PBS
These Fossils Were Supposed To Be Impossible
Hidden in rocks once thought too old to contain complex life we may have found the animal kingdom’s oldest known predator.
PBS
These Creatures Were Darwin's Greatest Enemy
They may not look like much, but beneath that shell lies an evolutionary mystery - one that stumped the biggest names in natural history for over a hundred years.
PBS
The Invisible Barrier Keeping Two Worlds Apart
In between two of the islands of Indonesia, there’s an ancient line that is both real and…not real.
Be Smart
How Much Of You Is ACTUALLY Alive?
You’re alive right now… at least I’m pretty sure you are. But you’re not TOTALLY alive. Bits of you are always breaking down, being thrown out, and being replaced. Even right now, parts of you are dying. Some of your cells even died...
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The Amazing (and Deadly) Science of Jumping Spider Vision
Why do spiders have 8 eyes? It’s a seemingly simple question with a surprisingly complex answer. We’ll be hanging out with some jumping spiders (the cutest of all spiders) and some jumping spider researchers to investigate how a...
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In Search of the Blackest Thing on Earth
There are some startlingly black animals out there, whether they’re in the deep ocean or in the darkest corners of the rainforest. But humans have created some stunningly black substances too, using science and engineering. So who wins,...
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I Tried Eating Bugs… Here's What I Learned
People say insects are the food of the future. They’re more environmentally sustainable and more humane than other sources of animal protein. Can they really catch on in western diets? I’m a pretty adventurous eater, but I’ve never...
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How Your Brain Makes Its Own Electricity
Here’s a thought: What IS a thought? I know it involves my brain, and my brain is made of neurons. And my brain’s neurons are listening to other neurons all over my body. But how do those neurons actually work? Maybe you’ve heard that it...
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You Are An Upside-Down Lobster
Our bodies are mirror images of lobsters and other arthropods from back to belly. We've know since the early 19th century that our guts and nervous systems are inverted from theirs, but only recently has molecular biology shown us why....
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Why do Trees Talk to Each Other?
Walk into any forest, and beneath your feet is an elaborate social network that helps make life on Earth possible. It’s called the “Wood Wide Web”, a massive and intricate network of fungi that exchange water, nutrients, and chemical...
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Why Are There As Many Males As Females?
In almost every animal species on Earth, equal numbers of males and females are conceived. Why is that? Especially in populations like lions or elephant seals, where most males don’t get to mate? That’s survival of the laziest, not...
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The Evolutionary Purpose of Fun
Animals as simple as bees and as complex as you and me… like to have fun. But what’s the point of fun? Do all animals have fun? And for that matter, what is fun?
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Inside the Lab That Invented the COVID-19 Vaccine
Here we are, just a year after the first news of the coronavirus we now call SARS-CoV-2 and the global pandemic known as COVID-19… and scientists have already developed more than one safe & effective vaccine. How did they do that so...
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The Universe in a Glass of Wine (Richard Feynman Remixed)
A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he said that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look in glass of wine closely enough we see the...
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Is Your Eye Color Real?
The eyes are often the first thing we see when we look at someone. And when you look at them up close, everyone’s eye color is a kaleidoscope of shapes and hues. How does eye color work? The answer involves some very cool physics, and...
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Is There Life on Earth?
If we lived light years from Earth, how would we know there’s life here? Let’s take a look at the search for extraterrestrial life on habitable exoplanets, and discover what biosignatures would show someone else that we’re here.
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How To See Colors That Aren't Real
What color is a banana? Duh, it’s yellow. But what is yellow? Now that you mention it, how do we see color in the first place? That’s the series of questions that led me to making this video. It started simple and took me down a rabbit...
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Humans Are Smart. Why Are Babies So Dumb?
The first thing a baby giraffe experiences after being born is a 2 meter fall straight down to the ground. But within an hour, it’s standing, walking, and nursing on its own. And a blue whale calf, after nearly a year growing inside mom,...
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What's The Most Successful Species on Earth?
There are now more than 7 billion human beings on Earth, and that got me wondering: How successful are we compared to other species? I take a look at out how our numbers stack up to some other domains of life. It turns out that biomass,...
Curated Video
The Surprising Species That Everything Else Depends On | 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 the Heck Are We Ticklish?
I’ve explained a lot of weird bodily functions on this show but there’s one that we haven’t covered that’s always confused me: Tickling. What are you for, tickling? What’s the point of you? Why do you exist? Why do you make us laugh even...
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Why Is Sex a Thing?
Why does sex exist? You might think the obvious answer is “reproduction” but there are plenty of organisms on Earth that don’t require sex to reproduce. And the more that scientists examined sex, they more they realized that it’s an...
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Why Is Our Skeleton On the Inside?
Having bones is pretty cool. They make our blood, let us hear, and keep us from being just a squishy puddle on the floor. But for every species with bones, there are at least 20 species on Earth with exoskeletons instead. And those...