Researchers have discovered a piece of a weird, but critical, time in the deep past…a time when the first-ever mass extinction may have turned Planet Earth into Sponge World.

What did life look like when the Amazon watershed flowed backwards? How did its direction shape the evolution of life around it? And what force could have possibly been strong enough to up-end one of the world’s mightiest rivers between...

The James Webb Telescope just took a photo of a newly discovered exoplanet. Exciting stuff but the raw image just looks like a small, faint dot—not a fully detailed world. The question is, just how big would a telescope need to be to...

Human language is an incredible thing: a combination of mouth sounds that we combine into words, sentences, poems, and constitutions. They carry meaning, emotion, and power. But underneath it all, language is really just physics. In this...

Scorpions are a frightening and deadly group of animals. But their venom is one of nature's most unique chemical cocktails. Here’s how scientists are using it for inspiration to design new medicines and pain killers.

Does any other creature on Earth undergo a life transformation as dramatic as the butterfly? I think not. Unfortunately, children's books about very hungry caterpillars skip all the COOL and WEIRD and GROSS stuff that happens along the...

Over 200 years ago, scientists were looking at sunlight through a prism when they noticed that part of the rainbow was missing. There were dark lines where there should have been colors. Since then, scientists have unlocked the secrets...

The idea of the lone genius creating everything isn’t just misleading. It’s harmful and wrong. Innovation thrives when people work together, and rather than nice linear paths, new ideas come from chance events and unexpected connections....

We may not know it, but averages affect our lives every day. Designers and manufacturers use averages to make our houses, cars, shoes and airline seats safer and more comfortable(ish). But calculating averages is way more complicated...

X is everywhere and it’s probably thanks to math. But why is x the symbol for the unknown?

At CERN, physicists are searching for answers to some of the biggest questions ever — like how the universe started and where everything comes from. To get one step closer to an answer, CERN scientists recreated the first moment after...

There are hundreds of billions of planets in our galaxy. Scientists now think hundreds of millions of them have conditions where life could arise. What do scientists think are the best ways of reaching out to them? And why do some...

Where did life come from? It’s one of the biggest questions humans have ever asked — and the answer might be locked in ancient space rocks that were around before life began. To find out, NASA pulled off one of its most ambitious...

We know pollution is a problem on earth, but we’re filling space with our junk too. And if we don’t figure out a way to clean up space junk, we could end our interstellar dreams before they even get started. Today, we’re visiting some...

On April 8, 2024, the Moon’s shadow will fall on Earth, creating a total solar eclipse across North America, and if you have the chance to see it, you don’t want to miss it. It’s an amazing coincidence that total eclipses happen at all —...

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scientists have been constructing a cosmic measuring tape to measure the universe from our own backyard all the way to its ever-expanding edge: the cosmic distance ladder. In this video, we climb...

Predictive analytics uses math and historical data to make predictions about the future. It’s used in commerce, sports, politics, social media and tons of other places. And as it turns out, people have been using math to predict people’s...

Would it surprise you to learn that fish and birds count in pretty much the same way that we do? And that infants can do math? Our animal brains deal with quantities in very specific ways, from quick counts of a few dots to how we...

Why do the same, self-repeating patterns appear in trees, rivers, lightning, and even our bodies? Is there some essential, hidden rule of nature that makes these intricate designs appear all over the place? Let’s talk about fractals.

Have you ever looked at a cloud and seen a face? Or the front of a car and seen a face? Or an electrical outlet and seen a face? You definitely have. We all see faces everywhere we look thanks to a fun quirk of the human brain called...

Ever wonder why certain sounds make us cringe or even feel sick? Join Joe as he reacts to some of the most hated sounds, from nails on a chalkboard to the infamous "moist," and explores the science of why these sounds are so unbearable...

Political scientist Don Green joins Joe to figure out the complex psychological and social factors that motivate us to vote - or not to. They discuss how and why this decision making process may be in conflict with certain scientific...

Nature has had to come up with some crazy ways to survive harsh winters. But none are weirder than hibernation. Turns out there is more than one kind of hibernation, and studying all these ways that life slows down in the cold might help...

Camouflage is nature’s ultimate game of hide-and-seek, and the secret to winning this game is all in the brain. By studying the masters of disguise, we can see how they trick the brain to make themselves invisible — and what this can...