TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to take a great picture - Carolina Molinari
Have you ever looked at your camera and wondered what all of those buttons actually do? For manual photography, the aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity can all be manipulated to get just the right amount of light. Carolina...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Stacie Bosley: How to spot a pyramid scheme
In 2004, a nutrition company offered a life-changing opportunity to earn a full-time income for part-time work. There were only two steps to get started: purchase a $500 kit and recruit two more members. By 2013, the company was making...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Mysteries of vernacular: Dynamite - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
With an explosive meaning, the word dynamite's past is as historical as it is etymological. Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel describe how Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Mysteries of vernacular: Robot - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
In 1920, Czech writer Karel _apek wrote a play about human-like machines, thereby inventing the term robot from the Central European word for forced labor. Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel explain how the science fiction staple earned its...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why is yawning contagious? - Claudia Aguirre
*Yaaawwwwwn* Did just reading the word make you feel like yawning yourself? Known as contagious yawning, the reasons behind this phenomenon have been attributed to both the physiological and psychological. It's been observed in children...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The Turing test: Can a computer pass for a human? - Alex Gendler
What is consciousness? Can an artificial machine really think? For many, these have been vital considerations for the future of artificial intelligence. But British computer scientist Alan Turing decided to disregard all these questions...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why do we harvest horseshoe crab blood? - Elizabeth Cox
During the warmer months, especially at night during the full moon, horseshoe crabs emerge from the sea to spawn. Waiting for them are teams of lab workers, who capture the horseshoe crabs by the hundreds of thousands, take them to labs,...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The science of stage fright (and how to overcome it) - Mikael Cho
Heart racing, palms sweating, labored breathing? No, you're not having a heart attack -- it's stage fright! If speaking in public makes you feel like you're fighting for your life, you're not alone. But the better you understand your...
TED-Ed
Can you cheat death by solving this riddle? | Shravan S K
You and your best friend Bill are the greatest bards in the kingdom— but maybe not the brightest. Your hit song has insulted the king and now you're slated for execution. Luckily, Death is a connoisseur of most excellent music and has...
TED-Ed
Can you solve Dongle's Difficult Dilemma? | Dennis E. Shasha
According to legend, three galactic terraformers shaped your planet into a paradise. When their work was done, they left the source of their power behind: three golden hexagons, hidden in dungeons full of traps and monsters. If one...
TED-Ed
Savitri and Satyavan: The legend of the princess who outwitted Death | Iseult Gillespie
Princess Savitri was benevolent, brilliant, and bright. Her grace was known throughout the land, and many princes and merchants flocked to her family's palace to seek her hand in marriage. But upon witnessing her blinding splendor in...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are locust plagues unstoppable? | Jeffrey A. Lockwood
A ravenous swarm stretches as far as the eye can see. It has no leader or strategic plan; its only goals are to eat, breed, and move on. These are desert locusts— infamous for their capacity for destruction. But most of the time desert...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Network theory - Marc Samet
From social media to massive financial institutions, we live within a web of networks. But how do they work? How does Googling a single word provide millions of results? Marc Samet investigates how these networks keep us connected and...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: RNAi: Slicing, dicing and serving your cells - Alex Dainis
RNA, the genetic messenger, makes sure the DNA recipe gives your cells exactly what they ordered. But sometimes that means inhibiting some other RNA that got the recipe wrong. This process is called RNA interference (RNAi), and it acts...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Alex Gendler: Why should you read "The Master and Margarita"?
The Devil has come to town. But don't worry– all he wants to do is stage a magic show. This absurd premise forms the central plot of Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece, "The Master and Margarita." Its blend of political satire, historical...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What are those floaty things in your eye? - Michael Mauser
Sometimes, against a uniform, bright background such as a clear sky or a blank computer screen, you might see things floating across your field of vision. What are these moving objects, and how are you seeing them? Michael Mauser...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How to practice effectively...for just about anything - Annie Bosler and Don Greene
Mastering any physical skill takes practice. Practice is the repetition of an action with the goal of improvement, and it helps us perform with more ease, speed, and confidence. But what does practice actually do to make us better at...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is deja vu? What is deja vu? - Michael Molina
You might have felt it -- the feeling that you've experienced something before, but, in reality, the experience is brand new. There are over 40 theories that attempt to explain the phenomenon of deja vu. Michael Molina explains how...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can you solve the virus riddle? - Lisa Winer
Your research team has found a prehistoric virus preserved in the permafrost and isolated it for study. After a late night working, you're just closing up the lab when a sudden earthquake hits and breaks all the sample vials. Will you be...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why do we dream? - Amy Adkins
In the 3rd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. In the years since, we haven't paused in our quest to understand why we dream. And while we still don't have any definitive answers, we...
TED-Ed
A day in the life of the Oracle of Delphi | Mark Robinson
As the sun rises over Delphi in 500 BCE, Aristonike hurries to the temple of Apollo where a single oracle known as the Pythia communicates Apollo's will. Reserved only for women, this is the most important job in the city— and one that...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The origin of countless conspiracy theories - PatrickJMT
Why can we find geometric shapes in the night sky? How can we know that at least two people in London have exactly the same number of hairs on their head? And why can patterns be found in just about any text - even Vanilla Ice lyrics?...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Particles and waves: The central mystery of quantum mechanics - Chad Orzel
One of the most amazing facts in physics is that everything in the universe, from light to electrons to atoms, behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time. But how did physicists arrive at this mind-boggling conclusion? Chad...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The science of spiciness - Rose Eveleth
When you take a bite of a hot pepper, your body reacts as if your mouth is on fire -- because that's essentially what you've told your brain! Rose Eveleth details the science and history behind spicy foods, giving insights into why some...