"The hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone," says author Suleika Jaouad. In this fierce, funny, wisdom-packed talk, she challenges us to think beyond the divide between "sick" and "well," asking: How do you...

Legendary skeptic James Randi takes a fatal dose of homeopathic sleeping pills onstage, kicking off a searing 18-minute indictment of irrational beliefs. He throws out a challenge to the world's psychics: Prove what you do is real, and...

Usted preguntará por qué dormimos ¿Por qué, cuándo, cuánto y cómo dormimos? El biólogo Diego Golombek explica que el sueño no es una comodidad sino una necesidad. Desde nuestra salud hasta nuestro estado de ánimo, el sueño impacta en...

Statistics are persuasive. So much so that people, organizations, and whole countries base some of their most important decisions on organized data. But any set of statistics might have something lurking inside it that can turn the...

On average, adults catch more than 150 colds throughout their lives. Even with similar symptoms, the cause could be different each time. Common colds are caused by at least 8 different families of virus, each of which can have its own...

In addition to being a serious social issue, racism is also a serious challenge to public health. In fact, over the last year and a half, dozens of cities have declared racism a public health crisis - and today, we here at SciShow will...

Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world; in the United States, close to ten percent of adults struggle with the disease. But because it's a mental illness, it can be a lot harder to understand than, say, high...

Researchers have developed ways to induce hallucinations, and though it sounds weird, it could also tell us a lot about mental health.

Researchers believe you can get reinfected with COVID-19, but we're not quite sure if that's a bad thing yet.

In 1982, a young nurse was suffering from severe, unrelenting depression. She couldn’t work, socialize or concentrate. One controversial treatment changed everything: after two courses of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) her symptoms...

Dr. Ernest Madu runs the Heart Institute of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica, where he proves that -- with careful design, smart technical choices, and a true desire to serve -- it's possible to offer world-class healthcare in the...

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...

Swallowing pills to get medication is a quick, painless and often not entirely effective way of treating disease. A potentially better way? Lasers. In this passionate talk, TED Fellow Patience Mthunzi explains her idea to use lasers to...

What if we could help our bodies heal faster and without scars, like Wolverine in X-Men? TED Fellow Kaitlyn Sadtler is working to make this dream a reality by developing new biomaterials that could change how our immune system responds...

For nearly half a century, scientists have been trying to create a process for transplanting animal organs into humans, a theoretical dream that could help the hundreds of thousands of people in need of a lifesaving transplant. But the...

Less than a tenth the size of an ant, a dust mite's whole world is contained in the dusty film under a bed or in a forgotten corner. This realm is right under our noses, but from our perspective, the tiny specks of brilliant color blend...

All mammals share certain characteristics, like warm blood and backbones. But despite their similarities, these creatures also have many biological differences - and one of the most remarkable differences is how they give birth. Kate...

Playing sound effects both pleasant and awful, Julian Treasure shows how sound affects us in four significant ways. Listen carefully for a shocking fact about noisy open-plan offices.

How much do you know about the world? Hans Rosling, with his famous charts of global population, health and income data (and an extra-extra-long pointer), demonstrates that you have a high statistical chance of being quite wrong about...

Prolonged space travel plays a severe toll on the human body: microgravity impairs muscle and bone growth, and high doses of radiation cause irreversible mutations. As we seriously consider the human species becoming space-faring, a big...

If you've been to a restaurant in the last few years, you've likely seen the words gluten-free written somewhere on the menu. But what exactly is gluten, and why can't some people process it? And why does it only seem to be a problem...

The heart is one of the least regenerative organs in the human body -- a big factor in making heart failure the number one killer worldwide. What if we could help heart muscle regenerate after injury? Physician and scientist Chuck Murry...

India's big cities have some of the worst air quality in the world. How can we fix this public health crisis? In an actionable talk, social entrepreneur Arunabha Ghosh lays out a five-step plan to put India on the path to cleaner, safer...

In 2011, eye surgeon and TED Fellow Andrew Bastawrous developed a smartphone app that brings quality eye care to remote communities, helping people avoid losing their sight to curable or preventable conditions. Along the way, he noticed...