TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The tech that seems to break the laws of physics | Anna Rothschild
Typically, with any piece of technology, you pump one unit of energy in and you get about one out. That’s just the first law of thermodynamics: energy has to be conserved. But there’s a piece of technology called a heat pump, where for...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can you solve the basketball robot riddle? | Dan Katz
You’ve spent months creating a basketball-playing robot, the Dunk-O-Matic, and you’re excited to demonstrate its capabilities. Until you read an advertisement: “See the Dunk-O-Matic face human players and automatically adjust its skill...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Scientists are obsessed with this lake | Nicola Storelli and Daniele Zanzi
In the millions of years since oxygen began saturating Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, most organisms have evolved to rely on this gas. However, there are some places where oxygen-averse microorganisms like those from Earth’s earliest...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do gas masks actually work? | George Zaidan
You might think of gas masks as clunky military-looking devices. But in the near future, we may need to rely on these filters as part of our everyday lives. In addition to emerging diseases, wildfire frequency has more than tripled, and...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Does math have a major flaw? | Jacqueline Doan and Alex Kazachek
A mathematician with a knife and ball begins slicing and distributing the ball into an infinite number of boxes. She then recombines the parts into five precise sections. Moving and rotating these sections around, she recombines them to...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Could we build a miniature sun on Earth? | George Zaidan
Stars have cores hot and dense enough to force atomic nuclei together, forming larger, heavier nuclei in a process known as fusion. In this process, the mass of the end products is slightly less than the mass of the initial atoms. But...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: These animals can hear everything | Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard
The world is always abuzz with sounds, many of which human ears simply can’t hear. However, other species have extraordinary adaptations that grant them access to realms of sonic extremes. And some of them don’t even have ears— at least,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Surviving the coldest place on Earth | Nadia Frontier
The vast, white surface of Antarctica stretches for over 3 million square kilometers. On the coast of this expanse, just a few meters beneath the ice, lies a remarkably diverse realm that is home to over 8,000 species of sea denizens who...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Something weird is happening in our galaxy | Ashkbiz Danehkar
In 2010, NASA announced the discovery of a never-before-seen galactic object: two gigantic gaseous bubbles, each emanating an impressive 25,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers were perplexed: what created these...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Ethical dilemma: What makes life worth living? | Douglas MacLean
Life on your planet depends entirely on Nuronium for normal cognition. Unfortunately, its source has been compromised and you are now at risk of extinction. Scientists have found an alternate energy source, Polixate, but it can't sustain...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The largest river on Earth is actually in the sky | Iseult Gillespie
The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, exists between two rivers — but not in the way you might think. At ground level, the Amazon River and its tributaries weave their path. But above the canopy, bigger waterways are on the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to make smart decisions more easily | TED-Ed
Everything our bodies do— whether physical or mental— uses energy. Studies have found that many individuals seem to have a daily threshold for making decisions, and an extended period of decision-making can lead to cognitive exhaustion....
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What really killed the dinosaurs? (It wasn’t just the asteroid) | Sean P. S. Gulick
Sixty-six million years ago, near what’s now the Yucatán Peninsula, a juvenile sauropod feasted on horsetail plants on a riverbank. Earth was a tropical planet. Behemoth and tiny dinosaurs alike soared its skies and roamed its lands...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The one thing stopping jellyfish from taking over | Mariela Pajuelo and Javier Antonio Quinones
Over the past two decades, jellyfish have begun to overwhelm our oceans. If things stay on their current trajectory, we could be headed for a future where the entire ocean is thick with jellyfish. So, is there anything that can keep...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Whoever builds something here will be rich beyond measure | Fabio Pacucci
Since the 1950s, governments, companies, and researchers have been planting flags among the stars. But while it might seem like there's plenty of room in space, some pieces of celestial real estate are more valuable than others. As far...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can you solve the time traveling car riddle? | Daniel Finkel
You and the professor have driven your DeLorean back to the past to fix issues with the spacetime continuum caused by your time traveling. But another DeLorean appears with older versions of you and the professor. The professors panic...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why did Megalodon go extinct? | Jack Cooper and Catalina Pimiento
20 million years ago, the ocean housed a creature so colossal that its stomach could reach volumes of almost 10,000 liters— big enough to fit an entire orca. It was the megalodon, the biggest shark to ever live. So, what was it like when...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What's happening to Earth's core? | Shannon Odell
A hydrogen atom is traveling high within the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere. This particular atom first entered the exosphere millions of years ago, but today it overcomes Earth's gravitational pull and escapes, joining the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can you solve the cursed dice riddle? | Dan Finkel
Ah, spring. As Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, it's your favorite season. Humans and animals look to you to balance the bounty of the natural world which, like any self-respecting Goddess, you do with a pair of magical dice. But then,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How the water you flush becomes the water you drink | Francis de los Reyes
In 2003, Singapore's national water agency launched an unprecedented program to provide more than 50% of their nation's water supply by recycling wastewater. The program had been planned for decades to ensure the island nation never ran...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What happens if you don't put your phone in airplane mode? | Lindsay DeMarchi
Right now, invisible signals are flying through the air all around you. Massive radio waves carry information between computers, GPS systems, cell phones, and more. And the sky is flooded with interference from routers, satellites, and,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Who is the fastest creature in mythology? | Iseult Gillespie
It's time for the Myth Olympics: the eternal arena in which creatures and deities compete for glory. Almost every mythical tradition claims one creature as the fastest— from goddesses who run like the wind to creatures who outstrip every...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Whatever happened to the hole in the ozone layer? | Stephanie Honchell Smith
In the 1980s, the world faced a huge problem: there was a rapidly expanding hole in the ozone layer. If it continued to grow, rates of skin cancer could skyrocket, photosynthesis would be impaired, agricultural production would plummet,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The most important century in human history | TED-Ed
Is it possible that this century is the most important one in human history? The 21st century has already proven to be a period of rapid growth. We're on the cusp of developing new technologies that could entirely change the way people...