In August 1968, factory workers overheard news of a mandatory meeting. Whispered rumors described shipments of a gift from the country's Communist leader, Chairman Mao Zedong. And sure enough, managers soon distributed a gift to every...

Stretching over roughly nine million square kilometers and with sands reaching temperatures of up to 80° Celsius, the Sahara Desert receives about 22 million terawatt hours of energy from the Sun every year. That's well over 100 times...

Townspeople are demanding that a corrupt merchant's collection of 30 rubies be confiscated to reimburse the victims of his schemes. The king announces that the fine will be determined through a game of wits between the merchant and the...

This video is about how we don't just need energy to power our lives, we need *low entropy* energy! Thanks to Google Making and Science for supporting this series, and to Sean Carroll for collaborating on it!...

Mandatory lockdowns, quarantines and shelter-in-place orders meant to contain COVID-19 have created a shadow pandemic of domestic abuse, says physician Kemi DaSilva-Ibru. Sharing alarming statistics on the rise of gender-based violence...

Asgard, a realm of wonders, was where the Norse Gods made their home. There Odin's great hall of Valhalla towered above the mountains and Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, anchored itself. Though their domain was magnificent, it stood...

What if we could use existing technologies to provide Internet access to the more than 4 billion people living in places where the infrastructure can't support it? using off-the-shelf LeDs and solar cells, Harald Haas and his team have...

You probably know the common symptoms of a heart attack: chest and arm pain, shortness of breath and fatigue. But there's another kind that's just as deadly and harder to detect because the symptoms are silent. In this quick talk,...

What happens if you get infected with the coronavirus? Who's most at risk? How can you protect yourself? Public health expert David Heymann, who led the global response to the SARS outbreak in 2003, shares the latest findings about...

We’ve done a lot of searching for life in the universe and we need to continue to if we hope to make contact. But not all of our attempts were expected to succeed. That’s where Beacon in the Galaxy comes in.

Imagine a country where girls must sneak out to go to school, with deadly consequences if they get caught learning. This was Afghanistan under the Taliban, and traces of that danger remain today. 22-year-old Shabana Basij-Rasikh runs a...

In the year leading up to this talk, the web tool Twitter exploded in size (up 10x during 2008 alone). Co-founder Evan Williams reveals that many of the ideas driving that growth came from unexpected uses invented by the users themselves.

Creating a Mars colony is a dream for many people, but it comes with some unique and challenging problems.

Hank tells us about another great mind in science - Barbara McClintock won the Nobel Prize in Physiology for her discovery of mobile genetic elements and remains the only woman to receive an unshared prize in that category.

Performer and web toymaker Ze Frank delivers a hilarious nerdcore standup routine, then tells us what he's seriously passionate about: helping people create and interact using simple, addictive web tools.

Did you know you can watch the big bang on an old TV any time you want?

You may feel a bit grumpy when you're hungry, but hunger can affect us in more powerful ways than we realize.

An unbelievable play on an American football field is the perfect backdrop for understanding crucial physics concepts. Michelle Buchanan goes play-by-play on the vectors, the scalars, and the glory of a downright scientific touchdown.

When we look at the sky, we have a flat, two-dimensional view. So how do astronomers figure the distances of stars and galaxies from Earth? Yuan-Sen Ting shows us how trigonometric parallaxes, standard candles and more help us determine...

In a world that's wasting more food than ever before, why do one in nine people still go to bed hungry each night? Social entrepreneur Jasmine Crowe calls for a radical transformation to our fight to end global hunger -- challenging us...

The Japanese love to give gifts. The two main Japan-wide gift-giving seasons are July (Ochugen), when people wish each other summer greetings and good health, and December (Oseibo), to show appreciation for assistance offered during the...

Singaporeans tend to keep business appointments, but that doesn’t mean that they’re always punctual. Unlike other Asians, Singaporeans do not rely on contacts to open doors and set up meetings. Cold-calling by telephone is considered...

The Japanese love to give gifts. The two main gift-giving seasons in Japan are July (Ochugen), when people wish each other summer greetings and good health, and December (Oseibo), when people show appreciation for assistance offered...

In this video, learn the key differences between switches and hubs, and their roles in networking.