Scorpion venom and insect poison sound really deadly, but scientists are increasingly turning them into medical treatments that save millions of lives. Chapters CAPTOPRIL 1:18 SOUTH AMERICAN PIT VIPER Credit: Renato Augusto Martins 1:33...

In the 1950s, the discovery of two new drugs sparked what would become a multi-billion dollar market for antidepressants. Neither drug was intended to treat depression at all— many doctors and scientists believed psychotherapy was the...

Anyone who has lost a loved one to pancreatic cancer knows the devastating speed with which it can affect an otherwise healthy person. TED Fellow and biomedical entrepreneur Laura Indolfi is developing a revolutionary way to treat this...

Most people will take a pill, receive an injection, or otherwise take some kind of medicine during their lives. But most of us don't know anything about how these substances actually work. How can various compounds impact the way we...

In the 1930s, a mistake that cost over a hundred lives helped usher in a new era of safer medicine.

You might have noticed that lots of drugs have special children’s formulas, and you might think that’s because smaller people need smaller doses. But you’d be wrong! Because kids aren’t just tiny adults.

It's relatively easy to imagine a new medicine -- the hard part is testing it, and that can delay promising new cures for years. In this well-explained talk, Geraldine Hamilton shows how her lab creates organs and body parts on a chip,...

You've probably heard how some drugs and treatments make people feel better, even when they turn out to be fake. That's the placebo effect, but how does it work? And could the same effect backfire, causing your brain to make you feel...

Cocaine addiction is difficult to treat, but with the help of gene therapy, scientists are hoping to change that

In 1960, Frances Kelsey was one of the Food and Drug Administration's newest recruits. Before the year was out, she would begin a fight that would save thousands of lives - though no one knew it at the time. Andrea Tone explains how...

Every so often, a headline pops up comparing cheese to cocaine. The reality of the situation is far more complex—and a lot less dire—than these articles might suggest.

Coming up with brand new drugs is all about pinpointing and exploiting a disease’s weakness. A big part of perfecting drug design will be learning to predict how proteins get their shapes because that has everything to do with how both...

In the African grasslands, a gazelle suffering from tuberculosis takes its last breath. The animal's corpse threatens to infect the water, but for the vulture, this isn't a problem: it's a feast. With a stomach of steel that can digest...

Dr. Genevieve Lind explains how she uses frog eggs to learn how drugs affect receptors in the brain and Jessi's chicken Goldie shows us one use for the cloaca.

4000 years ago, the ancient Sumerians made a surprising discovery: if they scraped the bark off a particular kind of tree and ate it, their pain disappeared. Little did they know that what they'd found was destined to influence the...

Chemistry is the study of matter - stuff, and how it interacts with other stuff. Even though chemistry doesn't make a lot of news these days, chemists are making discoveries that change lives all the time. If Hank had to narrow down all...

How worried should you be when your urine isn't yellow, but instead it's green, red, or even black?

It might sound like a concept from science fiction, but artificial intelligence is already facilitating the development process behind some pharmaceuticals.

You might have heard that we found a cure for the COVID-19, and that it comes from a drug we've used for centuries. But let's take a breath and look at the facts.

The ozone appears to be healing itself but there's still plenty of research to be done to stay green! -And researchers are wanting to study MDMA.

We may be living IN a simulation (according to Elon Musk and many others), but that doesn't mean we don't need to perform simulations ourselves. Today, we're going to talk about good experimental design and how we can create controlled...

If you’ve taken prescription medication, have you ever noticed the strange disclaimer, "don't take with grapefruit juice"? There is a very good reason for that! Hank Green explains in this episode of SciShow Quick Questions!

How do cancer cells grow? How does chemotherapy fight cancer (and cause negative side effects)? The answers lie in cell division. George Zaidan explains how rapid cell division is cancer's "strength" -- and also its weakness.

Ever wonder what happens after you flush? You should, because your pee is causing problems! Hank talks about how, and why, human waste is having weird effects on the natural world. We're talking homicidal fish and hermaphroditic frogs...