PBS
What Happened To Primates In North America?
Early primates not only lived in North America -- our primate family tree actually originated here! So what happened to those early relatives of ours?
PBS
The World Before Plate Tectonics
There was a time in Earth’s history that was so stable, geologists once called it the Boring Billion. But the fact is, this period was anything but boring. In fact, it set the stage for our modern version of plate tectonics - and...
PBS
The Triassic Reptile With "Two Faces"
Figuring out what this creature’s face actually looked like would take paleontologists years. But understanding this weird animal can help us shine a light on at least one way for ecosystems to bounce back from even the worst mass...
PBS
The History of Climate Cycles (and the Woolly Rhino) Explained
Throughout the Pleistocene Epoch, the range of the woolly rhino grew and shrank in sync with global climate. So what caused the climate -- and the range of the woolly rhino -- to cycle back and forth between such extremes?
PBS
How South America Made the Marsupials
Throughout the Cenozoic Era -- the era we’re in now -- marsupials and their metatherian relatives flourished all over South America, filling all kinds of ecological niches and radiating into forms that still thrive on other continents.
Be Smart
The Biggest Myth About Climate Change
You’ve seen it in the comment section before: “Climate change is natural. It’s happened before and it will keep happening”. In reality, comments like these are the newest kind of climate change denial. In this video we’re going to learn...
TED Talks
TED: The world's rarest diseases — and how they impact everyone | Anna Greka
Physician-scientist Anna Greka investigates the world's rarest genetic diseases, decoding the secrets of our cells through "molecular detective work." She explains how her team is using new, advanced technology to solve decades-old...
TED Talks
TED: How I found myself -- by impersonating other people | Melissa Villaseñor
Ever think you'd hear Sandra Bullock, Britney Spears and Dolly Parton in one TED Talk? Here they are, courtesy of "Saturday Night Live" star Melissa Villaseñor. She shares the life lessons of a comedian -- complete with celebrity...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can other animals understand death? | Barbara J. King
In 2018, an orca called Tahlequah gave birth. But her daughter died within an hour. Tahlequah, however, didn't leave her body. Over the next 17 days and 1,600 kilometers, she kept it afloat atop her own. By altering her feeding and...
TED Talks
TED: Could an orca give a TED Talk? | Karen Bakker
What if we could hear nature's ultrasonic communication -- and talk back? From a bat's shrill speech to a peacock's infrasound mating call, conservation technology researcher Karen Bakker takes us through a sound bath of animal noises...
TED Talks
TED: Are we the last generation -- or the first sustainable one? | Hannah Ritchie
The word "sustainability" gets thrown around a lot these days. But what does it actually mean for humanity to be sustainable? Environmental data scientist Hannah Ritchie digs into the numbers behind human progress across centuries,...
TED Talks
TED: Can global food companies make the shift to regenerative agriculture? | Steve Presley
Sharing the inside scoop on how the world's largest food company aims to reach net zero by 2050, Nestlé North America CEO Steve Presley joins TED's Lindsay Levin to discuss the progress they've made so far and where they're investing for...
TED Talks
TED: The magic of a creative career | Michael Sheen
The city of Port Talbot in South Wales is known for a few things: a steel mill, a proudly working class population and a passionate commitment to the arts that produced Hollywood superstars Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins. In this...
TED Talks
TED: A mysterious design that appears across millennia | Terry Moore
What can we make of a design that shows up over and over in disparate cultures throughout history? Theorist Terry Moore explores "Penrose tiling" -- two shapes that fit together in infinite combinations without ever repeating -- and...
SciShow
How Does Chickenpox Turn Into Shingles?
You might know that chickenpox and shingles are both caused by the same virus, varicella zoster. Here's why the symptoms, and even the vaccines, are different the second time around.
SciShow
What Are We REALLY Using Space Lasers For?
Ever since we started launching stuff into space, we've communicated with spacecraft (and astronauts) using radio waves. But over the past few decades, scientists have experimented with a new technique that could make things a lot more...
SciShow
How to See Really Tiny Things Without Killing Them
Where would biology be without microscopes? But for a long time, in order to see the smallest bits of life, that life had to be dead. Then along came Atomic Force Microscopy, which let us observe things like DNA and proteins moving...
SciShow
Why Can't I Grow More Teeth?
How come sharks get to have endlessly regrowing teeth when humans only get one set our entire lives? And how come some other mammals get to cheat the system? From elephants to baboons, we'll learn why teeth don't grow back.
SciShow
Terran 1: The 3D Printed Rocket
Early this year, 3D printing showed off its space-age technology capabilities by printing most of a rocket that was launched into space.
SciShow
How Can Microbes Protect Crops From Drought?
Solving food shortages caused by droughts is a big challenge that may benefit from a tiny ally. Turns out that the microbes living in the soil around plants can give them a boost when water's scarce, which means more food for us, which...
SciShow
The Rocket That Took Tortoises to the Moon
Months before Apollo 8 took humans around the Moon for the first time, two Russian tortoises (plus some other lunar tourists) had already made it back home. This was Zond 5 — the first mission to return to Earth after visiting another...
SciShow
The Earth's "Boring Billion" Years Were Anything But
About 1.8–0.8 billion ago, the Earth went through a period known as the Boring Billion, where not a lot changed in terms of geology, evolution, or even the number of hours in a day. Some scientists call it “the dullest period in Earth’s...
SciShow
How to See Inside Anything
You might think of x-rays as the go-to particle to see through solid objects. But there's a subatomic particle out there that can see through everything from volcanos to lead shielding in nuclear reactors. It's called a muon, and...
SciShow
The Weight of “Nothing” Could Mean Everything (to Physics)
Deep in a Sardinian mine, researchers are constructing an experiment that hopes to solve what's known as The Worst Prediction In The History of Physics, and pin down the true identity of dark energy.