MinuteEarth
How Does Birth Control Work?
There are huge varieties of birth control methods because there are lots of different ways to disrupt the process of sperm-egg fertilization.
MinuteEarth
All Plants Have Color Vision?
Plants can tell when competitors are nearby because they can see them.
MinuteEarth
Why Flushing Isn't For Everyone
Sewers are a great way to make pooping safe, but they’re not always the right solution because they require specific resources that many places just don’t have.
MinuteEarth
Why Do All YouTube Videos Look Alike?
Many crustaceans from all sorts of starting points evolve to end up looking similar, likely due to outside pressures. That’s sort of like what happens with YouTube videos.
MinuteEarth
Why Did It Take Us So Long?
We've long known that animal pollination is an important way plants reproduce on land, but we're only just finding out animals also pollinate plants underwater.
MinuteEarth
The Species That Broke Evolution?
The ancestors of gars, horseshoe crabs and coelacanths looked almost the same as their modern relatives. Darwin called species like these “living fossils'' because they seem like they are evolutionarily frozen in time. But Darwin was wrong.
MinuteEarth
Why Don't We Eat Carnivores?
Humans eat a lot of different animals, but almost none of them are carnivores - why?
MinuteEarth
Why does the north get more total eclipses?
Solar eclipses can happen anywhere on earth, but if you want to see a total eclipse, you need to go to the far north, because the Earth’s shape and orbit determine the high latitudes and eclipse hotspot.
MinuteEarth
What’s Eating The Titanic?
When a ship sinks, lots of factors, like the ship’s materials, the water quality, and the depth of the seafloor all play a role in determining how long the ship will last down there - as a result, the Titanic will be gone in fifty years,...
MinuteEarth
Weird Things Animals Do During Eclipses
For centuries, humans have reported animals freaking out during solar eclipses, like birds falling from the sky and bees hiding in their hives, but the animals most affected by eclipses might be us.
MinuteEarth
Inside The Sunny Center of a Hurricane
Why is the middle of a hurricane sometimes so clear and calm?
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The woman who broke the Great Wall of China | Juwen Zhang
Long ago, an emperor decided to build a great wall to protect his new empire and ensure his power. He ordered men across China to leave their homes and submit to the grueling labor required for its construction. As years passed and the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The real reason polio is so dangerous | Dan Kwartler
In 1952, polio was everywhere: killing or paralyzing roughly half a million people annually. Yet just 10 years later, paralytic polio cases in the US dropped by 96% and we were on track to get rid of polio for good. But in recent years,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Ugly History: The Armenian Genocide | Ümit Kurt
When an Armenian resistance movement began to form in the 19th century, Sultan Abdul Hamid II took decisive action. He led the Hamidian Massacres— a relentless campaign of violence that killed over 150,000 Armenians. These massacres were...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Greek mythology’s greatest warrior | Iseult Gillespie
Born to a sea nymph and a king, and trained by the legendary centaur Chiron, Achilles was a demigod destined for greatness. When Greece declared war on Troy, Achilles knew the war was written into his destiny. With horses born from the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why did people wear powdered wigs? | Stephanie Honchell Smith
Wigs date at least as far back as ancient Egypt, where well-regarded hairdressers crafted them into intricate styles. And under certain ancient Roman dynasties, women’s wigs became particularly ornate. Yet it wasn’t until Louis XIII...
TED Talks
TED: The tipping point I got wrong | Malcolm Gladwell
In his 2000 bestseller "The Tipping Point," Malcolm Gladwell told the story of why crime fell in New York City in the 1990s. Now, 25 years later, he's back with a confession and a mea culpa: "I was wrong," he says. He shares how his...
TED Talks
TED: Will the end of economic growth come by design — or disaster? | Gaya Herrington
What if solving poverty, caring for nature and fostering well-being were the ultimate goals of the economy, instead of growth for its own sake? Environmentalist and economist Gaya Herrington proposes a shift in thinking from "never...
TED Talks
TED: How your childhood toys tell your life story | Chris Byrne
What was your favorite toy when you were a kid? Your answer might reveal more about you than you expect, says toy historian Chris Byrne. From Matchbox cars and Barbie to Rubik's Cube and Squishmallows, he explores how playthings reflect...
TED Talks
TED: From prison to purpose through wildland firefighting | Royal Ramey
When wildfires rage in California, incarcerated people are often on the front lines fighting the flames. TED Fellow Royal Ramey was one of them. He shares the story of how doing public service in prison inspired him to cofound the...
TED Talks
TED: A medical mythbuster's mission to improve health care | Joel Bervell
Joel Bervell was one of the only Black students in his medical school program. After noticing how misconceptions about race were embedded in health care, he turned to social media to raise awareness about the harmful impact of biases in...
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 Birds Fooled Military Radar: A Technology Turned Conservation Tool
A technology to ignore birds on radar ended up being useful to study and conserve them.