If you visit a museum with a collection of modern and contemporary art, you're likely to see works that sometimes elicit the response, _My cat could make that, so how is it art?" But is it true? Could anyone create one of Jackson...

There’s no doubt that lithium has a diverse list of uses. But the way that it interacts with our bodies to help treat bipolar disorder is aiding us in better understanding the disorder and potentially developing new drugs to combat it.

The Renaissance was a cultural revitalization that spread across Europe, and had repercussions across the globe, but one smallish city-state in Italy was in many ways the epicenter of the thing. Florence, or as Italians might say,...

Researchers are developing a flu vaccine with the potential to target many different strains at once. Also, bacterial meningitis may have something to do with special RNA.

If you've received a vaccine that's 95% effective, that does not mean you have a 5% chance of getting sick. That’s just not how the numbers are calculated. So let’s take a closer look at how it does work, why we can’t compare these...

A male firefly emits a series of enticing flashes. He hopes a female will respond and mate with him. A female from a different species mimics his patterns: by tricking the male, she lures him in -- and turns him into a meal. Where else...

Unlike measles, Influenza requires a fresh shot of vaccines every year. But why?

Snakes are super cool and super helpful, but people believe a lot of things about them that just aren't true. Join Jessi and Squeaks to learn what's true and what's false about these radical reptiles!

Your favorite band is great at playing musicbut not so great at being organized. They keep misplacing their instruments on tour, and it's driving their manager mad. Can you solve the brain-numbing riddle their manager assigns them and...

The other day I got bored and noticed this weird thing happened when I held my finger up to my eye, so I had to science it and figure it out! Let me know if you try these light-bending experiments too, especially that last one that I...

Every day, we move and operate within systems of power that other people have constructed. But we're often uncomfortable talking about power. Why? Eric Liu describes the six sources of power and explains how understanding them is key to...

Insects and animals have evolved some amazing skills -- but, as Robert Full notes, many animals are actually over-engineered. The trick is to copy only what's necessary. He shows how human engineers can learn from animals' tricks.

It’s handy having a view of Earth from space. This particular view may be one that changes the way we predict weather phenomena.

Cocaine addiction is difficult to treat, but with the help of gene therapy, scientists are hoping to change that

In this video Paul Andersen explains how you can get your students asking more and better scientific questions.

In this video Paul Andersen explains how scientific phenomenon and sensemaking can be used in the science classroom to...

You're on an airplane when you feel a sudden jolt. Outside your window nothing seems to be happening, yet the plane continues to rattle you and your fellow passengers as it passes through turbulent air in the atmosphere. What exactly is...

Why can't two slices of pizza be used as a slide clicker? Why shouldn't you make music with ketchup? In this charming talk, inventor Jay Silver talks about the urge to play with the world around you. He shares some of his messiest...

Special Guest Derek Muller stumps Hank with logic problems and talks about energy, teaching tools and education through video. Jessi from Animal Wonders also joins the conversation to talk about Lollipop, the striped skunk.

Without realizing it, we're fluent in the language of pictures, says illustrator Christoph Niemann. In a charming talk packed with witty, whimsical drawings, Niemann takes us on a hilarious visual tour that shows how artists tap into our...

Even though doctors have been using general anesthesia for nearly 200 years, they haven’t really understood the details of how it temporarily shuts down your brain — until now.

Coming up with brand new drugs is all about pinpointing and exploiting a disease’s weakness. A big part of perfecting drug design will be learning to predict how proteins get their shapes because that has everything to do with how both...

Hank shares the latest ambitious project from SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk: The Gigafactory. Learn more about how batteries work, what the big deal is about lithium, and why people are getting so charged up. See what we did...

Hank makes it all better by explaining the biochemistry of pain -- how it works, why we have it, and how painkillers, whether they're over the counter or heavy-duty prescription bad boys, make the pain go away. Chapters View all...

If you plant a seed from your orange, you might have to wait as long as 15 years to get a tree with fruit, which is kind of a bummer for the impatient types among us. Fortunately, there’s an age-old trick called grafting that can shorten...