Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value -- and...

Squeaks and Jessi made a new friend, Cassie the puppy! They gave her a bath after playing in the mud, but now she smells even worse than before! Why do wet dogs smell so bad?!

"A political cartoon is a barometer of freedom," says Rayma Suprani, who was exiled from her native Venezuela for publishing work critical of the government. "That's why dictators hate cartoonists." In a talk illustrated with highlights...

What do you see in clouds? Bunnies? Zombies? The face of Nic Cage? There are some kinds of clouds that, while rare, make even weirder shapes -- like pancakes, rolling cylinders, and shimmery rainbows.

When we breathe out, we empty our lungs. But an ancient reptile figured out a more efficient way to breathe, which ultimately helped birds dominate the skies.

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on cause, mechanism and effect.

T
ERMS:
Cause - a thing that gives rise t
o an event
Ef
fect - an event
Mechanism - the process und
erlying a...

The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer



For...

While the Earth's oceans are known as five separate entities, there is really only one ocean. So, how big is it? As of 2013, it takes up 71% of the Earth, houses 99% of the biosphere, and contains some of Earth's grandest geological...

How do you know you're a person who has lived your life, rather than a just-formed brain full of artificial memories, momentarily hallucinating a reality that doesn't actually exist? That may sound absurd, but it's kept several...

Hank serves up a buffet of news items that includes an approximate date for the end of everything, scientific proof that when it comes to sex bigger IS better, and a look behind how the London Olympics are going green. Bon appetit!

The smell of freshly cut grass on a warm summer day might make you think of lazy days in a hammock, sipping lemonade. But to the mangled grass producing that scent, it is the pungent perfume of pure terror...

Have you ever seen an airplane high in the sky leave a long trail behind it? That's called a contrail! It's kind of like a cloud, or your breath on a cold day. Jessi and Squeaks explain the special circumstances that make contrails happen!

You might not expect the chief operating officer of a major global corporation to look too far beyond either the balance sheet or the bottom line. But Harish Manwani, COO of Unilever, makes a passionate argument that doing so to include...

Lockdown math announcement

Join Jessi and Squeaks as they answer questions in the first viewer mail episode from SciShow Kids!

Modern American health care is defined by its high costs, high overhead and inaccessibility -- especially for low-income patients. What if we could redesign the system to serve the poor and still have doctors make money? In an...

As the saying goes, less is more. The same goes for words. Listen as Politico and Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei shares what he's learned leading two media companies -- and how to radically rethink the way you write to keep people's...

In this video Paul Andersen shows conceptual thinking in a mini-lesson on inputs, processes and outputs in a system.

T
ERMS:
System models - a representation o
f a system
Interactions - reciprocal (two-way) acti
on...

Pitching your movie to people can be hard. A studio, a friend, your mom... each of these entities will have different stressed and give you different results. But, what's important in a pitch? And what happens after the pitch? How do you...

Poop: it's gross... it's funny... it's educational?! Join Jessi and learn all about how you can observe poop in your neighborhood to figure out what kinds of animals live near you! Just don't touch it!

As your country's top spy, you must infiltrate the headquarters of the evil syndicate, find the secret control panel, and deactivate their death ray. But your reconnaissance team is spotty, and you have only limited information about the...

At some point, you’ve probably heard someone use any or all of these four words to describe someone. But there’s a really excellent chance that person had no idea what these terms mean. But SciShow is here to help clear up some of these...

Our kids are our future, and it's crucial they believe it themselves. That's why Nadia Lopez opened an academic oasis in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of the most underserved and violent neighborhoods in New York -- because she believes in...

For millennia, the people of Britain had been using bronze to make tools and jewelry, and as a currency for trade. But around 800 BCE, that began to change: the value of bronze declined, causing social upheaval and an economic crisis—...