We take it for granted that society gets better at tackling infectious disease over time, but when you really think about it the progress we’ve made in the last century is pretty amazing. How does that much progress happen so quickly?...

From puffy trousers to pantsuits and everything in between, law professor and author Richard Thompson Ford takes us on a fascinating tour through the history of fashion and the evolution of dress codes that still influence style today,...

Active galaxies pour out lots of energy, due to their central supermassive black holes gobbling down matter. Galaxies tend not to be loners, but instead exist in smaller groups and larger clusters. Our Milky Way is part of the Local...

How Big Is The Sun?

In which John Green teaches you about European Imperialism in the 19th century. European powers started to create colonial empires way back in the 16th century, but businesses really took off in the 19th century, especially in Asia and...

Straddling Virginia and North Carolina is an area that was once described as the "most repulsive of American possessions." By 1728, it was known as the Great Dismal Swamp. But while many deemed it uninhabitable, recent findings suggest...

In which John Green teaches you the history of Christianity, from the beginnings of Judaism and the development of monotheism, right up to Paul and how Christianity stormed the Roman Empire in just a few hundred years. Along the way,...

In this uplifting talk, Katherine Fulton sketches the new future of philanthropy -- one where collaboration and innovation allow regular people to do big things, even when money is scarce. Giving five practical examples of crowd-driven...

Tropical rainforests are known for being super biologically diverse _ they're full of different species, from colorful birds and insects to plants and fungi. We haven't even come close to cataloguing everything that's there.

Physicists, air traffic controllers, and video game creators all have at least one thing in common: vectors. But what exactly are they, and why do they matter? David Huynh explains how vectors are a prime example of the elegance, beauty,...

Despite what you might've seen on some wilderness-survival show, there's increasing evidence that your pee isn't sterile. So don't do anything crazy with it. Sci Show explains!

In 1884, an unlucky patient who had a rapidly growing cancer in his neck came down with an unrelated bacterial skin infection. As he recovered from the infection, the cancer surprisingly began to recede. The infection had stimulated the...

Want to learn more about the topic in this week's video? Here's a keyword to get your googling started: herd immunity: immunity that occurs when the vaccination of a portion of a population provides protection for individuals who have...

In previous decades, most news with global reach came from several major newspapers and networks with the resources to gather information directly. The speed with which information spreads now, however, has created the ideal conditions...

How successful are we compared to other species? It turns out that biomass, or what things weigh, can be more important than how many of something there are. Find out how our numbers stack up against everything from bugs to bacteria, and...

A man walks in to a hospital super drunk... but claims he hasn't had a sip of alcohol. Join us today for SciShow medical mystery!

Are humans really Earth's most dominant species? Let's put all of the planet's living things on a scale and see what has amassed the most mass. This week we break down the concept of "biomass" to judge Earth's living things from top to...

Splinters are gross, but you might want to watch this before grabbing the tweezers.

The first era of our current eon, the Paleozoic Era, is probably the most deceptively fascinating time in Earth's history. With near constant revolutions in life, punctuated by catastrophic extinctions, it is also one of the most chaotic.

Homer's "Odyssey" recounts the adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus during his journey home from the Trojan War. Though some parts may be based on real events, the encounters with monsters, giants and magicians are considered to be...

Paul Andersen explains how eukaryotic cells were formed through a process of endosymbiosis. He describes how aerobic bacteria became mitochondria and cyanobacteria became chloroplasts. He mentions an example of symbiosis that occurs...

In which John Green teaches you MORE about To Kill a Mockingbird. In this installment, John teaches you about race, class, and gender in the American south, as seen through the eyes of Scout and Harper Lee. John will talk about how Scout...

Why do some regions experience full-time heat while others are reckoning with frigid temperatures and snow? And why are the seasons reversed in the two hemispheres? Rebecca Kaplan explains how the shape of the Earth's orbit around the...

Zombies are EVERYWHERE!! Wait, don't panic- we mean in pop culture, not outside your window. But why is that? Bad guys and monsters seem to go through phases: one decade there's a dozen movies about aliens, ten years later it's vampires....