Every 24 hours, wind generates enough kinetic energy to produce roughly 35 times more electricity than humanity uses each day. And unlike coal or oil, this resource is totally renewed each day. So how can we harness this incredible...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the conservation of mass was replaced with the conservation of mass-energy when it was determined that they are equivalent. This famous equation not only show the mass-energy equivalence but can...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the internal energy of a system can change as the internal structure of the system changes. An object model will not be able to account for the restoring forces and so a system model must be...

In 2013, international migrants sent $413 billion home to families and friends — three times more than the total of global foreign aid (about $135 billion). This money, known as remittances, makes a significant difference in the lives of...

You've probably heard that carbon dioxide is warming the Earth. But how exactly is it doing it? Lieven Scheire uses a rainbow, a light bulb and a bit of quantum physics to describe the science behind global warming.

What exactly are the invisible things out there, and how did they help form the universe as we know it? To explore and understand the most spectacular structures out there, scientists have been using cosmic shear to indirectly detect...

Some believe that increased carbon emissions could produce faster growing plants, but some scientists worry that it could mean more toxic and invasive species.

Since eye color is determined by chemical and structural differences in the eye, it seems logical that different eye colors see the world in different ways.

In some arid parts of the world, people cool off by drinking hot beverages. Can a hot drink on a hot day really cool you down?

Should we keep the outdoors out of hospitals? Ecologist and TED Fellow Jessica Green has found that mechanical ventilation does get rid of many types of microbes, but the wrong kinds: the ones left in the hospital are much more likely to...

The prospect of interstellar travel is no longer sci-fi. It COULD be achievable within our lifetime! But, how would an interstellar rocket-ship work? On this week's episode of Space Time, Matt talks options for interstellar travel - from...

Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, bet his whole company on the belief that people can trust each other enough to stay in one another's homes. How did he overcome the stranger-danger bias? Through good design. Now, 123 million hosted...

We're in the dawn of a new space revolution, says engineer Peter Beck: the revolution of the small. In a talk packed with insights into the state of the space industry, Beck shares his work building rockets capable of delivering small...

There are a whole lot of people out there who have bought into the notion that, in order to be physically fit, you should aim for taking 10,000 steps a day. But where did this idea come from, and how did we all agree on this magical,...

Hank throws three bite-sized stories at ya: the sequencing of 5300-year-old ice man Oetzi's genome; a confusing mass of dark matter; and how the cleanup of the Fukushima disaster is going one year later.

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t just affected us. It’s also affected the weather. And this turns out to be a lucky natural experiment to help us understand how much we influence the world around us.

NIAC has awarded their first two grant winners for phase III: optical mining and 3D modeling craters, and researchers are further honing in on how to identify faraway habitable planets.

How does education work? Where does the money come from? Who pays for it? Is going to college a good investment? Adriene and Jacob are talking today about the economics of education. Most countries require that their citizens get some...

Is it better to walk or run when it's cold out? If you run, then you have to deal with wind, wind chill, etc, but your body generates more heat. If you stay still, standing or walking slowly, you don't generate as much...

Oxygen levels in the Martian atmosphere are mysteriously inconsistent, and scientists don’t have a clear explanation for what’s behind the changes. Meanwhile, scientists DO have explanations for the tiger-like stripes on one of Saturn’s...

Based on what we think we know about the universe these stars really shouldn't exist, but they do!

Vivid dreams have gotten pretty common during the Covid-19 pandemic and there’s a good psychological reason for that.

This is episode 7 of our animated series "Think Like A Coder." This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hedge, as they attempt to save the world. The two embark on a quest to collect three artifacts and...

New information has helped us understand where domestic horses came from. And by counting some tree rings, researchers were able to find evidence of Norse presence in the Americas in 1021 CE.