Original Title: You Are 99% Microbe! Meet Your Microbiome
Original Title: Whose Air Do You Share?
Original Title: There's Science Hidden In Our National Monuments
Original Title: Nobel Prizes: Past, Present... and Future?
Original Title: Claude Monet Was Half Honeybee
One picture can change the world.
There's a story inside every box.
26.2 miles of awesome human evolution.
No, YOUR grandfather was a fish.
Original Title: Sonic the Hedgehog Is Why You Have Thumbs! Ever wonder why you have thumbs?
No use cleaning. The universe is full of dust.
SPOILERS: It doesn't end well.
OG Title: Your Mom is LITERALLY Part Of You! Your mom's never far away..
You know nothing.
Science is delicious.
The past is different from the future. Why?
OG Title: Every Breath You Take is Connected
if you played NES, you did it too. Did it work?
There's science in cheese? You'd cheddar believe it.
Here's why you aren't built like a lobster.
Why are our bodies so symmetrical, but our guts aren't?
Sunspots, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, OH MY!
A summertime look at why we sweat, why we burn, and why our fingers wrinkle in the pool.
I smell a science storm a-comin'!!
Besides humans, of course.
(Goat SCIENCE, that is…)
When it comes to science, is there a monster in us all?
Is beer the perfect beverage? Let's see what science says…
How scientifically accurate is your favorite sci-fi space battle?
OG Title: Bats: Guardians of the Night To see all the great bat action, please watch in HD!!
How does math keep a folded slice from drooping?
There's nothing wrong with having your head in the clouds.
…or why we live on an onion made of magma.
Behold the COSMOTRON 5000!!!
Don't panic.
The science of… OH GOD IS THAT A SPIDER?!
The science of their sinister ways…
This time, we're the asteroid.
And where do they keep their suitcases?
An ode to curiosity… with LEGO
Learn the basic science of climate change in 24 easy steps
…and other Christmas mysteries answered with science!
How do we smell? Great! Thanks for asking!
If cold isn't real, then how can I feel it?
Yawns, hiccups, twitchy eyes (and more) explained!
I feel like I've seen this video before…
Science really gets my heart going…
A dose of reality about vaccines…
It's not the size of the month that matters…
Did someone say BRAAAAAINS…?
Hint: It's not black
Counting stars from the shore of the cosmic ocean…
It's the season for sneezin'!
We're cookin' in the primordial kitchen!
OG Title: Superbugs: The Empire Strikes Bacteria
Just be yourself! Or be your other self. Whichever.
It’s definitely higher than “11”
What holds the moon up? Moonbeams!
OG Title: Will We Ever Run Out Of Oil?
Welcome to… Jurassic Pluck
Stop and smell the flowers… and watch this video
OG Title: Thomas Jefferson And The Giant Moose
Original Title: The Ruin and Rise of Monterey Bay
OG Title: I Don't Think You're Ready for These Jellies
A Sea Otter's Adorable Adoption Story
Theory vs. Hypothesis vs. Law… Explained!
Do Animals Mourn Their Dead (ft. BrainCraft and Gross Science!)
This is a SUPER BLOOD MOON! Lunar Eclipses Explained
The REAL Physics of Hot Air Balloons!
The Strange Science of the Placebo Effect
Epigenetic inheritance is really weird, but is it real?
What Video Games Teach Us About the Aging Brain
Inside the World of Fire Ants!
Making Music With Lightning!
Should You Be Worried About Zika?
Why Salt & Pepper?
No Sandra Bullocks were harmed in the making of this video.
It’s okay to be… small?
Venom: Nature’s Killer Cocktails
The physics of the perfect storm…
The Donald Trump Caterpillar and Nature's Masters of Disguise
What is this? A forest for ANTS?!
Death From Above!
I’m thankful for science
Pigeon Story: How the Rock Dove Became the Sky Rat
Building a perfect igloo takes cool science!
This is the first-ever video of what we’re calling the "hermit crab caterpillar"! We’re pretty sure this strange caterpillar is a NEW SPECIES. We went to the Peruvian Amazon to see amazing things, but we never expected this :) But that makes me wonder: What *is* a species anyway? And how do you know if you’ve found a new species?
How do we protect what we don’t know exists?
As we get ready to watch that big football game that my lawyers tell me I’m not allowed to say the name of, let’s celebrate a champion of the bird world: Stealthy and silent owls! Learn how owls fly so silently, how they see in the dark, and how owls’ incredible hearing makes them such superb aerial hunters.
