TED Talks
TED: How aerosols brighten clouds — and cool the planet | Sarah J. Doherty
Here's a conundrum: the same aerosol pollutants that harm human health also help cool the climate, says atmospheric scientist Sarah J. Doherty. Is there a way to clean up the air without warming the planet? Exploring the unintended...
TED Talks
TED: Why US politics is broken — and how to fix it | Andrew Yang
The electoral system in the United States needs a redesign, says political reformer Andrew Yang. Exposing the flaws of a system built on poor incentives, he proposes a cost-effective overhaul inspired by primary elections already working...
TED Talks
TED: The workers rebuilding communities after natural disasters | Saket Soni
As climate change leads to more and more natural disasters, a group of workers is showing up at one site after another to rebuild and repair. Labor organizer Saket Soni tells the stories of Resilience Force — the group of mostly...
TED Talks
TED: What you can do to stop economic crime | Hanjo Seibert
It might sound like the plot of a movie, but economic crime is all around us — from drug trafficking and fraud to cybercrimes, tax evasion and more. Economic crime fighter Hanjo Seibert breaks down the complexities of money laundering...
TED Talks
TED: Can AI catch criminals at sea? | Dyhia Belhabib
Can AI help catch oceanic outlaws? From drug smugglers to modern-day pirates, maritime crime fighter Dyhia Belhabib introduces Heva: an AI-powered tool that aggregates international criminal records to detect and stop crime that might...
TED Talks
TED: How to be an active citizen and spark change | Gabriel Marmentini
What does it mean to be an active citizen? It's about more than just voting and paying taxes, says social entrepreneur Gabriel Marmentini. He explains why we can't rely on the state alone to solve all our problems — and presents the four...
TED Talks
TED: How to spot authoritarianism — and choose democracy | Ian Bassin
Democracy is about having choices — and authoritarianism is about not having them, says lawyer and writer Ian Bassin. Detailing the seven steps of the authoritarian playbook, he invites us all to put aside our differences and rethink our...
TED Talks
TED: How to fight for democracy in the shadow of autocracy | Fatma Karume
Democracy may be an abstract concept, but it holds the very essence of our autonomy and humanity, says lawyer and human rights advocate Fatma Karume. Sharing her journey navigating a tumultuous political transition in Tanzania that put...
TED Talks
TED: A new national park to reclaim Indigenous land | Tracie Revis
In a part of the United States with more than 17,000 years of human history, cultural preservation advocate Tracie Revis is working to turn the Ocmulgee Mounds into Georgia's first national park and preserve. This park would be...
SciShow
The Gems That Solved a Himalayan Mystery
January babies, rejoice! This month's SciShow Rocks Box video is the story of garnets, and how these fabulous gemstones help us solve geological mysteries, from the Italian Alps to the Himalayas.
SciShow
The Arctic Is Drowning in Plastic
Many people picture the Arctic as a pristine icy wilderness. But when it comes to microplastics, it's one of the most polluted places on Eart
SciShow
How Ancient Babylonians Predicted Eclipses
There's an eclipse coming up in April of 2024! You'd think it takes a lot of modern technology for us to know about it, but it turns out that humans have been able to predict eclipses for nearly three thousand years. And we've been using...
SciShow
Why Volcanologists Hate the Dark
You might have heard of the ongoing volcanic eruptions near Grindavík, Iceland. You might not have heard that it's hard to monitor a volcano in the dark. We'll talk about why an Icelandic winter is the worst time for monitoring equipment...
SciShow
How Long Have We Been Playing with Fire?
So we know that humans are pretty good at making fires, but how long have we been barbecue pit masters? Turns out the evidence is hardly a smoking gun.
SciShow
How Do We Figure Out The Sex ... Of A Fossil?
We know a lot about fossils, but there's one thing about all those long-dead organisms that's hard to figure out -- their sex. So let's talk about the ways we can try to determine whether those T. rex bones came from a male or a female,...
SciShow
The Alien Storm That Ate Itself
From cyclones to snowstorms, Earth is home to some spectacular weather events. But they're nothing compared to what you can find on the other planets in our solar system. Magnetic tornadoes? Ammonia mushballs? Let's (not literally) dive...
SciShow
The Tiny T. rex Causing a Big Science Feud
You’ve heard of Tyrannosaurus rex, but did you know they might have a mini-cousin called Nanotyrannus? And that “might” is serious, because researchers have been arguing about it for nearly 40 years and still haven’t gotten to the bottom...
SciShow
How Lava Turned a Rhino Into a Cave
We know that fossils are fragile, and volcanoes are destructive. So you wouldn't think that volcanoes are really any help when preserving fossils... but you'd be wrong! From the Laetoli Footprints to the Blue Lake Rhino, here are five...
SciShow
How to Move a Mountain
Almost 50 million years ago, the biggest landslide in Earth's history occurred in Wyoming. An entire mountain slid 45 kilometers at one-third the speed of sound. But how could this happen when the slope was only 2 degrees?
SciShow
These Scrolls Got Destroyed by a Volcano, But It’s Fine
The eruption of Mt Vesuvius buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and one ancient library was burned to a crisp. However, scientists are now using machine learning and AI to decipher the writing on them and recover lost works of...
SciShow
Why Isn't Mount Denali a Volcano?
Alaska has the most volcanoes out of all the US states, but researchers think they don't have enough. Here's the weird science behind looking for Alaska's volcanoes, and what we've learned about volcanism along the way.
SciShow
Something's Been Making Weird Pits in the Seafloor
For years, scientists couldn't solve the mystery of strange pits on the floor of the North Sea. Initially they blamed methane seeps, but it seems like the pits were actually made on porpoise.
SciShow
The Volcanoes That May Have Started Life on Earth
The nitrogen cycle is essential to life on Earth, but biological nitrogen must be fixed before it can be used. Scientists aren't sure how the first nitrogen became available... but it might have been volcanoes.
SciShow
The Rock That's Helping Us Find the Origin of Life
Epidote might just look like a pretty little crystal, but it has a secret. thanks to the high-pressure circumstances where it forms, we can use it to help us uncover the origins of life on our planet, and maybe even find signs of life on...