Michael McDaniel designed housing for disaster relief zones -- inexpensive, easy to transport, even beautiful – but found that no one was willing to build it. Persistent and obsessed, he decided to go it alone. At TEDxAustin, McDaniel...

Can global capital markets become catalysts for social change? According to investment expert Audrey Choi, individuals own almost half of all global capital, giving them (us!) the power to make a difference by investing in companies that...

A king cobra has enough venom to kill 10 people in a single bite. Recounting his near-death experience after being bitten by one of these majestic yet deadly snakes, conservationist and TED Fellow Gowri Shankar shares the epiphany he had...

At the height of their power, infamous Caribbean pirates like Blackbeard and Henry Morgan commanded as many as 10 ships and several hundred men. But their stories pale next to the most successful pirate of all time, who commanded 1,800...

Air pollution knows no borders -- even in your own body, says public health expert María Neira. In this startling talk, she describes how the microscopic particles and chemicals you breathe affect all your major organs (including your...

We answer your burning questions in our first-ever Q&A video. Thanks for asking, and for watching!!

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Basketball is a fast-moving game of improvisation, contact and, ahem, spatio-temporal pattern recognition. Rajiv Maheswaran and his colleagues are analyzing the movements behind the key plays of the game, to help coaches and players...

There's nothing better than going for a swim on a hot summer day! Sometimes, though, when you jump in the water, you might get a whole bunch of it up your nose! It's no fun, but why exactly does it hurt so much?

Forget stitches -- there's a better way to close wounds. In this talk, TED Fellow Joe Landolina talks about his invention -- a medical gel that can instantly stop traumatic bleeding without the need to apply pressure. (Contains medical...

Have you ever done something that required a ton of concentration, like threading a needle, and noticed that sometimes your tongue pokes out involuntarily? It turns out this reflex could be a leftover from the evolution of human language!

From village to metropolis, global flooding is on the rise, and traditional approaches to managing the swells won't cut it, says water resource engineer Virginia Smith. Giving an overview of the dynamic shift needed to stymie the flow of...

Scientists have created beams of light that are slower than a car! Not only that, but with the literal flick of a switch, they can freeze that beam of light in place!

Whether we cry during a sad movie, while chopping onions, or completely involuntarily, our eyes are constantly producing tears. Alex Gendler tracks a particularly watery day in the life of Iris (the iris) as she cycles through basal,...

In which John Green concludes the Crash Course Literature mini-series with an examination of the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Sure, John explores the creepy biographical details of Dickinson's life, but he also gets into why her poems have...

Most of us have experienced food poisoning, but with 31 unique species of bacteria, viruses, and parasites as common culprits, it's hard to know exactly what it is.

We've all got bad habits that we might feel a little bad about, but we're here to tell you stop feeling guilty! Kind of.

What if your basic at-the-office elevator ride takes a sudden turn for the dark side of gravity, could you survive it?

Sure, throwing grease down the drain is not great for the plumbing in your home, but it can actually cause problems on a much bigger scale in the form of FOGs - also known as fatbergs. And yes, those are as gross as they sound.

"It shouldn't be an act of feminism to know how your body works," says gynecologist and author Jen Gunter. In this revelatory talk, she explains how menstrual shame silences and represses -- and leads to the spread of harmful...

People ask Google everything under the sun. One of the most commonly searched questions in the world is “How do I get rid of hiccups?” Allow us at SciShow to explain.

The world is getting closer to achieving one of the most important public health goals of our time: eradicating HIV. And to do this, we won't even have to cure the disease. We simply have to stop HIV from being transmitted until...

You know how you somehow end up getting smoke in your eyes wherever you stand around a bonfire? Well, it turns out that’s not a curse! It’s much more easily explained with physics. "The more protractors, the better the party." ~Hank Green

The immense swell of a tsunami can grow up to 100 feet, hitting speeds over 500 mph -- a treacherous combination for anyone or anything in its path. Alex Gendler details the causes of these towering terrors and explains how scientists...

The sounds of the rainforest include: the chirps of birds, the buzz of cicadas, the banter of gibbons. But in the background is the almost-always present sound of a chainsaw, from illegal loggers. Engineer Topher White shares a simple,...