You are made of polymers, and so are trees and telephones and toys. A polymer is a long chain of identical molecules (or monomers) with a range of useful properties, like toughness or stretchiness -- and it turns out, we just can't live...

Human bodies aren't built for extreme aging: our capacity is set at about 90 years. But what does aging really mean, and how does it counteract the body's efforts to stay alive? Monica Menesini details the nine physiological traits that...

Continuing with last week's introduction of calculus, Shini leads us through the ways that integrals can help us figure out things like distance when we have several other key bits of information. Say, for instance, you wanted to know...

You put a dying person in suspended animation until, possibly thousands of years from now, medical science is able to cure them... or their brain can be put in a sweet robot body. It's an age-old sci-fi trope, but there are scientists...

The Amoeba Sisters explain enzymes and how they interact with their substrates. Vocabulary covered includes active site, induced fit, coenzyme, and cofactor. Also the importance of ideal pH and temperatures for enzymes are discussed.

Recently, humanity filled the periodic table up to atomic number 118, which nicely rounds out that row. But are we done yet? Have we discovered all of the different elements? And what is an "island of stability?"

Today we're going to discuss the Binomial Distribution and a special case of this distribution known as a Bernoulli Distribution. The formulas that define these distributions provide us with shortcuts for calculating the probabilities of...

Mining unobtainium is hard work _ the rare mineral appears in only 1% of rocks in the mine. But your friend Tricky Joe has something up his sleeve. The unobtainium detector he's been perfecting for months is finally ready, and it returns...

The basic physics behind how rockets work!

Learn how to build the perfect sandcastle!

The human body is full of mysteries, but we can start to solve those mysteries with help from science and the bodies of grandma whales.

You’re on the trail of a werewolf that’s been terrorizing your town. After months of detective work, you’ve narrowed your suspects to one of five people. You’ve invited them to dinner with a simple plan: to slip a square of a rare...

Paul Andersen shows you how to calculate the standard error of a data set. He starts by explaining the purpose of standard error in representing the precision of the data. The standard error is based on the standard deviation and the...

Quick Questions explains why, when it comes right down to it, there are really only eight kinds of people in the world.

Temper tantrums are more complex than just a toddler's unbridled rage. And recent research into what toddlers are thinking and feeling can help us better support kids’ healthy development!

On today’s episode...CATS. Also: Hank talks about some philosophy stuff, like a few of the key concepts philosophers use when discussing belief and knowledge, such as what defines an assertion and a proposition, and that belief is a kind...

Paul Andersen discusses the specifics of phylogenetics. The evolutionary relationships of organisms are discovered through both morphological and molecular data. A specific type of phylogenetic tree, the cladogram, is also covered.

In this edition of IDTIMWYTIM, Hank addresses the so-called centrifugal force, and explains why you really mean centripetal force.

People spend billions of dollars every year trying to boost their health with multivitamins- but are they actually good for you?

Today is the day we finally talk about the normal distribution! The normal distribution is incredibly important in statistics because distributions of means are normally distributed even if populations aren't. We'll get into why this is...

There are a lot of events in life that we just can’t predict, but just because something is random doesn’t mean we don’t know or can’t learn anything about it. Today, we’re going to talk about how we can extract information from...

In this video Paul Andersen describes the elements of an operon. The promoter allows the RNA polymerase to transcribe the required genes. The operator and repressor regulate the expression of the genes by blocking the RNA polymerase. ...

Mount Everest is unquestionably the highest point on earth, but it doesn't always feel that way.

In this video Paul Andersen details the characteristics of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves are transverse waves that can move through both mediums and vacuums. The electric and magnetic fields oscillate perpendicular to...