Imagine a boat that propels by moving its "tail" from side to side, just like a fish. That's the kind of machine that TED Fellow Robert Katzschmann's lab builds: soft-bodied robots that imitate natural movements with artificial, silent...

In Bangladesh's only beach town, there are just a handful of girls who ride the waves. In fact, most people there frown upon seeing girl surfers, who have faced threats from conservative Muslims in the neighborhood. But surfing makes...

Easter Island off the coast of Chile has a major trash problem. It's near what's known as a "trash vortex" in the middle of the South Pacific and floating waste is constantly washing ashore. Local officials estimate the growing...

Animals are communicating -- but what are they saying? And can we talk back? Marine biologist David Gruber introduces Project CETI: a team of scientists, linguists and AI specialists hoping to decode sperm whale language. Using...

Plants make oxygen using photosynthesis, but what happens to the air when those trees drop their leaves in winter?

In this video Paul Andersen shows how increasing ocean temperatures causes coral polyps to release their symbiotic algae. This process of coral bleaching decreases the availability of energy for the coral and may eventually lead to coral...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the amplitude of a wave is a measure of the energy of the wave. He gives several examples of wave amplitude and shows you how to calculate the wave of a transverse and longitudinal wave.

As a diver in the 1970s, marine ecologist Enric Sala saw once-lush oceanscapes reduced to underwater deserts -- but later, in marine preserves across the globe, he also witnessed the ocean's power to rejuvenate itself when left to its...

Why do shell building living creatures live near the surface of the ocean? Learn how chemistry creates a dissolving depth for calcium and determines where shell builders can live.

Is it a fuzzy sock? An overripe banana? A moldy tube of toothpaste? In fact, it’s a humble sea cucumber: a brainless, fleshy form surrounding a digestive tract, and bookended by a mouth and an anus. And while it might look odd, its daily...

Squeaks and Mister Brown pretend to go back in time to learn more about Trilobites, using special clues from fossils! Second Grade Next Generation Science Standards Crosscutting Concepts Patterns: Observed patterns in nature guide...

New evidence suggests some fossils as the oldest known sign of life on Earth, and scientists may have a way to speed up the process of carbon neutralization in the ocean!

The oceans absorb a lot of CO2, leading to a variety of effects like ocean acidification. But you might not expect one of those effects: stronger lightning strikes.

Hank shares three cool discoveries in space science, including a celestial crucible of phosphorous, noble gases found in a supernova, and plumes of water vapor on Europa.

Under the sea, untold wonders await in the form of untapped medicinal potential. Chemist Sam Afoullouss dives into the science behind natural remedies, explaining why the ocean's great (and still largely unexplored) biodiversity is ideal...

Have you ever wondered what color is? In this first installment of a series on light, Colm Kelleher describes the physics behind colors-- why the colors we see are related to the period of motion and the frequency of waves.

What's the largest river on Earth? If you said "the Amazon".... you're only half right. Scientists have discovered an even bigger river in South America, and it's in the sky above the Amazon rainforest. Turns out, this sky river is the...

An average teaspoon of ocean water contains five million bacteria and fifty million viruses -- and yet we are just starting to discover how these "invisible engineers" control our ocean's chemistry. At TEDxMonterey, Melissa Garren sheds...

Antarctica is a vast and dynamic place, but radar technologies -- from World War II-era film to state-of-the-art miniaturized sensors -- are enabling scientists to observe and understand changes beneath the continent's ice in...

Sleep is important, but not all animals need the same kind of deep rest as humans. From sleeping standing up to sleeping inside snot bubbles, here are 8 especially strange ways some animals catch their ZZZs.

Bees aren’t the only pollinators out there. Some of the other, more surprising pollinators aren't just unconventional, they give us unique examples of how the relationship between pollinators and plants evolved in the first place.

So... what makes the wind? You might be surprised to learn that it has to do with two of Earth's spheres; The Hydrosphere and the Geosphere. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina takes us to the beach to chat about how the wind...

Some might call sand coarse, rough and irritating, but there’s no denying that it’s used everywhere: from glass to asphalt, sand is a key ingredient for all sorts of materials in construction and technology. But this heavy reliance on...

It's really difficult for life to create blue pigments, but the color can appear in a handful of compounds that create just the right conditions to reflect blue photons.