The hard choices -- what we most fear doing, asking, saying -- are very often exactly what we need to do. How can we overcome self-paralysis and take action? Tim Ferriss encourages us to fully envision and write down our fears in detail,...

Okay, going to Mars is going to be expensive. Not only that, but who we choose to pick on that trip also needs to have the statistically lowest chance of perishing. So it might be the case that our best scenario is all female crew!

Time and time again, we've failed to predict that the technologies of the present will change the future. Recently, a similar pattern was discovered in our individual lives: we're unable to predict change in ourselves. But is there...

It is important to get enough sleep, but what happens when you get those eight hours in little naps instead of in one big chunk at night?

When a piece of cryptography is described as having "256-bit security", what exactly does that mean? Just how big is the number 2^256?

The Trinity Test had some unexpected consequences, including the creation of radioactive rain found hundreds of miles away from the test site.

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Pamela Ronald studies the genes that make plants more resistant to disease and stress. In an eye-opening talk, she...

Hank brings you news from around the universe, including what you can't blame on global warming, why being unfaithful is hazardous to your health, and how to watch a particularly awesome spectacle coming to a sky near you.

Humanity now has incredible power to shape nature and the Earth: the power to destroy and the power to repair, says sustainability champion and UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. In this action-oriented talk, Steiner shows how this power...

In this episode we discuss Schrodinger's cat, quantum entanglement, and our perception of reality.

Backed by research and personal anecdotes, Spanish professor Anna Babel reveals the intricate relationship between language and culture, showing how social categories and underlying biases influence the way we hear, regard and,...

This video is chapter 8 in my series on special relativity, and it presents a hands-on explanation of the resolution to the Twins Paradox using the mechanical minkowski diagram, aka mechanical Lorentz transformation, aka spacetime...

SPOILERS: It doesn't end well.

When molecules collide, chemical reactions can occur -- causing major structural changes akin to getting a new arm on your face! George Zaidan and Charles Morton playfully imagine chemical systems as busy city streets, and the colliding...

The next big shift is now, and it's not what you think: Facebook is the new Windows; Google must be sacrificed. Tech investor Roger McNamee presents 6 bold ways to prepare for the next internet.

How do we solve the problem of the suburbs? Urbanist Jeff Speck shows how we can free ourselves from dependence on the car -- which he calls "a gas-belching, time-wasting, life-threatening prosthetic device" -- by making our cities more...

This decade is a moment of choice unlike any we have ever lived, says Christiana Figueres, the architect of the historic 2015 Paris Agreement. The daughter of Costa Rica's beloved President José Figueres Ferrer, she shares how her...

Around the world, women still struggle for equality in basic matters like access to education, equal pay and the right to vote. But how to enlist everyone, men and women, as allies for change? Meet Elizabeth Nyamayaro, head of UN Women's...

When asked to build housing for 100 families in Chile ten years ago, Alejandro Aravena looked to an unusual inspiration: the wisdom of favelas and slums. Rather than building a large building with small units, he built flexible...

It takes an entire civilization to build a toaster. Designer Thomas Thwaites found out the hard way, by attempting to build one from scratch: mining ore for steel, deriving plastic from oil ... it's frankly amazing he got as far as he...

The weather is warming up where Jessi lives, which means its time for some cool treats! Join Jessi and Squeaks and learn how to whip up some tasty vanilla ice cream!

Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens -- and the environment.

For tens of thousands of years our ancestors understood the world through myths, and the pace of change was glacial. The rise of scientific understanding transformed the world within a few centuries. Why? Physicist David Deutsch proposes...

We’ve known how to cure malaria since the 1600s, so why does the disease still kill hundreds of thousands every year? It’s more than just a problem of medicine, says journalist Sonia Shah. A look into the history of malaria reveals three...