Like all of us, economist Tyler Cowen loves a good story. But in this intriguing talk, he asks us to step away from thinking of our lives -- and our messy, complicated irrational world -- in terms of a simple narrative.

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and...

The news of society's growing inequality makes all of us uneasy. But why? Dan Ariely reveals some new, surprising research on what we think is fair, as far as how wealth is distributed over societies ... then shows how it stacks up to...

Author and illustrator Maira Kalman talks about her life and work, from her covers for The New Yorker to her books for children and grown-ups. She is as wonderful, as wise and as deliciously off-kilter in person as she is on paper.

At Serious Play 2008, astrophysicist George Smoot shows stunning new images from deep-space surveys, and prods us to ponder how the cosmos -- with its giant webs of dark matter and mysterious gaping voids -- got built this way.

People have suspected that Earth rotates for thousands of years, but how did we first prove it?

You can use your smartphone to find a local ATM, but what if you need a defibrillator? Lucien Engelen shows us online innovations that are changing the way we save lives, including a crowdsourced map of local AEDs.

Some are longer than a blue whale. Others are barely larger than a grain of sand. One species unleashes one of the most deadly venoms on earth; another holds a secret that's behind some of the greatest breakthroughs in biology. They've...

Scott Dinsmore quit a job that made him miserable, and spent the next four years wondering how to find work that was joyful and meaningful. He shares what he learned in this deceptively simple talk about finding out what matters to you —...

Andy Hobsbawm shares a fresh ad campaign about going green -- and some of the fringe benefits.

After a traumatic brain injury, it sometimes happens that the brain can repair itself, building new brain cells to replace damaged ones. But the repair doesn't happen quickly enough to allow recovery from degenerative conditions like...

Old adages can be pretty hit or miss—especially when it comes to medical advice—but it turns out there may actually be some truth to the saying, "feed a cold, starve a fever."

Lucas Joppa, Microsoft's first chief environmental officer, thinks about climate change through the lens of coding, and he says the world's current net-zero approach simply won't compute. So how do we create a system that actually...

Erik Johansson creates realistic photos of impossible scenes -- capturing ideas, not moments. In this witty how-to, the Photoshop wizard describes the principles he uses to make these fantastical scenarios come to life, while keeping...

The constant motion of our oceans represents a vast and complicated system involving many different drivers. Sasha Wright explains the physics behind one of those drivers -- the concentration gradient -- and illustrates how our oceans...

In 2011, journalist Bruno Torturra covered a protest in São Paulo which turned ugly. His experience of being teargassed had a profound effect on the way he thought about his work, and he quit his job to focus on broadcasting raw,...

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on probability and prediction.

T
ERMS:
Cause - a thing that gives rise t
o an event
Ef
fect - an event
Relationship- interconnection betwe
en...

All the complexity in the universe ultimately owes its existence to one of the simplest materials possible: molecular hydrogen. And not only did this molecule play a huge role in building the universe as we know it, today, it also helps...

En esos días fríos y lluviosos en los que olvidas tu impermeable o paraguas y quieres mantenerte lo más seco posible, ¿deberías caminar y pasar más tiempo bajo la lluvia? o ¿deberías correr, lo que significa...

Our consciousness is a fundamental aspect of our existence, says philosopher David Chalmers: “There’s nothing we know about more directly…. but at the same time it’s the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe.” He shares some ways to...

Archimedes once said "Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth." While the idea of a person moving such a huge mass on their own might sound impossible, chances are you've seen this idea in action at your local playground....

What if you could search the surface of the Earth the same way you search the internet? Will Marshall and his team at Planet use the world's largest fleet of satellites to image the entire Earth every day. Now they're moving on to a new...

In this video Paul Andersen describes the defining characteristics of members in the domain archaebacteria. He starts with a brief description of the phylogeny of this group. He then describes the major characteristics on an archaea,...

Rob Forbes, the founder of Design Within Reach, shows a gallery of snapshots that inform his way of seeing the world. Charming juxtapositions, found art, urban patterns -- this slideshow will open your eyes to the world around you.