In this short, optimistic talk from TED2009, Pete Alcorn shares a vision of the world of two centuries from now -- when declining populations and growing opportunity prove Malthus was wrong.

In this SciShow dose, Michael Aranda explains mystery behind trypophobia.

Over the course of her fearless career, extreme action specialist Elizabeth Streb has pushed the limits of the human body. She's jumped through broken glass, toppled from great heights and built gizmos to provide a boost along the way....

In a hilarious, completely improvised talk, improv master Anthony Veneziale takes to the TED stage for a truly one-of-a-kind performance. Armed with an audience-suggested topic ("stumbling towards intimacy") and a deck of slides he's...

The president of the United States of America is often said to be one of the most powerful positions in the world. But of all the US presidents accused of abusing that power, only one has left office as a result. Does Richard Nixon...

Poet Suheir Hammad performs two spine-tingling spoken-word pieces: "What I Will" and "break (clustered)" -- meditations on war and peace, on women and power. Wait for the astonishing line: "Do not fear what has blown up. If you must,...

Can you literally "die of fright?" Turns out, you can! In this episode of SciShow Hank explores the mechanisms in your body that activate when you get scared, and how they can sometimes get out of hand.

In a society obsessed with body image and marked by a fear of fat, Kelli Jean Drinkwater engages in radical body politics through art. She confronts the public's perception of bigger bodies by bringing them into spaces that were once off...

If you've ever been chastised for erupting into profanity after stubbing your toe in the middle of the night, science has your back on this one.

How do you stand up to authoritarianism? And what does it mean to be "fearless"? In this powerful talk, housewife-turned-politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya describes her unlikely bid to defeat Belarus's long-time autocratic leader in...

Aristotle. He knows a lot, right? And if you choose to believe Aristotle, then you must believe all the mechanics of tragedy that Mike is about to lay on you. This week, we're looking at Aristotle's rules for the basic elements of...

Kristie Overstreet is on a mission to ensure that the transgender community gets their health care needs met. In this informative, myth-busting talk, she provides a primer for understanding gender identity and invites us to shift how we...

Meeting new people is exciting, but also kind of overwhelming and you might have found yourself wondering if they really liked you. But turns out, they do really like you most of the time, and you might be just too hard on yourself.

Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand...

Do you know what you want when you die? Do you know how you want to be remembered? In a candid, heartfelt talk about a subject most of us would rather not discuss, Michelle Knox asks each of us to reflect on our core values around death...

Most of us experience specific fears at one point or another, like of death or the future, but psychologists believe there might be one underlying fear from which all others originate.

Daniel Kish has been blind since he was 13 months old, but has learned to "see" using a form of echolocation. He clicks his tongue and sends out flashes of sound that bounce off surfaces in the environment and return to him, helping him...

Tons of people are afraid of sharks, but the reasons have a lot more to do with how our brains deal with risk than anything to do with these super cool sea critters.<br/>
Heads up: This video contains footage of sharks.

I'm scared of spiders. I'm not afraid to admit it. I love them in a scientific sense, or from a "let me look at you from way over here" sense, but that's as close as I get. Here's a look at the science of why some of us are afraid of...

Some call me a soul sonic superstar, says Jomama Jones, the alter ego of TED Fellow and theater artist Daniel Alexander Jones. In this stunning talk and performance, Jomama Jones invites us to consider how coming undone can be the first...

Even when you know what you want to do, sometimes actually doing the thing is hard. Luckily, research suggests a few ways you can make it a little easier.

In 1932, one in four Americans was unemployed, marking the highest unemployment rate in the country's history. The Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a New Deal— a comprehensive set of legislation to support...

Standing up to discrimination and hate should be everyone's business, says community activist Wale Elegbede. In this vital talk, he shares how his community in La Crosse, Wisconsin came together to form an interfaith group in response to...

Decades after the fall of the Third Reich, it feels impossible to understand how Adolf Hitler, the tyrant who orchestrated one of the largest genocides in human history, could ever have risen to power in a democratic country. So how did...