Has your doctor ever asked you to stick out your tongue and say "ah"? They're probably checking out your tonsils! But what are your tonsils, and what do they do?

The lab-on-a-stick that lets us know if we’re pregnant is a genius bit of technology that can be used to quickly determine everything from whether there are nuts in our chocolate to whether we have COVID.

In a zippy demo at TED U, AnnMarie Thomas shows how two different kinds of homemade play dough can be used to demonstrate electrical properties -- by lighting up LEDs, spinning motors, and turning little kids into circuit designers.

Teflon was in the spacesuits the Apollo crew wore for the moon landing, in pipes and valves used in the Manhattan project, and it may be in your kitchen, as the nonstick coating on frying pans and cookie sheets. So what is this slippery...

Molecules come in infinite varieties, so in order to help the complicated chemical world make a little more sense, we classify and categorize them. One of the most important of those classifications is whether a molecule is polar or...

Cats and dogs have it tough: They can't use straws, or tip a cup up to their mouths to drink. Instead, they have to use their tongues and a few different physics tricks to quench their thirst.

A SciShow Kids viewer wrote us and asked: How does soap work? Find out what really happens when you take a bath!

Figuring out how to hack the immune system and make the antibodies we want was just the beginning. Thanks to innovative technologies, we're finding ways to produce safe, effective antibodies for all sorts of uses.

Jessi and Squeaks found a branch growing what looked like white hair! So they brought the branch back to the Fort to run some tests and found out that it isn't hair at all... it's ice!



Second Grade Next...

Ever notice how one side of your nose always seems to be more stuffed than the other? What's up with that? Quick Questions knows!

Is there something you've always meant to do, wanted to do, but just ... haven't? Matt Cutts suggests: Try it for 30 days. This short, lighthearted talk offers a neat way to think about setting and achieving goals.

VELCRO® fasteners are pretty cool, but what would you think if the idea came from living things? Jessi and Squeaks talk about the sticky seeds that inspired them!

Your hands, up close, are anything but smooth. With peaks and valleys, folds and rifts, there are plenty of hiding places for a virus to stick. If you then touch your face, the virus can infect you. But there are two extraordinarily...

Squeaks broke his watch! Luckily Jessi knows of a handy way to tell time, with a sundial!

When you think of surfactants, you might think of soaps, detergents and other man-made chemicals. But it turns out that some other animals utilize their own versions of these sudsy molecules.

Ever notice how cereal clumps up in your bowl, or how cereal sticks to the edges of the bowl? Bubbles in beverages do the same thing.You've probably seen this surface tension and buoyancy at work, but did you know there's some...

Learn how to build the perfect sandcastle!

Hank shows us another SciShow: Experiment! This time he's tackling what may be the most cliche, well-known and misunderstood experiment of all time: the lemon battery. The take home message in this one is: the electricity is NOT in the...

Do you have a favorite insect? We really like butterflies! But there's another awesome insect with really big wings and long antenna that you might see flapping around: moths! Moths and butterflies can look really similar, but we've got...

Sometimes science can look a lot like magic! This week, Jessi will show you how to make a balloon stick to the wall; no tape required! Stick around to learn how she did it and the science that makes the trick work! Abracadabra!

Paul Andersen steps you through eight types of animal behavior. He starts by defining ethology and explaining that behavior varies from innate to learned. He discusses each of the following with examples; instinct, fixed action...

It's the final episode of our History of Science series and we thought it would be good to talk a little about some of the people we couldn't get to and some of the reasons we need to talk about diversity in scientists. Thanks for the...

Moving on to our unit on the Physics of Electricity, it's time to talk about charge. What is charge? Is there a positive and negative charge? What do those things mean? In this episode, Shini talks about electrostatic forces, electrical...

Scientists often use the phrase “anatomically modern humans” to describe the point when our ancient ancestors looked like us. But when did humans become behaviorally modern?