TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do viruses jump from animals to humans? - Ben Longdon
Discover the science of how viruses can jump from one species to another and the deadly epidemics that can result from these pathogens. -- At a Maryland country fair in 2017, farmers reported feverish hogs with inflamed eyes and running...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The genius of Marie Curie - Shohini Ghose
Marie Sk_odowska Curie's revolutionary research laid the groundwork for our understanding of physics and chemistry, blazing trails in oncology, technology, medicine, and nuclear physics, to name a few. But what did she actually do?...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How aspirin was discovered - Krishna Sudhir
4000 years ago, the ancient Sumerians made a surprising discovery: if they scraped the bark off a particular kind of tree and ate it, their pain disappeared. Little did they know that what they'd found was destined to influence the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Which sunscreen should you choose? - Mary Poffenroth
Sunscreen comes in many forms, each with its own impacts on your body and the environment. With so many options, how do you choose which sunscreen is best for you? To answer that question, Mary Poffenroth explains how sunscreens work and...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How does caffeine keep us awake? - Hanan Qasim
Over 100,000 metric tons of caffeine are consumed around the world every year. That's equivalent to the weight of 14 Eiffel Towers! Caffeine helps us feel alert, focused, and energetic, even if we haven't had enough sleep - but it can...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The surprising cause of stomach ulcers - Rusha Modi
It's a common misconception that stomach ulcers are caused by emotional upset, psychological distress, or spicy food. Yet no convincing study has ever demonstrated that these factors directly cause ulcer disease. So what does cause...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why doesn't anything stick to Teflon? - Ashwini Bharathula
Teflon was in the spacesuits the Apollo crew wore for the moon landing, in pipes and valves used in the Manhattan project, and it may be in your kitchen, as the nonstick coating on frying pans and cookie sheets. So what is this slippery...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Who's at risk for colon cancer? - Amit H. Sachdev and Frank G. Gress
Colon cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer and cancer death in the world. It is also one of the most preventable types of cancer, as it often takes about ten years for a small polyp to grow and develop into a cancerous one. So...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How does asthma work? - Christopher E. Gaw
More than 300 million people around the world suffer from asthma, and around 250,000 people die from it each year. But why do people get asthma, and how can this disease be deadly? Christopher E. Gaw describes the main symptoms and...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is obesity? - Mia Nacamulli
Obesity is an escalating global epidemic. It substantially raises the probability of diseases like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and cancer. But what is the distinction between being overweight and being obese?...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What happens during a stroke? - Vaibhav Goswami
Every two seconds, someone in the world has a stroke. One out of every six people will have a stroke at some point in their lives. Strokes deprive brain cells of oxygen and are one of the most common causes of death, and a leading cause...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Do we really need pesticides? - Fernan Perez-Galvez
Annually, we shower over 5 billion pounds of pesticides across the Earth to control insects, unwanted weeds, funguses, rodents, and bacteria that may threaten our food supply. But is it worth it, knowing what we do about the associated...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to spot a fad diet - Mia Nacamulli
Conventional wisdom about diets, including government health recommendations, seems to change all the time. And yet ads routinely come out claiming to have THE answer about what we should eat. So how do we distinguish what's actually...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The science of skin - Emma Bryce
Between you and the rest of the world lies an interface that makes up 16% of your physical weight. This is your skin, the largest organ in your body: laid out flat, it would cover close to 1.7 square meters of ground. But besides keeping...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: When is water safe to drink? - Mia Nacamulli
Water is refreshing, hydrating, and invaluable to your survival. But clean water remains a precious and often scarce commodity - there are nearly 800 million people who still don't have regular access to it. Why is that? And how can you...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How does your body know you're full? - Hilary Coller
Hunger claws at your belly. It tugs at your intestines, which begin to writhe, aching to be fed. Being hungry generates a powerful and often unpleasant physical sensation that's almost impossible to ignore. After you've reacted by...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are food preservatives bad for you? - Eleanor Nelsen
Food doesn't last. In days, sometimes hours, bread goes moldy, apple slices turn brown, and bacteria multiply in mayonnaise. But you can find all of these foods out on the shelf at the grocery store " hopefully unspoiled -- thanks to...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What happens during a heart attack? - Krishna Sudhir
Approximately seven million people around the world die from heart attacks every year. And cardiovascular disease, which causes heart attacks and other problems like strokes, is the world's leading killer. So what causes a heart attack?...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What causes kidney stones? - Arash Shadman
The biggest kidney stone on record weighed more than a kilogram and was 17 centimeters in diameter. The patient didn't actually swallow a stone the size of a coconut; kidney stones form inside the body. So how do they grow in the first...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why is it so hard to cure cancer? - Kyuson Yun
We've harnessed electricity, sequenced the human genome, and eradicated smallpox. But after billions of dollars in research, we haven't found a solution for a disease that affects more than 14 million people and their families at any...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The history of chocolate - Deanna Pucciarelli
If you can't imagine life without chocolate, you're lucky you weren't born before the 16th century. Until then, chocolate only existed as a bitter, foamy drink in Mesoamerica. So how did we get from a bitter beverage to the chocolate...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The life cycle of a t-shirt - Angel Chang
Consider the classic white t-shirt. Annually, we sell and buy 2 billion t-shirts globally, making it one of the most common garments in the world. But how and where is the average t-shirt made, and what's its environmental impact? Angel...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How blood pressure works - Wilfred Manzano
If you lined up all the blood vessels in your body, they'd be 60 thousand miles long. And every day, they carry the equivalent of over two thousand gallons of blood to the body's tissues. What effect does this pressure have on the walls...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are spotty fruits and vegetables safe to eat? - Elizabeth Brauer
In 2010, 30 billion dollars worth of fruits and vegetables were wasted by American retailers and shoppers, in part because of cosmetic problems and perceived spoilage. But what are these spots, anyway, and are they okay to eat? Elizabeth...