The Brodie helmet, widely used during the first World War, had some serious design flaws, . But thanks to those flaws we now have a staggeringly accurate map of the brain.

If you happen to be a frequenter of urinals, odds are you've seen one that has a little block at the bottom of it. But what does it do and why are you peeing on it?!

They don’t call water the building block of life for nothing, most living things need it. The palo verde tree, however, has managed to skate by needing it a lot less than the rest of us.

All octopuses start out as teeny, tiny plankton, and most grow up to settle down on the seafloor. The blanket octopus, however, never settles down, and spends its life wandering the open ocean.

Hank gives you five MORE reasons why you should probably avoid smoking, or quit if you already smoke - in addition to those big ones you already know about. These are the weird reasons.

The universe started with a bang -- but how will it end? With astonishing visuals, cosmologist and TED Fellow Katie Mack takes us to the theoretical end of everything, some trillions of years in the future, in a profound meditation on...

Logarithms are confusing, but perhaps some alternate notation could make them more intuitive.

We have over 600 muscles in our bodies that help bind us together, hold us up, and help us move. Your muscles also need your constant attention, because the way you treat them on a daily basis determines whether they will wither or grow....

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could breathe underwater? But is it even possible?

13,000 years ago, North America seemed to be thawing from a 2.6 million-year ice age. Then, a huge swath of Earth was suddenly plunged back into the cold for 1,000 years. To understand why we need to talk about megafloods.

Einstein predicted their existence 101 years ago, and now it's official: we've detected gravitational waves directly for the first time ever!

As Numberland's best detective, you thought you'd seen it all. But the desiccated corpses of prominent natural numbers have been showing up all over the city. A lockdown is ordered from sundown to sunrise, and it's still not enough to...

One of the hardest places to explore in space is actually pretty close, some call it the ignorosphere.

Sitting down for brief periods can help us recover from stress or recuperate from exercise. But nowadays, our lifestyles make us sit much more than we move around. Are our bodies built for such a sedentary existence? Murat Dalkilin�c...

Wind is an ever increasing source of power worldwide, which means wind farms continue to be constructed. And choosing where to place those farms seems straightforward, but it might not actually be best to place the in the windiest places!

On a reef in the Pacific Ocean, 17,000 camouflage groupers dart about in the cloudy water. It is, in fact, an underwater orgy— turned feeding frenzy. An orgy might seem like a rather flamboyant way to breed, but sex in the sea is a...

We've been trying to count the galaxies in the universe since the mid '90s, but our estimates change as our tools improve. So what does our current estimate really mean?

The way your brain reacts to stimuli might tell us more about who you're friends with, and swatting at mosquitoes might one day bring us positive results.

Hank tells the story of the mysterious star known as "Methuseleh," and why scientists think that it is the oldest known star in the universe.

You know metal can get really hot, and you probably know that it can melt. But can it burn? Hank shows you how you can burn a hunk of metal like you're some kinda superhero (just be careful, please), and he explains how, in chemistry,...

One way to help us live on Mars would be to terraform the planet. Some scientists think we might be able to do that by giving it a new magnetic field!

Working in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, he began his career as a neurologist before pioneering the discipline of psychoanalysis, and his influence towers above that of all other psychologists in the public eye. But was Sigmund...

A common misconception is that evolution is a long chain of progress, where organisms gain cool, new features over time. However, if a trait doesn't help with survival or reproduction, eventually it can disappear. Here are a few...

Our month-long exploration of human reproduction continues with a look at testicular anatomy, the steps of sperm production, and how it's influenced by gonadotropin and testosterone. Hank also explains how sperm mature, and how...