Sometimes called "W-sitting," this popular way for kids to plop in front of the TV has been stigmatized for decades. For most people, research indicates it's just fine. But a small percentage of W-sitters do have a problem.

Improving batteries is a tough problem, but it’s also an important one because in many ways the future of our planet also depends on the future of batteries. Luckily, scientists are on the case, figuring out ways to give this essential...

According to the fossil record, ancient humans usually had straight teeth, complete with wisdom teeth. In fact, the dental dilemmas that fuel the demand for braces and wisdom teeth extractions today appear to be recent developments. So,...

Paul Andersen introduces the concept of bioenergetics. He explains how living organisms utilize free energy in the Universe. He begins with a brief discussion of thermodynamics and Gibbs free energy. He then explains how reactions can...

This video is about the difference between complexity and entropy, and how complex things like life can arise from disorder. Thanks to Google Making and Science for supporting this series, and to Sean Carroll for...

Solar power is cheaper and more sustainable than our current coal-fueled power plants, so why haven't we made the switch? The real culprits here are the clouds, which make solar power difficult to control. Alexandros George Charalambides...

Baby brain, pregnancy brain, momnesia—the fogginess that can appear during pregnancy goes by many names, but memory loss is only one of the changes that occurs while the brain prepares for an upcoming baby.

Scientists have had to come up with some extreme ways to generate the extreme pressures needed to simulate the conditions at the cores of planets!

In this video Paul Andersen explains that the angular momentum of a system will be conserved as long as there is no net external torque. Both point objects and extended objects are covered along with several examples.

In this video Paul Andersen explains how Le Chatelier's Principle can be used to predict the effect of disturbances to equilibrium. When a reversible reaction is at equilibrium disturbances (in concentration, temperature, pressure,...

Reid Reimers expands your mind with an explanation of white holes -- celestial objects that almost definitely are not real things that can be found in nature. Except, we might have actually seen one.

Can we, as adults, grow new neurons? Neuroscientist Sandrine Thuret says that we can, and she offers research and practical advice on how we can help our brains better perform neurogenesis—improving mood, increasing memory formation and...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how disturbances to a reversible reaction at equilibrium affect the equilibrium constant and the reaction quotient. For example if the concentration is changed the reaction will move to reestablish...

Fair warning: After learning about dust mites, you may never want to sleep in your bed again.

Every star, black hole, human being, smartphone and atom are all constantly pulling on each other due to one force: gravity. So why don’t we feel pulled in billions of different directions? And is there anywhere in the universe where...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how humans have consumed energy through history and may consume energy in the future. Sources of energy have included food, animals, wood, wind, coal, oil, and natural gas. However non-renewable...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the second law of thermodynamics applies to reversible and irreversible processes. In a reversible process the net change in entropy is zero. In and irreversible process the entropy will always...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the pressure, volume, amount, and temperature of an ideal gas are related. Absolute zero of a gas can be determined by varying the temperature and measuring the corresponding volume of a gas...

In 1980, Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon bet $1,000 on a question with stakes that couldn't be higher: would the earth run out of resources to sustain a growing human population? They bet $200 on the price of five metals. If the price of a...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the perceived frequency of a source depends on the motion of both the source and the observer. As a source approaches an observer the frequency will increase and as it moves away it will...

In this video Paul Andersen discriminates between spontaneous (or thermodynamically favored) processes and those that are not spontaneous. A spontaneous process requires no external energy source. If the enthalpy change in a reaction...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how a sine or cosine wave can describe the position of the wave based on wavelength or wave period. A wave function can the position of a wave as a function or the amplitude and wavelength or the...

In this video Paul Andersen defines the rate of a reaction as the number of reactants that are consumed during a given period of time. The rate of the reaction can be affected by the type of reaction as well as the concentration,...

Africa’s Sahara desert is a prime location, some say, to build arrays of solar panels and wind turbines. But scientists are aware that building these structures can potentially have large-scale effects on the surrounding environment that...