Relationship Advice From the Animal Kingdom Ever find yourself wishing for relationship advice and have no one to turn to? Looking for the secrets to a long and happy relationship but can’t find the answers? Maybe you just want to know how to tell that certain someone that you like them, but don’t know how to make the first move? Have no fear, Mother Nature is here! Other animals have millennia worth of mating experience, maybe they can teach us a thing or two?
We’re proud to collaborate with Bill and Melinda Gates for this week’s video! It may sometimes seem like things are getting worse, but there’s lots of reasons to be optimistic about the future. More people have access to toilets and sanitation than ever before. Thanks to public health improvements like this, since 1990, 122 million children’s lives have been saved. Diseases like polio are nearing eradication. Women have more access to health care and education than ever before.
How the Meter Became the Meter The meter is the world’s ultimate measure, but how did it become “the” meter? What is this measurement based on? The story of this revolution in measurement traces its roots to the French Revolution. Scientists decided that an equal and united people should have equal and united measures. So they sent a pair of young astronomers out to measure the world, and invent the meter. Little did they know they’d find nothing but war, deception, and strife along the way. As a result of this ill-fated mission, the meter carries an error that still persists today. Still think the metric system is so perfect?
Solving the Puzzle of Plate Tectonics But did thee feel the Earth move? Why do Africa and South America fit together? Anyone who’s ever looked at a map can see that Earth’s continents are kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. The idea that continents are constantly moving and weren’t always in their current spots is a pretty obvious idea, right? You might be surprised to learn that geologists only accepted that idea recently in the past few decades, and it figuring out how plate tectonics and continental drift work required some pretty strange evidence.
Is luck real? It might feel like a mystical force tugging us toward good or bad fortune, but it turns out luck is really where probability runs into the human mind. That’s right, there’s a scientific side to luck, and if you study a few principles of math and psychology, you might even be able to create your own good fortune.
Illuminating the Universe: The History of Light Beyond what we can touch, taste, smell, and hear, we experience the universe through light. But how did we come to discover light, and how did we learn light’s true nature, as the fastest thing in the universe, an electromagnetic spectrum, a wave and particle capable of the most amazing things? Here is the history of light, according to physics.
What can you do to make the oceans plastic-free?
Dogs and Humans: A 30,000-Year Friendship Of all the species that humans have domesticated, dogs are our oldest animal friends. But how did a group of wolves become the furry pup at the end of the bed? New research is finally unlocking the paw-in-hand evolution of dogs and humans. In this episode we’re answering one big question: Did we domesticate dogs, or did dogs domesticate us?
Ready to untangle the branches of the human family tree?
In part 2 of our special series on human ancestry, we ask why we are the only surviving branch on the human evolutionary tree. Just 50,000-100,000 years ago, Earth was home to three or four separate human species, including our most famous cousins: the Neanderthals. New research has shown that Neanderthals were not the brutish, unintelligent cavemen that cartoons make them out to be. They were creative, smart, social, and perhaps even had complex language. So why did they go extinct as soon as Homo sapiens moved into their territory? Does any trace of them live on today? Why don’t we have Neanderthal neighbors?
Much A-Do About Hair All mammals have hair at some point in their lives, but none of them wear it quite like humans. Why does our hair grow where it does, and not grow where it doesn’t? How does our hair get its color? And why does it go gray and often fall out when we get older and go bald? Learn all about the science of human hair in this week’s video!
In part 3 of our special series on human ancestry, we investigate how closely related we all really are. Basic math tells us that all humans share ancestors. But you’ll be amazed at how recently those shared ancestors lived. Thanks to genetic data in the 21st century, we’re even discovering that we really are all descended from one mother.
De-Extinction: A Mammoth Undertaking De-extinction, or using the power of modern biotechnology to bring back extinct species like mammoths and dinosaurs, would be cool. But is it really as easy as the movies make it look? Or do the cruel hands of time make it impossible? This weel we look at the technical and ethical hurdles behind the science of de-extinction and reverse engineering species that are no longer around.
