MinuteEarth
How To Name A Disease (Like COVID-19)
We’ve changed - and standardized - the way diseases get named because the old way was often stigmatizing and confusing.
MinuteEarth
How Many Mass Extinctions Have There Been?
Want to learn more about the topic in this week's video? Here are some keywords/phrases to get your googling started: - Mass Extinction Event: a significant, global decrease in the diversity of life - "Big 5": The five biggest mass...
MinuteEarth
How Fighting Wildfires Makes Them Worse
Today's wildfires burn, on average, twice the amount of land they did in 1970. The reason? We've been working too hard to put them out. Want to learn more about the topic in this week's video? Here's a keyword/phrase to get your googling...
MinuteEarth
DemDebate Secret Video - What The U.S. Promised in Paris
NBC & YouTube actually asked us to make TWO videos for the Democratic Presidential Debate on January 17th, 2016. Here's the video that DIDN'T get shown at the debate. Want to learn more about the topic in this week's video? Here are some...
MinuteEarth
You Can’t Actually Die Of Old Age
Despite centuries of death records to the contrary, “dying of old age” is not medically possible; instead, it’s just a convenient catch-all.
MinuteEarth
Why We Haven’t Learned More In 101 Years Of Trying
Almost everything we know about the reproductive practices of European eels comes from a genius study conducted more than 100 years ago.
MinuteEarth
Why These Bears “Waste” Food
Optimal foraging theory means that turning down food is sometimes more efficient than eating it - but even then, what’s “wasted” doesn’t necessarily go to waste.
MinuteEarth
Why The Ocean Needs Salt
Our oceans don’t technically contain salt, but the ions salt is made of play a critical role in planet-wide processes that make the Earth habitable.
MinuteEarth
Why Do Weeping Willows Weep?
Most trees reach for the sun – but not the weeping willow. Why?
MinuteEarth
Why Do People Hate Koalas?
On the Internet, koalas get an unnecessary amount of hate, so let's debunk some of the most pervasive koala myths!
MinuteEarth
The WEIRD Way Monkeys Got to America
Many of the greatest biological dispersal events in history likely happened because animals inadvertently traveled across the oceans on floating debris.
MinuteEarth
MinuteEarth Explains: Animal Winners and Losers
In this collection of classic MinuteEarth videos, we keep score on the winners and losers of the animal kingdom. 0:00 - Intro 0:10 - Why Only Some Monkeys Have Awesome Tails • Why Only Some Monkeys Have Awesome Tails 1:57 - Rise Of The...
MinuteEarth
Is Bigger Better?
Elephants might be strong, but they are weak compared to ants because ants have certain advantages that allow them to outlift their larger competitors.
MinuteEarth
In The Future, Death Will Be Different
In the future, humans will likely die of a very different suite of causes than we do now, thanks to advances in healthcare, an aging population, and changes in the environment.
MinuteEarth
How To Survive Poison
It’s not just how much you take in; it’s how fast your body can purge it.
MinuteEarth
Apparently tree FINGERPRINTS are a thing
Every species on Earth has a fingerprint - whether or not they have fingers at all.
MinuteEarth
How A Whale And A Bear Beat The System
While the rest of the world’s megafauna are still foundering in the anthropocene era, these two big animals have used little animal strategies to bounce back. Way back.
MinuteEarth
Eclipses Used To Be Terrifying
Because eclipses are powerful and frightening events, ancient cultures went to great lengths to understand eclipses, leading to remarkably accurate predictions and helping invent the science of astronomy.
MinuteEarth
Ancient Humans Made Millions Of These - We Don’t Know Why
The Acheulean handaxe was the most common tool of early humans, but we still don’t know what the heck they used it for.
MinuteEarth
Which Will Kill You First?
The body can get a whole lot colder - but not a whole lot hotter - before we die. Why is that?
MinuteEarth
Why Is There So Much Land In The North?
Most of Earth’s land is currently in the northern hemisphere because we happen to exist in a time where uneven heating in the mantle has pushed many continental plates northward.
MinuteEarth
The Plant You Don’t Have To Water
Some plants can drink water from the air - and that has some weird effects on the forests where they live.