The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t just affected us. It’s also affected the weather. And this turns out to be a lucky natural experiment to help us understand how much we influence the world around us.

What if we told you that there was a time when oxygen almost wiped out all life on Earth? 3 billion years ago, when the world was a place you'd never recognize, too much of a good thing almost ruined everything for everybody.

There’s an invisible line between two groups of islands in the Indian Ocean with two totally different animal populations. It took three branches of science to figure out why it exists.

To save the achoque -- an exotic (and adorable) salamander found in a lake in northern Mexico -- scientists teamed up with an unexpected research partner: a group of nuns called the Sisters of the Immaculate Health. In this delightful...

Explore William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”, a story of shipwreck, magic and a fight for power. -- Claps of thunder and flashes of lightning illuminate a swelling sea, as a ship buckles beneath the waves. It is no ordinary...

Camels are famous for adaptations that have allowed them to flourish where most other large mammals would perish. But their story begins over 40 million years ago in North America, and in an environment you'd never expect: a rainforest.

Biologist Richard Dawkins makes a case for "thinking the improbable" by looking at how the human frame of reference limits our understanding of the universe.

Conductor Charles Hazlewood talks about the role of trust in musical leadership -- then shows how it works, as he conducts the Scottish Ensemble onstage. He also shares clips from two musical projects: the opera "U-Carmen eKhayelitsha"...

Hans Rosling had a question: Do some religions have a higher birth rate than others -- and how does this affect global population growth? Speaking at the TEDxSummit in Doha, Qatar, he graphs data over time and across religions. With his...

"We will start inhabiting outer space," says Angelo Vermeulen, crew commander of a NASA-funded Mars simulation. "It might take 50 years or it might take 500 years, but it's going to happen." In this charming talk, the TED Senior Fellow...

It was the dawn of 1863, and London's not-yet-opened subway system - the first of its kind in the world - had the city in an uproar. Most people thought the project, which cost more than 100 million dollars in today's money, would never...

If you're undergoing surgery, you want the best surgical team to collaborate on your case, no matter where they are. Surgeon and entrepreneur Nadine Hachach-Haram is developing a new system that helps surgeons operate together and train...

Particles come in pairs, which is why there should be an equal amount of matter and antimatter in the universe. Yet, scientists have not been able to detect any in the visible universe. Where is this missing antimatter? CERN scientist...

It is the artist's job to unearth stories that people try to bury with shovels of complacency and time, says poet and freedom fighter Mwende "FreeQuency" Katwiwa. Performing her poem "The Joys of Motherhood," Katwiwa explores the...

Something profound is changing our concept of trust, says Rachel Botsman. While we used to place our trust in institutions like governments and banks, today we increasingly rely on others, often strangers, on platforms like Airbnb and...

Teachers emotionally support our kids -- but who's supporting our teachers? In this eye-opening talk, educator Sydney Jensen explores how teachers are at risk of "secondary trauma" -- the idea that they absorb the emotional weight of...

Social justice belongs in our schools, says educator Sydney Chaffee. In a bold talk, she shows how teaching students to engage in activism helps them build important academic and life skills -- and asks us to rethink how we can use...

What can you do when the wheels of justice don't turn fast enough? Or when they don't turn at all? Vivek Maru is working to transform the relationship between people and law, turning law from an abstraction or threat into something that...

Algae plus salt water equals ... fuel? At TEDxNASA@SiliconValley, Bilal Bomani reveals a self-sustaining ecosystem that produces biofuels -- without wasting arable land or fresh water.

Cinematic love stories come in all shapes and sizes. Movies are really good at both capturing and projecting emotions. And one of the best directors at the modern love story is Wong Kar-Wai. In this episode of Crash Course Film...

The man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and '70s has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geo-engineering. This talk at the US State Department is a foretaste of his...

Jamila Gordon believes in the power of human connection -- and artificial intelligence -- to help people who might otherwise be left behind. Telling the story of her own path from refugee to global tech executive, she shows how AI is...

Hank loves science because it helps us appreciate the world more, but not everything that science does makes him happy - reports of poison fog on the West coast of the United States; dramatic decreases in sperm counts; and a lack of...

Hank shares losses and finds this week, including a huge amount of Antarctic ice that’s lost for good, and 10 cool new species that are last year’s top finds.