Who built the pyramids? The colossal geometric monuments found at Giza and elsewhere in Egypt are some of Earth’s most impressive constructions. Pyramids are truly wonders of the ancient and modern world. But when the pyramids were built, the ancient Egyptians hadn’t invented the wheel, developed bronze tools, or discovered pi. How were they able to stack two million stone blocks, each weighing more than two tons, into precise geometric alignments that would survive more than 4,000 years and capture the imaginations of explorers throughout history? They did it the same way we always have: by trial and error. The true history of the pyramids is one of experimentation and science, not magic… or aliens.
Are humans nature’s greatest architects? When we look elsewhere in nature, we find some pretty amazing animal architects. Species like ants, termites, prairie dogs, birds, and more have engineered some incredible structures. This week we look at how a few of these species have mastered physics to install air conditioning in their homes!
Since the days of Ancient Greece, philosophers and scientists have been wondering: What is space? Is the absence of things… a thing? These questions continued to fascinate physicists in the modern era, leading Isaac Newton, Ernst Mach, and Albert Einstein to wonder about the true nature of the fabric of the cosmos. The search for an answer led them to some of the greatest theories in physics. This week, we ask if space and time are really real, and how they come together to make “spacetime”!
You asked for it, so here’s the follow-up! Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Over the past centuries, archaeologists, historians, and engineers have reconstructed a great deal of the technology and science used to build the Egyptian pyramids. This week we look at ancient Egyptian mathematics, building techniques, tools, and culture to reconstruct the Great Pyramid’s construction.
Nearly all life on Earth is ultimately powered by light. But many creatures have learned how to make their own. This week we investigate the beautiful phenomenon of bioluminescence. From blinking fireflies on summer nights to glowing deep sea monsters, prepare to learn about the chemistry of living light.
This video is perfect for adults orchids. Many creatures wear disguises in order to keep safe from predators, but there are some that dress to kill. Orchid mantises are one of nature’s most awesome examples of aggressive mimicry. These killer insects are almost indistinguishable from orchids! Scientists recently learned that their disguise doesn’t work quite how we thought it did.
Beavers have done more to shape North American landscapes than any animal beside humans. We don’t notice them much today because there aren’t many left, but before colonization, North America was home to hundreds of millions of these furry engineers. This week, we show you why Earth’s second largest rodent is more amazing than you ever knew, and why they’re the smartest thing in fur pants.
Glacier ice is weird. It’s solid. Solid things aren’t supposed to flow. But glacier ice flows like a liquid, and it does that without melting! How is this possible? I traveled to Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska to find out.
From spirals to spots to fractals, nature is full of interesting patterns. Many of these patterns even resemble geometric shapes. One of the most common? Hexagons. Why do we see this six-sided shape occur so many times in nature? This week we explore why hexagons are so common in the natural world, from honeycomb to bubbles to rocks, and what their mathematics, physics, and biology may have in common.
News about climate change is often full of doom, guilt, and anxiety. This can make many people reluctant to pay attention to or discuss it. We asked former Vice President Al Gore to help us find a different way to talk about climate change.
Earth has seasons, but what about the rest of the planets in the solar system? Let’s take a tour from Mercury to Pluto and see what seasons would be like on all our planetary neighbors. Bring a sweater!
Waste not, want not… right? Poop, in all of its various forms throughout nature, shapes the world in ways you might not imagine. One creature’s waste is another’s fuel, and all over nature these leftovers help new life spring up. Here’s how whales, birds, worms, bats, and more help the world breathe clean, thanks to their poop.
Biology textbooks are full of drawings of DNA, but none of those show what DNA actually looks like. Sure, they’re good models for understanding how DNA works, but inside of real cells, it’s a whole lot more interesting. Learn why we can’t look directly at DNA, and find out how DNA is actually packed inside cells.
Replace Harvey with Irma… still true.
Are you a left-brained person or a right-brained person? Spoiler: You’re neither. Each of us uses both sides of our brain for most of what we do. But still, there are a number of brain functions that do show lateralization, where they are localized to one side or another. Why is this? And how does it influence our definition of consciousness? People with “split brains” can help us figure it out.
Why is the universe organized the way it is? And why is it so empty? From planets and stars to superclusters and galactic filaments, the universe’s largest structures formed because of its smallest. In this special collaboration with PHD Comics, we’ll learn how the earliest, quantumest blips seeded the structure of everything everywhere.
How did we come up with our system of telling time? Why do we divide the day into 24 hours of 60 minutes each, and put 60 seconds in each minute? Where does the definition of a second come from? And who decides what clock shows the correct time? There’s clearly a lot of questions when it comes to time.
