2020 wasn't ALL bad news. This year scientists found ludicrously fast stars, ancient galaxy clusters, and developed a camera that could change how we study the night sky.

Hank explains the latest developments in space research and the search for life, including the discovery that amino acids may be more common than we thought throughout the solar system, and the latest findings from the Mars Curiosity rover.

Meet Franeoise Mouly, The New Yorker's art director. For the past 24 years, she's helped decide what appears on the magazine's famous cover, from the black-on-black depiction of the Twin Towers the week after 9/11 to a recent,...

The Ancient Egyptian king Thutmose III described the chicken as a marvelous foreign bird that "gives birth daily." Romans brought them on their military campaigns to foretell the success of future battles. Today, this bird occupies a...

Hank pays tribute to Carl Sagan, noting his accomplishment as an astronomer and his contributions to culture -- both pop and otherwise -- as one of the great popularizers of science. Happy Carl Sagan Day!

In which John Green teaches you a little bit about drought, which is a natural weather phenomenon, and famine, which is almost always the result of human activity. Throughout human history, when food shortages strike humanity, there was...

Did you know that all living things change their environments? It's true. Beavers, deer, worms, and humans all change their environments. It just so happens that humans change our environments in big, obvious ways. In this episode,...

Eythor Bender of Berkeley Bionics brings onstage two amazing exoskeletons, HULC and eLEGS -- robotic add-ons that could one day allow a human to carry 200 pounds without tiring, or allow a wheelchair user to stand and walk. It's a...

Learn the truth about Benjamin Franklin, his experiments into electricity, including the real story behind the kite and the key.

There’s a massive black hole next door that appears far too big for its host galaxy! And in another galaxy, TWO supermassive black holes formed, giving us a glimpse at a true rarity in astronomy!

Investor and prankster Yossi Vardi delivers a ballsy lecture on the dangers of blogging. Specifically, for men.

Mathematics explains the workings of the universe, from particle physics to engineering and economics. Math is even closely related to music, and their common ground has something to do with a Rubik's Cube puzzle. Michael Staff explains...

Way more kids have fuzzy vision these days because we spend less time in outdoor light, which makes our eyeballs longer.

As Asian economies and governments continue to gain power, the West needs to find ways to adapt to the new global order, says author and diplomat Kishore Mahbubani. In an insightful look at international politics, Mahbubani shares a...

When Sue Austin got a power wheelchair, she felt a tremendous sense of freedom -- yet others looked at her as though she had lost something. In her art, she conveys the spirit of wonder she feels wheeling through the world. Includes...

In the fog of war, civilian casualties often go uncounted. Artist Matt Kenyon, whose recent work memorialized the names and stories of US soldiers killed in the Iraq war, decided he should create a companion monument, to the Iraqi...

Mothers undeniably impact and shape history -- but their stories are often left out or misrepresented, says sociologist and author Anna Malaika Tubbs. This erasure limits policies to support mothers and their essential roles in society....

Paul Andersen explains how changes in the signal transduction pathway can affect organisms. He begins with a brief discussion of the tetrodotoxin produced by the California Newt and then explains how anthrax affects adenylate cyclase...

Experts can't agree on the definition of the term "concussion," which makes it difficult to diagnose, treat, and research this important brain injury....

Horse plus donkey — it seems like an unlikely combination. I mean, they're different species! And yet, when they get together, they can produce a mule or the lesser-known hinny. Either way, those offspring usually can't become parents...

Smuggling yourself aboard the rogue submarine was the easy part. Hacking into the nuclear missile launch override — a little harder. And you've got a problem: you don't have the override code. You know you need the same numbers that were...

A look at what turbulence is (in fluid flow), and a result by Kolmogorov regarding the energy cascade of turbulence.

Quantum field theory is notoriously complicated, built from mind-bendingly abstract mathematics. But are the underlying rules of reality really so far from human intuition? Or are physicists just showing off? For better or worse, the...

Every day, we meet people and process our interactions--making inferences and developing beliefs about the world around us. In this lesson, Trevor Maber introduces us to the idea of a 'ladder of inference' and a process for rethinking...