In Agbogbloshie, a community in Accra, Ghana, people descend on a scrapyard to mine electronic waste for recyclable materials. Without formal training, these urban miners often teach themselves the workings of electronics by taking them...

A hearty bowl of cereal gives you the energy to start your day, but how exactly did that energy make its way into your bowl? It all begins with photosynthesis, the process that converts the air we breathe into energizing glucose. Cathy...

Ever heard of Oobleck? How about Non-Newtonian fluids? Well, today Sabrina is going to show us that things can sometimes behave like a solid, and sometimes like a liquid depending on how much force is applied to them. In this episode of...

Nearly every other year the transistors that power silicon computer chip shrink in size by half and double in performance, enabling our devices to become more mobile and accessible. But what happens when these components can't get any...

The Apollo 1 fire was a tragedy and a huge wake-up call for NASA, causing them to get much more serious about their safety procedures and technology, and also changed their attitude towards spaceflight in general.

If you shave regularly, you may have noticed your razor blades don’t cut as well after just a few uses. But why do razors get dull so quickly?

Modern buildings with floor-to-ceiling windows give spectacular views, but they require a lot of energy to cool. Doris Kim Sung works with thermo-bimetals, smart materials that act more like human skin, dynamically and responsively, and...

Author Sam Martin shares photos of a quirky world hobby that's trending with the XY set: "manspaces." (They're custom-built hangouts where a man can claim a bit of his own territory to work, relax, be himself.) Grab a cold one and enjoy.

Nachos are delicious. And versatile because today they're also going to help us learn a thing or two about your digestive system. Nachos can provide us with energy and raw materials, by first ingesting something nutritious, propelling it...

Why is it hard to move a heavy bookcase across a carpeted floor? And why is it easier to keep it moving than it was to get it started moving? You might think it's all about weight, but actually it's about friction. Two kinds of friction!...

Long before sustainability was a buzzword, architect Shigeru Ban was using ecologically sound building materials such as cardboard tubes. He uses them to build remarkable temporary structures for disaster-struck nations such as Haiti,...

Steel and plastic are essential to much of our infrastructure and technology. Steel is strong and hard, but difficult to shape intricately. Plastic can take on just about any form, but it's weak and soft. Wouldn't it be nice if there...

You use paper towels to dry your hands every day, but chances are, you're doing it wrong. In this enlightening and funny short talk, Joe Smith reveals the trick to perfect paper towel technique.

What do you get when you combine the strongest materials from the plant world with the most elastic ones from the insect kingdom? Super-performing materials that might transform ... everything. Nanobiotechnologist Oded Shoseyov walks us...

Concrete is all around us: we use it to build our roads, buildings, bridges and much more. Yet over the last 2,000 years, the art of mixing cement and using it to bind concrete hasn't changed very much -- and it remains one of the...

Architecture is more than a clever arrangement of bricks. In this eloquent talk, Michael Murphy shows how he and his team look far beyond the blueprint when they're designing. Considering factors from airflow to light, theirs is a...

What happens to the clothes we don't buy? You might think that last season's coats, trousers and turtlenecks end up being put to use, but most of it (nearly 13 million tons each year in the united States alone) ends up in landfills....

Mister Brown and Squeaks decide to design a solar oven, so they can cook their lunch while they play outside!

It might sound like science fiction, but if you press on a crystal of sugar, it will actually generate its own electricity. This simple crystal can act like a tiny power source because sugar happens to be piezoelectric. Ashwini...

Some chefs swear by copper pots and pans, but they are much more expensive than other materials. Are they worth it? Well, it all comes down to electrons!

Stradivarius are synonymous with quality, but how we can replicate their sound is a mystery!

It seems like a simple question with a straightforward answer, but when you look at the total environmental impact of each type of bag, things start to get a little complicated.

From robots to braces to the Mars Rover, see how a special kind of metal called shape memory alloys advance technology in everyday ways that we don't always realize.

Spiders have a long and fabled history of being a notorious creepy-crawly, but their silk might just change that image. Here are six ways in which spider silk is being studied to improve life for human beings.