We've all experienced the sunk cost fallacy: when you are deep into a task and tell yourself that you’ve come this far, so you may as well finish it. We do this even if it's no longer logical to finish. So why do we do it?

You might have stumbled onto those videos of people cutting sand for 10 minutes or of machines doing a repetitive task and felt an odd sense of satisfaction while watching them. Today, we look at the psychology behind those "oddly...

UPDATE: We got a couple of things wrong when it comes to gravity (particularly that it has nothing to do with photons). Science is working tirelessly night and day to disprove its own theories about how the universe works (or at least,...

Have you ever done something that required a ton of concentration, like threading a needle, and noticed that sometimes your tongue pokes out involuntarily? It turns out this reflex could be a leftover from the evolution of human language!

Why is RNA just as cool as DNA? Join the Amoeba Sisters as they compare and contrast RNA with DNA and learn why DNA should be sharing the limelight! Table of Contents: 00:00 Intro 0:54 Similarities of DNA and RNA 1:35 Contrasting DNA and...

Have you noticed how the full moon looks bigger on the horizon than high overhead? Actually, the two images are exactly the same size -- so why do we perceive them differently? Scientists aren't sure, but there are plenty of intriguing...

A mini-lesson on observational patterns.

Hank gets to the bottom of two studies reporting high sea ice coverage and snowmass in Antarctica in the same year that the Arctic has reported a record low of sea ice. What is going on here?

Explore speciation with The Amoeba Sisters. This video discusses sympatric and allopatric speciation and covers several types of isolation types including behavioral, temporal, and habitat isolations. Table of Contents: Intro 00:00...

Explore how substances travel in diffusion with the Amoeba Sisters! This video uses a real life example and mentions concentration gradients, passive transport, facilitated diffusion, and explains why diffusion is critical for all...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how to have your students engage in argumentation in the science classroom.

Winter: It's that time of year when you're out for a stroll and maybe miss a hidden patch of ice and fall flat on your butt. Why you gotta play us this way, ice?

Explore DNA structure/function, chromosomes, genes, and traits and how this relates to heredity! Video can replace old DNA structure & function video and in addition covers foundational concepts of heredity. Table of Contents: Video...

Przybylski’s Star has been puzzling astronomers for decades, and it might contain elements or isotopes that scientists have never seen before!

Last week we introduced Thomas Aquinas’s four cosmological arguments for the existence of god; today we introduce his fifth argument: the teleological argument, and the ensuing dialogue it initiated.

Explore chromosomes and karyotypes with the Amoeba Sisters! This video explains chromosome structure, how chromosomes are counted, why chromosomes are important, and how they can be arranged in a karyotype! This video also tackles a few...

Explore the cell cycle with the Amoeba Sisters and an important example of when it is not controlled: cancer. Table of Contents: 00:00 Intro 1:00 Cell Growth and Cell Reproduction 1:42 Cancer (explaining uncontrolled cell growth) 3:27...

The Amoeba Sisters explain enzymes and how they interact with their substrates. Vocabulary covered includes active site, induced fit, coenzyme, and cofactor. Also the importance of ideal pH and temperatures for enzymes are discussed.

Discover what happens when random events meet allele frequencies: genetic drift! This Amoeba Sisters video also discusses the bottleneck and founder effect as well as contrasts genetic drift with natural selection. Table of Contents:...

Could we have a possible 9th Planet? Hank Green tells us what we think we know with this elusive object.

We continue our look at philosophical reasoning by introducing two more types: induction and abduction. Hank explains their strengths and weaknesses, as well as counterarguments and the Socratic method.

Chat with a friend about an established scientific theory, and she might reply, "Well, that's just a theory." But a conversation about an established scientific law rarely ends with "Well, that's just a law." Why is that? What is the...

In this video Paul Andersen explains the nature of science. He describes how science is a way of knowing about the natural world. Scientists develop investigations to gather evidence and make explanations about how the natural world...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the CER framework can be used to give explanations in a science classroom. In order to make a complete explanation a Claim must be supported by Evidence and Reasoning connecting the evidence to...