MinuteEarth
Why Did It Take Us So Long?
We've long known that animal pollination is an important way plants reproduce on land, but we're only just finding out animals also pollinate plants underwater.
MinuteEarth
The Species That Broke Evolution?
The ancestors of gars, horseshoe crabs and coelacanths looked almost the same as their modern relatives. Darwin called species like these “living fossils'' because they seem like they are evolutionarily frozen in time. But Darwin was wrong.
MinuteEarth
The Crabs Are Coming
As the waters warm in the deep sea around Antarctica, ecosystem-crushing crabs are able to live closer and closer to the continent.
MinuteEarth
Why Monkeys Can Only Count To Four
There’s an island in the Caribbean where David used to perform magic tricks for monkeys. And it was super cool because it suggested that they have the ability to count! (but only up to four)
MinuteEarth
Why Don't We Eat Carnivores?
Humans eat a lot of different animals, but almost none of them are carnivores - why?
MinuteEarth
Why does the north get more total eclipses?
Solar eclipses can happen anywhere on earth, but if you want to see a total eclipse, you need to go to the far north, because the Earth’s shape and orbit determine the high latitudes and eclipse hotspot.
MinuteEarth
What’s Eating The Titanic?
When a ship sinks, lots of factors, like the ship’s materials, the water quality, and the depth of the seafloor all play a role in determining how long the ship will last down there - as a result, the Titanic will be gone in fifty years,...
MinuteEarth
Weird Things Animals Do During Eclipses
For centuries, humans have reported animals freaking out during solar eclipses, like birds falling from the sky and bees hiding in their hives, but the animals most affected by eclipses might be us.
MinuteEarth
Inside The Sunny Center of a Hurricane
Why is the middle of a hurricane sometimes so clear and calm?
MinuteEarth
How Birds Fooled Military Radar: A Technology Turned Conservation Tool
A technology to ignore birds on radar ended up being useful to study and conserve them.
Be Smart
How Was the Grand Canyon Formed?
I was in Arizona recently for Phoenix Comic-Con, and had the amazing pleasure of seeing one of Earth's greatest natural wonders… the Grand Canyon. More than a mile deep, and several miles across, it just defies belief. But I couldn't...
MinuteEarth
You Can’t Actually Die Of Old Age
Despite centuries of death records to the contrary, “dying of old age” is not medically possible; instead, it’s just a convenient catch-all.
MinuteEarth
Why We Haven’t Learned More In 101 Years Of Trying
Almost everything we know about the reproductive practices of European eels comes from a genius study conducted more than 100 years ago.
MinuteEarth
Why These Bears “Waste” Food
Optimal foraging theory means that turning down food is sometimes more efficient than eating it - but even then, what’s “wasted” doesn’t necessarily go to waste.
MinuteEarth
Why The Ocean Needs Salt
Our oceans don’t technically contain salt, but the ions salt is made of play a critical role in planet-wide processes that make the Earth habitable.
MinuteEarth
Why Do Weeping Willows Weep?
Most trees reach for the sun – but not the weeping willow. Why?
MinuteEarth
Why Do People Hate Koalas?
On the Internet, koalas get an unnecessary amount of hate, so let's debunk some of the most pervasive koala myths!
MinuteEarth
The WEIRD Way Monkeys Got to America
Many of the greatest biological dispersal events in history likely happened because animals inadvertently traveled across the oceans on floating debris.
MinuteEarth
MinuteEarth Explains: Animal Winners and Losers
In this collection of classic MinuteEarth videos, we keep score on the winners and losers of the animal kingdom. 0:00 - Intro 0:10 - Why Only Some Monkeys Have Awesome Tails • Why Only Some Monkeys Have Awesome Tails 1:57 - Rise Of The...
MinuteEarth
Is Bigger Better?
Elephants might be strong, but they are weak compared to ants because ants have certain advantages that allow them to outlift their larger competitors.
MinuteEarth
In The Future, Death Will Be Different
In the future, humans will likely die of a very different suite of causes than we do now, thanks to advances in healthcare, an aging population, and changes in the environment.
MinuteEarth
How To Survive Poison
It’s not just how much you take in; it’s how fast your body can purge it.
MinuteEarth
Apparently tree FINGERPRINTS are a thing
Every species on Earth has a fingerprint - whether or not they have fingers at all.
MinuteEarth
How A Whale And A Bear Beat The System
While the rest of the world’s megafauna are still foundering in the anthropocene era, these two big animals have used little animal strategies to bounce back. Way back.