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The Strange Science of Why We Dream
It would be a lot easier to study the science of dreaming if we weren’t asleep every time we did it. Why do we dream? What does dreaming do for our brains? How did dreaming evolve? Here’s a look at the current theories from psychology...
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The Mathematical Code Hidden In Nature
How do zebras get their stripes? How do leopards get their spots? And how do giraffes get their giraffe-shaped thingies, whatever they are called? Would you believe the answer is… math? This is the story of a WWII wartime codebreaker and...
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The Magic (and Mystery) of Mirrors
How many times do you look in a mirror every day? Have you ever stopped to wonder how they actually work? Mirrors do strange things to our world, seemingly flipping everything so that what was right is left and what was left is right....
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These Death-Eating Scavengers Are Real Life-Savers | IN OUR NATURE
Seemingly distant ecosystems, even half a world apart, are connected in surprising ways. In this special limited series, Emily Graslie and Trace Dominguez join me as we explore the universal rules of life that tie together Earth’s living...
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Why You Can’t Smell Yourself (and Other Ways Your Senses Lie to You)
There is an absolutely weird, but surprisingly common phenomenon called sensory adaptation that you experience every day in countless ways without even realizing it. Without this very strange phenomenon, you would be lost, overwhelmed,...
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Why Soap Is Our Secret Weapon Against Germs
One of the most effective things you can do to protect yourself from catching a germ and becoming a statistic, whether it’s a global pandemic like COVID-19 or just every single other day of your life, is something that people have been...
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You'll Never Guess Where Earth's Largest Migration Happens
The biggest (and most mysterious!) migration in the world happens every night in the ocean as 10 billion tons of zooplankton swim to the surface to feed. This undersea journey is known as Diel vertical migration, and it occurs in every...
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Why Deadly Viral Pandemics Are Becoming More Common
Viruses keep jumping out of nature and into humans and getting us very sick in the process. So why do zoonotic spillovers like SARS-CoV-2 happen, and why are they becoming more frequent? We asked an expert.
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Where On Earth Do You Weigh The Least?
You may have heard that a kilogram of feathers weighs the same as a kilogram of steel, but that all depends on where you weigh them. This video is all about the difference between mass and weight, and how weirdly awesome Earth’s gravity...
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What Is A Dinosaur And What Isn’t a Dinosaur?
There’s a lot of confusion out there about what is and isn’t a dinosaur. And you’d be forgiven for being kinda confused. Maybe paleontologists are just messing with us. Or… maybe the question of what is and isn’t a dinosaur goes deeper...
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The Unexpected Measure that Makes the Modern World Tick
All of modern society relies upon a seemingly simple but surprisingly complex unit of measurement: the second. But knowing exactly what a “second” is is more complicated than you might think!
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Why Are There 7 Days In a Week? EXPLAINED
Why does everyone use a 7 day week, and where did it come from? Where do the names of the days come from? And who can we blame for Mondays? Here’s the true story of one of the oldest human customs still in use today. It gets a little...
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Here's What I Learned From Getting COVID
I’m vaccinated. I’m boosted. And I still got infected with the omicron variant of COVID-19. Here’s what I learned, and what it means for the possible end of this pandemic.
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Can We Solve the Air Conditioning Paradox?
As the Earth warms due to human-caused climate change, billions of people in the developing world will face life-threatening heat waves, raising the demand for air conditioning. But powering all of that cooling is going to take more...
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How Did Giant Pterosaurs Fly?
The largest pterosaurs like Quetzalcoatlus were closer in size to airplanes than birds. No flying animal alive today comes close to their huge size. So did giant pterosaurs actually fly? I went to see the fossil bones of the largest...
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How Blind People See With Sound… with @MollyBurkeOfficial!
I met Molly Burke a few months ago. She’s awesome. I absolutely love what she’s done on YouTube to bring awareness to living with disability, and turning it into ability. And her guide dog Gallop is awesome too! When Molly and I first...