Have you ever seen static electricity cause a spark of light? What is that spark? What about lightning, the Northern Lights, or the tail of a comet? All of those things and many others _ in fact, 99.9% of the universe -- are made of...

Morning glories unfurl their petals like clockwork in the early morning. A closing white waterlily signals that it's late afternoon. And moon flowers, as their name suggests, only bloom under the night sky. What gives plants this innate...

Cross-country skier Janine Shepherd hoped for an Olympic medal -- until she was hit by a truck during a training bike ride. She shares a powerful story about the human potential for recovery. Her message: you are not your body, and...

After his HIV diagnosis, former pro rugby player Gareth Thomas set out on a mission to tackle the stigma and shame that prevent people from getting the testing and care they need. In this empowering talk, Thomas shares his mission to...

Whether you have one follower or a million, we've all witnessed nastiness and hate speech on social media. YouTube content creator and mental well-being motivator Peachy Liv advocates for a kinder, more respectful digital world -- and...

After a terminal cancer diagnosis upended 12 years of remission, all Elaine Fong's mother wanted was a peaceful end of life. What she received instead became a fight for the right to decide when. Fong shares the heart-rending journey to...

When we hear the word radiation, it's tempting to picture huge explosions and frightening mutations. But that's not the full story - radiation also applies to rainbows and a doctor examining an X-ray. So what is it, really, and how much...

Researchers have revealed a potentially life-saving rapid blood type test, and does using GPS to get around make your brain lazy?

Gluten is a sticky protein composite found in cereal grains. Hank gives us some insight into the importance of gluten in history, as well as its impact on health in our own time.

We all have some displeasing memories from the past that still make our blood boil. Why are those grudges so hard to let go of?

Your digestive system impacts the rest of your body in all sorts of unexpected ways, from keeping your heart healthy to literally making you feel happier.

There are many mysteries around fever, but we do know that all mammals, some birds and even a few invertebrate and plant species feel fever's heat. It has persisted for over 600 million years of evolution. But it has a significant cost:...

We are living in a world that is tantalizingly close to ensuring that no one need die of hunger or malaria or diarrhea, says economist Michael Green. To help spur progress, back in 2015 the United Nations drew up a set of 17 goals around...

We can use a mosquito's own instincts against her. In a rather unforgettable presentation, Bart Knols demos the imaginative solutions his team is developing to fight malaria -- including Limburger cheese and a deadly pill.

Some people who get sick with COVID-19 don't feel any symptoms of the disease, but what does an asymptomatic COVID-19 infection look like?

Think back to a really vivid memory. Got it? Now try to remember what you had for lunch three weeks ago. That second memory probably isn't as strong-but why not? Why do we remember some things, and not others? And why do memories...

Aspirations are rising as never before across the world, thanks in large part to smartphones and the internet -- will they be met with opportunity or frustration? As President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim wants to end extreme...

The biggest challenge in a parasite's life is to move from one host to another. Intriguingly, many parasites have evolved the ability to manipulate the behavior of their hosts to improve their own survival -- sometimes even by direct...

Reuse of syringes, all too common in under-funded clinics, kills 1.3 million each year. Marc Koska clues us in to this devastating global problem with facts, photos and hidden-camera footage. He shares his solution: a low-cost syringe...

In a story of scientific discovery, chemical biologist David R. Liu shares a breakthrough: his lab's development of base editors that can rewrite DNA. This crucial step in genome editing takes the promise of CRISPR to the next level: if...

When you breathe, you transport oxygen to the body's cells to keep them working, while also clearing your system of the carbon dioxide that this work generates. How do we accomplish this crucial and complex task without even thinking...

What's haunting Carrie Poppy? Is it ghosts or something worse? In this talk, the investigative journalist narrates her encounter with a spooky feeling you'll want to warn your friends about and explains why we need science to deal with...

What if we treated the risk of pandemics the same way we treat the risk of fires? In this eye-opening talk, infectious disease epidemiologist Jennifer B. Nuzzo unpacks how the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 sparked a cultural shift in how...

Within every cell in our body, two copies of a tumor suppressor gene called BRCA1 are tasked with regulating the speed at which cells divide. Michael Windelspecht explains how these genes can sometimes mutate, making those cells less...