinutePhysics
What Is The Shape of Space? (ft. PhD Comics)
A collaboration with Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson, check out "We Have No Idea" at http://www.wehavenoidea.com Jorge's PhDComics: http://www.phdcomics.com This video is about the local and global geometry and curvature of space and...
TED Talks
TED: How we can design timeless cities for our collective future | Vishaan Chakrabarti
There's a creeping sameness in many of our newest urban buildings and streetscapes, says architect Vishaan Chakrabarti. And this physical homogeneity -- the result of regulations, mass production, safety issues and cost considerations,...
Crash Course
The Future of Clean Energy: Crash Course Engineering #31
This week we are exploring alternative energy sources. We'll look at how biomass can be burned as a fuel source, how hydrogen can be used in a fuel cell to generate electrical power, and how nuclear fission provides power to the grid....
Crash Course
How Not to Set Your Pizza on Fire: Crash Course Engineering #15
Today we’re going to explain how exchangers...exchange heat. We’ll look at concentric tubes, finned tubes, plate heat exchangers, and shell-and-tube heat exchangers. And we’ll look at some equations to help us sort through heat transfer...
MinutePhysics
The "Mountain Or Valley?" Illusion
This video is about a multistable perceptual illusion, similar to the hollow face illusion, whereby maps or aerial or satellite photos look upside down/inside out, ie, concave (valley) parts look convex and convex (mountainous) parts...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The real story behind Archimedes' Eureka! - Armand D'Angour
When you think of Archimedes' Eureka moment, you probably imagine a man in a bathtub, right? As it turns out, there's much more to the story. Armand D'Angour tells the story of Archimedes' biggest assignment -- an enormous floating...
TED Talks
TED: A vision of sustainable housing for all of humanity | Vishaan Chakrabarti
By 2100, the UN estimates that the world's population will grow to just over 11 billion people. Architect Vishaan Chakrabarti wants us to start thinking about how we'll house all these people -- and how new construction can fight climate...
TED Talks
TED: Your kids might live on Mars. Here's how they'll survive | Stephen Petranek
It sounds like science fiction, but journalist Stephen Petranek considers it fact: within 20 years, humans will live on Mars. In this provocative talk, Petranek makes the case that humans will become a spacefaring species and describes...
Bozeman Science
Practice 7 - Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Paul Andersen explains the importance of argumentation in improving both understanding and design. This video begins with a discussion of the heliocentric and geocentric model of the Universe that eventually lead to the Copernican...
Crash Course
The Law of Conservation: Crash Course Engineering #7
Today Shini explains the law of conservation, beginning with simple, steady-state systems. We’ll discuss conversion and yield, accumulation, and how generation and consumption can affect how much accumulation there is in a system.
TED-Ed
How one design flaw almost toppled a skyscraper | Alex Gendler
In 1978, Diane Hartley was writing her undergraduate architecture thesis when she made a shocking discovery. After weeks of poring over the Citicorp Center's building plans, she'd stumbled on an oversight that threatened to topple the...
TED Talks
TED: How CRISPR lets us edit our DNA | Jennifer Doudna
Geneticist Jennifer Doudna co-invented a groundbreaking new technology for editing genes, called CRISPR-Cas9. The tool allows scientists to make precise edits to DNA strands, which could lead to treatments for genetic diseases ... but...
MinutePhysics
Why Do Compressed Air Cans Get Cold?
This video is about compressed air cans (aka gas dusters) and why they get cold when you spray them. They cool off because the refrigerant inside (1,1-difluoroethane) is under pressure and boils off when the pressure lowers, and energy...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Meet the tardigrade, the toughest animal on Earth - Thomas Boothby
Without water, a human can only survive for about 100 hours. But there's a creature so resilient that it can go without it for decades. This 1-millimeter animal can survive both the hottest and coldest environments on earth, and can even...
TED Talks
Adam Sadowsky: How to engineer a viral music video
The band OK Go dreamed up the idea of a massive Rube Goldberg machine for their next music video -- and Adam Sadowsky's team was charged with building it. He tells the story of the effort and engineering behind their labyrinthine...
Crash Course Kids
Fixing Failure Points
Now that we've talked about failure points, let's talk about how to fix them. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina shows us how to set up models and trails to find and fix failure points.
TED Talks
Melissa Marshall: Talk nerdy to me
Melissa Marshall brings a message to all scientists (from non-scientists): We're fascinated by what you're doing. So tell us about it -- in a way we can understand. In just 4 minutes, she shares powerful tips on presenting complex...
MinutePhysics
Quantum SHAPE-SHIFTING: Neutrino Oscillations
Thanks to the Heising-Simons Foundation for supporting this video: http://www.heisingsimons.org CRAZY Double Pendulum Footnote: https://youtu.be/gbJYK7q5ejY This video is about the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations, which is where...
Crash Course Kids
Succeed by Failing
We all know that failure is bad... but is it? Actually, Engineers need things to fail so they can understand how to make things better. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina chats to us about failure points and how they can help...
TED Talks
Erik Schlangen: A "self-healing" asphalt
Paved roads are nice to look at, but they're easily damaged and costly to repair. Erik Schlangen demos a new type of porous asphalt made of simple materials with an astonishing feature: When cracked, it can be "healed" by induction heating.
TED Talks
TED: What happens when biology becomes technology? | Christina Agapakis
We've been promised a future of chrome -- but what if the future is fleshy? asks biological designer Christina Agapakis. In this awe-inspiring talk, Agapakis details her work in synthetic biology -- a multidisciplinary area of research...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How does your smartphone know your location? - Wilton L. Virgo
GPS location apps on a smartphone can be very handy when mapping a travel route or finding nearby events. But how does your smartphone know where you are? Wilton L. Virgo explains how the answer lies 12,000 miles over your head, in an...