Ever notice how cereal clumps up in your bowl, or how cereal sticks to the edges of the bowl? Bubbles in beverages do the same thing.You've probably seen this surface tension and buoyancy at work, but did you know there's some mind-blowing science behind it? What we learn in our cereal bowl even connects to the lives of tiny insects that walk on water.
An intermittent fasting diet is one of the hippest new nutrition and fitness philosophies, based around the idea that going hungry can be good for your health. Some think it’s a weight loss secret that calls upon our ancient evolutionary programming. We look at the science behind intermittent fasting.
Asteroid mining sounds like something out of a bad space movie, but harvesting materials from space rocks might be our ticket to building space colonies or living on Mars. Most of Earth’s precious and rare metals are locked too far in the crust for us to get at them, and launching them to space is too expensive for us to supply large colonies off Earth or explore far off worlds. How do we get our hands on the planetary resources inside asteroids? Let’s find out!
Organisms of all shapes and sizes synchronize their behaviors using biological clocks. Some keep pace with the daily rising and setting sun using circadian rhythms. Others use annual cycles or the changing seasons as their cue. But many animals use moonlight and Earth’s lunar cycle to run their biological clock. Do humans do the same thing, with things like menstrual cycles? This week we take a look at living by moonlight.
Where do glaciers and icebergs get their beautiful blue color? This unique blue might be nature’s most brilliant, and the color arises in a very special way thanks to some surprising interactions between light and water molecules. Who knew physics could be so breathtaking?
You’ll never look at spiders the same way again!
Why do we love people we’re related to? Compared to strangers, why do we feel such a deep sense of connection with our family members? Sure, they’re nice to us, we take care of each other, and we often live with them, but there has to be a deeper biological reason. That reason, unsurprisingly is evolution. In this video, I explain why taking care of our family, or even dying for them, makes sense in the eyes of evolution.
It’s been estimated that 1 in 10 works of fine art are forged or misattributed. The truth is, no one really knows how much fake art is out there, because many art counterfeiters are so skilled that their paintings are almost indistinguishable from the real works. But even counterfeiters can’t beat physics! From atomic bomb remnants to ancient atoms, here’s some of the amazing ways that science can detect fake art.
Among living things, the color blue is oddly rare. Blue rocks, blue sky, blue water, sure. But blue animals? They are few and far between. And the ones that do make blue? They make it in some very strange and special ways compared to other colors. In this video, we’ll look at some very cool butterflies to help us learn how living things make blue, and why this beautiful hue is so rare in nature.
You might think that computers are the only things that run algorithms, but you’re wrong. Here’s a neat mental trick for calculating the day of the week for any day ever, developed by famous mathematician John H. Conway
What have we learned from exploring Earth’s harshest locations? That pretty everywhere we look for life, we find it. From smoking hot hydrothermal vents to icy deserts, up in clouds and inside rocks, extremophiles have found a way to survive. These survivors and adapters are not only teaching us about life on Earth, but expanding the possibilities of where life can exist elsewhere.
Your now is not your forever (unless you’re a tuatara) During the 2017 Project For Awesome livestream, I promised I’d make a tuatara video if we hit our fundraising goal, and I’m a man of my word! Little did I know I’d get to meet a tuatara and learn things about a 200 million year old branch of life that would blow my mind. Get ready to meet the chillest reptile, weird living fossil, and star of Turtles All The Way Down… the tuatara.
Is overpopulation real? Is Earth filling up with too many humans? How many people can Earth hold, anyway? As our species approaches 8 billion, human overpopulation is a major concern for many people. How can we reduce poverty and our impact on the environment? Do we need a forced one-child policy or something? Maybe not, because when we look at the science and history, populations seem to control themselves. This week we look at all these questions and more.
In almost every animal species on Earth, equal numbers of males and females are conceived. Why is that? Especially in populations like lions or elephant seals, where most males don’t get to mate? That’s survival of the laziest, not survival of the fittest. It turns out that in most cases, an equal balance of the sexes is the evolutionary stable strategy. From Charles Darwin to Ronald Fisher to W.D. Hamilton to Richard Dawkins, the question of why there’s as many males as females has fascinated biologists. Today, we’ll explain why that is the way it is.
Do you remember having a cold in 5th grade? Or the flu a couple years ago? Your immune system does. Our bodies hold many levels of immune defense.Physical barriers like skin, the innate immune system, and our body’s most powerful defender, the adaptive immune system. Millions of B cells and T cells and antibodies are constantly on patrol for germs and antigen invaders. As scientists learn more about how this system works and how to engineer it, could we ever actually be immune to everything?
