TED Talks
TED: How to win an argument (at the US Supreme Court, or anywhere) | Neal Katyal
The secret to winning an argument isn't grand rhetoric or elegant style, says US Supreme Court litigator Neal Katyal -- it takes more than that. With stories of some of the most impactful cases he's argued before the Court, Katyal shows...
SciShow
The Human Neocortex Isn’t as Special as We Thought
For a long time, scientists considered the neocortex the brainiest part of the human brain – an obvious candidate for the thing that makes us unique. But in some ways, it’s not that different from other mammals’ brains. So researchers...
Crash Course
Of Pentameter & Bear Baiting - Romeo & Juliet Part I: Crash Course English Literature
In which John Green examines Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare. John delves into the world of Bill Shakespeare's famous star-crossed lovers and examines what the play is about, its structure, and the context in which it was written....
SciShow
Agriculture May Have Changed How People Speak | SciShow News
The development of agriculture was a huge game changer for human beings and it may have even changed the way we speak.
Crash Course
Language & Meaning: Crash Course Philosophy
Today we start our unit on language with a discussion of meaning and how we assign and understand meaning. We’ll cover sense and reference, beetles in boxes, and language games. We’re also getting into the meaning-making game ourselves:...
SciShow
Why Are There Righties & Lefties?
About 10% of the world population is left-handed. But why does handedness exist and what determines which hand is dominant? Scientists have suggested several theories, but the answer may well lie with evolution.
SciShow
3 New Facts About Denisovans
Hank brings us some late-breaking news from the genus Homo - a team of scientists has sequenced the genome of the Denisova hominin, the latest member to be added to the human family tree.
TED Talks
Jean-Baptiste Michel: The mathematics of history
What can mathematics say about history? According to TED Fellow Jean-Baptiste Michel, quite a lot. From changes to language to the deadliness of wars, he shows how digitized history is just starting to reveal deep underlying patterns.
Crash Course
Natural Language Processing
So far in this series, we've mostly focused on how AI can interpret images, but one of the most common ways we interact with computers is through language - we type questions into search engines, use our smart assistants like Siri and...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How many verb tenses are there in English? - Anna Ananichuk
How many different verb tenses are there in a language like English? At first, the answer seems obvious - there's past, present, and future. But it isn't quite that simple. Anna Ananichuk explains how thanks to something called...
Crash Course
African Pantheons and the Orishas: Crash Course World Mythology
So, today we're talking about African Pantheons. Now, you might say, that's ridiculous. Africa isn't a single place with a single pantheon, and we'd be fools to try and cover all that in an eleven minute video. You'd be right. Instead...
TED Talks
TED: Language shouldn't be a barrier to climate action | Sophia Kianni
Most scientific literature is written only in English, creating an alarming knowledge gap for the 75 percent of the world who don't speak it. That's a big problem for climate change -- because it's hard to take action on something you...
SciShow
Why Are There Righties & Lefties
About 10% of the world population is left-handed. But why does handedness exist and what determines which hand is dominant? Scientists have suggested several theories, but the answer may well lie with evolution.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A brief history of Spanish | Ilan Stavans
Beginning in the third century BCE, the Romans conquered the Iberian peninsula. This period gave rise to several regional languages in the area that's now Spain, including Castilian, Catalan, and Galician. One of these would become...
TED Talks
TED: Your words may predict your future mental health | Mariano Sigman
Can the way you speak and write today predict your future mental state, even the onset of psychosis? In this fascinating talk, neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reflects on ancient Greece and the origins of introspection to investigate how...
TED Talks
Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes
What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into...
TED Talks
TED: Why is colonialism (still) romanticized? | Farish Ahmad-Noor
Colonialism remains an inescapable blight on the present, lingering in the toxic, internalized mythologies and stereotypes that have outlived the regimes that created them, says historian Farish Ahmad-Noor. Examining why these prejudices...
Crash Course
Leonardo DiCaprio & The Nature of Reality: Crash Course Philosophy
Today Hank gains insight from that most philosophical of figures...Leonardo DiCaprio. In this episode, we’re talking about the process of philosophical discovery and questioning the relationship between appearance and reality by taking a...
Crash Course
The Black Women's Club Movement Crash Course Black American History
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black American Women were struggling with both racism and misogyny as they fought for their rights. Black Women formed clubs and organized to make sure civil and political rights were extended...
TED Talks
James Geary: Metaphorically speaking
Aphorism enthusiast and author James Geary waxes on a fascinating fixture of human language: the metaphor. Friend of scribes from Aristotle to Elvis, metaphor can subtly influence the decisions we make, Geary says.
TED Talks
Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies
Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show...
Crash Course
Natural Language Processing: Crash Course Computer Science
Today we’re going to talk about how computers understand speech and speak themselves. As computers play an increasing role in our daily lives there has been an growing demand for voice user interfaces, but speech is also terribly...
TED Talks
TED: The seeds of change helping African farmers grow out of poverty | Andrew Youn
Farmers stand at the center of the world, says Andrew Youn, cofounder of One Acre Fund, an agricultural organization that's empowering sub-Saharan farm families with the loans, seeds, fertilizer and training needed to increase crop...
TED Talks
TED: The magic of Khmer classical dance | Prumsodun Ok
For more than 1,000 years, Khmer dancers in Cambodia have been seen as living bridges between heaven and earth. In this graceful dance-talk hybrid, artist Prumsodun Ok -- founder of Cambodia's first all-male and gay-identified dance...