The other day I got bored and noticed this weird thing happened when I held my finger up to my eye, so I had to science it and figure it out! Let me know if you try these light-bending experiments too, especially that last one that I can’t quite explain yet…
The origin of life is one of the most important mysteries in all of science. When did life begin? How did life first evolve from chemistry? Where did life get started? In some primordial soup or somewhere else? Let’s journey back to the origin of life, as best as we know it, from the RNA world do the last universal common ancestor of everything alive today.
Do 97% of climate scientists really agree that humans are the main cause of climate change? Yep! Here’s what the 97 percent statistic *really* means.
How does memory work? And how does… un-memory work? Our brain does a lot of remembering and forgetting every day, so you should probably make room for som info on how it works. You’ll also get to meet some people who can’t make memories, and also never forget anything.
It’s one of the most annoying sensations our bodies can feel, but does anything feel better than when you scratch an itch? Ok, maybe *some* things. But itching and scratching are up there. How does this weird sensation work? And what is itching for?
Axolotls are special salamanders. Not only to they stay in their juvenile form their whole lives, they can regenerate entire limbs! Studying how they do it could change the way we treat human limb injuries.
Why is Earth is a blue planet? Because it’s covered in water! Where did Earth’s water come from? Of course, water isn’t unique to our planet. The origin of water traces beyond the solar system to the earliest days of the universe. Here’s the story of the galaxy’s H2O.
Until the early 20th century, Tasmania was home to a very weird wolf-like creature. Except that it wasn’t a wolf. Even though it looked like a wolf. How did that happen? Here’s the science of convergent evolution!
The hottest and coldest temperatures in our universe are rarely witnessed, but in these rare spots, our understanding of physics is challenged. Weird things happen at extreme hot and absolute cold.
Are humans really Earth’s most dominant species? Let’s put all of the planet’s living things on a scale and see what has amassed the most mass. This week we break down the concept of “biomass” to judge Earth’s living things from top to bottom, and see how humans have changed the world.
Farting is hilarious and gross and everyone is doing it so why can’t we talk about the science of it?! Flatulence, passing gas, cutting the cheese, toots… whatever you call it, it's natural and here's how it works.
People who live near the equator use more spices per recipe than people who live far from the equator. But that isn't for the reason you think. Spices and other plant ingredients have special powers that make them a truly magical superfood!
Why do we cry? It’s weird. Humans leak water out of their faces when they get sad. Are we the only animals that do this? What does it mean? What is it for? Here’s the science of human tears!
Humans are special, and we got that way thanks to evolution and natural selection. The proof is right there in our bodies! From anatomy to genes, here are some stories of how you got to be the way you are.
I noticed something weird about Disney Princesses lately. Naturally, I had to examine it through the lens of science. The answer led me to new knowledge about human development, the domestication and taming of animals, and why we find things cute in the first place. You’ll never look at cartoons the same way again.
English is a confusing language for many reasons. But the irregular verbs might be the most confusing part. Why is “told” the past tense of “tell” but “smold” isn’t the past tense of “smell”? It turns out that the study of irregular verbs can teach us a lot about how languages evolve. This week, we look at how the era of Big Data is unlocking secrets behind the weirdness of words.
You have the power to change your brain!
Have you ever noticed that warning about raw or undercooked seafood at the bottom of restaurant menus? Ever wondered why it’s there? Because fish carry a ton of parasites, and if they aren’t prepared correctly then those parasites can make it into your body. But it turns out, this fishy intersection with the wild world of parasites can teach us a lot about how these moochers help keep ecosystems healthy, and why we should protect them.
I’m tall. Most of the people in my family are tall. Does that mean my son will be tall? Turns out the inheritance of height is a lot more complicated than we thought. Scientists know that nature (genes) and nurture (environment) both play a role, but after more than a century of questions, we’re only just now starting to get some answers.
What do raindrops look like? Exactly how we drew them as kids, right? Wrong! Teardrop-shaped rain is physically impossible. This week I went inside a vertical wind tunnel to bring you the true shape of rain.
Teeth. We’ve all got ‘em (most of us, anyway). But how do they grow? Teeth are made from some biological nanotechnology that will blow your mind. They are strong enough to last hundreds of millions of years. Oh, and if you’ve ever wondered how adult teeth replace your baby teeth, get ready to see something terrifying.
What’s the largest river on Earth? If you said “the Amazon”… you’re only half right. Scientists have discovered an even bigger river in South America, and it’s in the sky above the Amazon rainforest. Turns out, this sky river is the reason there’s a rainforest at all…
The flu might feel like some minor illness that you don’t need to worry about much, but tens of thousands of people still die from it every year. And back in 1918, Flu killed up to 5% of the world’s population. Could a flu that bad happen again?
The edge of everything used to be the edge of the map. But now, thanks to what we know about astrophysics and the universe, the edge of everything might not even exist…
Eating turkey this holiday season? Chowing down on a roast chicken? You’re eating a dinosaur! Entertain your family and friends with a little science lesson this year, and show them why bird bones tell us that birds are actually living dinosaurs.
Nothing is guaranteed in life except death, taxes, and entropy. What do other life forms have to teach us about staying alive as we get old, and will we ever conquer death?
AKA "The Brazil Nut Effect" but brazil nuts are blah The bottom of the cereal box is a disappointing place. But at least now you know why. Where do you see the Brazil Nut Effect around you?
They say everyone has a doppelgänger, but is that really true? This week we meet a young woman who found her own look-alike, and figure out how we actually recognize faces.
You know you’ve wondered. Do fish actually pee? And what does that make the ocean… one big toilet?
If we lived light years from Earth, how would we know there’s life here? Let’s take a look at the search for extraterrestrial life on habitable exoplanets, and discover what biosignatures would show someone else that we’re here.
Humans have a hard time with really big numbers, especially when it comes to DEEP TIME. The history of the Earth took a lot longer than you think, trust me. But I’m here to help you put it in perspective. With some string.
Honeycomb. Strawberries. Flower pods. Some people find these things incredibly scary. We call this extreme fear trypophobia. But why does it exist?
You may have heard that a kilogram of feathers weighs the same as a kilogram of steel, but that all depends on where you weigh them. This video is all about the difference between mass and weight, and how weirdly awesome Earth’s gravity really is.
More people have food allergies than ever before. Peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, eggs, and even milk… the list of possibly dangerous foods seems to get longer every day. But why do some people’s bodies have deadly reactions food? And why are food allergies on the rise? In this video we explain what food allergies really are, and what the difference is between food allergy and food intolerance. Some fellow YouTubers tell us their stories of what it’s like to live with food allergies, and we bring you the best current science on how to prevent food allergies in kids and adults. It’s a tough nut to crack.
Air. I bet you never even notice that it’s there. Yet you are swimming in an ocean of it every day. If there’s a literal ton of air pressing down on you all the time, so why don’t we feel it? We look back at the history of physics to learn how we figured out air pressure, why vacuums don’t suck, and how people like Galileo, Torricelli, and Otto von Guericke changed science forever with a few simple experiments.
The monarch butterfly migration is one of nature’s greatest events. This orange-winged wonder travels up to 4,500 km from all over North America to spend the winter hanging from oyamel fir trees in central Mexico’s mountain forests. I got to go there. Seeing tens of millions of butterflies dangling from the treetops is a truly breathtaking sight. But how does an animal with a brain the size of a poppy seed navigate to this one special place, especially since the last monarchs to make the trip lived 4 or 5 generations earlier? Get ready for an amazing story of science, instinct, and navigation.
We’ve all gotten dizzy before… but have you ever gotten WEIRD DIZZY? I teamed up with Vanessa Hill from BrainCrat to answer the question “why do we get dizzy?” and in the process we learned about some very strange and hilarious ways to get extra-special dizzy! Get ready to learn about your vestibular system, the system that lets you know where your body is in space. You don’t even notice your vestibular system is there… until it stops working right!
I love coffee. Like, a lot. You know who else loves coffee? Astronauts! And also the people who help them do awesome things in space (I think NASA might be powered by coffee). But how do astronauts actually drink coffee in space, aboard the International Space Station, in microgravity? I visited astronaut Don Pettit to learn about his invention for having a cup o’ Joe in orbit. This is some awesome science.
The eyes are often the first thing we see when we look at someone. And when you look at them up close, everyone’s eye color is a kaleidoscope of shapes and hues. How does eye color work? The answer involves some very cool physics, and probably isn’t what you were taught in school. And you’ve probably wondered how is eye color inherited, or why some people have blue eyes even if their parents’ eyes are brown? Get ready for a long look deep into the genetics and physics of eye color.
A massive new study has just been released showing that human activities are threatening Earth’s other life forms in some very bad ways. One million species may be at risk of extinction. Just let that sink in. Isn’t the Anthropocene awesome? Check out the study below to learn more and find out how we can stop it.
Butterfly metamorphosis is still a bit of a mystery. What happens inside a chrysalis to turn a caterpillar into a beautifully painted butterfly? Does it really turn to soup? I visited Dr. Arnaud Martin, who uses the CRISPR genetic modification technology to learn about how genes build bodies. Dr. Martin uses CRISPR to disrupt certain genes, and then looks for changes in butterfly wing patterns, creating designs we never see in nature. This tells us which genes control which part of the "wing painting" process. In the process of visiting Dr. Martin’s lab, I had my mind blown about what REALLY happens during butterfly metamorphosis. You will too.
Ever feel like you aren't totally yourself? Well, maybe you aren't. In this video, we explore the idea of human chimeras. In mythology, the "Chimaera" was a beast made from different animals combined into one. But in biology, a chimera is a single organism whose body is made from parts of two or more genetically distinct individuals of the same species. Biological chimeras were once thought to be rare, but modern genetics has shown us that these genetic mashups are so common, that you yourself may actually be a chimera. And even if you don't have part of another body in you, your body is certainly not just one thing. We also discuss the idea of mosaicism and how it relates to cancer, Tasmanian devils, and circus sideshow attractions.
It took about a century for black holes to go from impossible, to theoretical, to real. And it was just this year, in 2019, when we finally saw the first picture of a black hole! But how to you take a photo of something so massively dense that not even light can escape its gravitational pull? You use a telescope the size of the Earth!
Fifty years ago, we sent the first astronauts to walk on the moon’s face. But what they brought back is just as important as what got them there. I’m talking about moon rocks, guys. And I got to go visit NASA’s lunar sample vault to learn more about them! NASA’s moon rock collection has helped us learn so much about the early solar system, the formation of rocky planets like ours, and where our moon came from. And let me tell you, the story of our moon is a VIOLENT one. It involves the word “magmoon”. That’s an awesome word! Enjoy this video, and I hope you learn not just some lunar geology, but also how exploring the moon helped change what the space program was all about.
It never gets dark anymore. Not REALLY dark, anyway. Not like it used to. Most humans on Earth live under light polluted skies. That's because, for the past century and a half, since the dawn of electric light, we’ve been losing our connection to the night. We need artificial light for modern society, of course. The problem is, we need darkness for our health, and for the health of wildlife and ecosystems, and we’re not getting enough of it. I traveled to McDonald Observatory in far west Texas, one of the darkest places in North America, to learn what people are doing in order to preserve dark skies, and to see truly dark skies for myself (and so I could show them to you!). This video features time lapse night sky images that I’ve been collecting for the past few years, and I hope they make you feel something special. Turn out the lights, keep looking up, and don’t be afraid of the dark.
Looking up at the stars makes you wonder: what and who is out there? And why haven’t we seen any other intelligent civilizations given the vast size and age of the universe? They’re complicated questions and although we haven’t met any other space-faring species we do have a way of calculating just how many alien civilizations might be out there as well as some rather frightening ideas as to why we might not have met them.
Why the forest is more than the trees
I met Molly Burke a few months ago. She’s awesome. I absolutely love what she’s done on YouTube to bring awareness to living with disability, and turning it into ability. And her guide dog Gallop is awesome too! When Molly and I first met, we started talking about how she navigates the world, because I’m a nerd and I always steer the conversation toward science. I was not prepared for what she told me. She said she uses echolocation! Molly’s brain has adapted to listen to sounds in her environment in ways that most of us sighted people can’t even imagine. I went to meet her in LA and brought a special surprise, to see if my brain could learn what hers has.
What is “egg-shaped” even? I used to think it was the shape of a chicken egg. Then one day I saw a collection of eggs from lots of different bird species, and I realized just how many different kind of egg shapes there really are! I had to know why. And it turns out a couple teams of scientists had wondered the same thing. Here’s what science says about why eggs are egg-shaped, if that's even a thing, which I’ve learned it might not be. Evolution of bird eggs, go!
It sounds like such an incredible fact. “Our own cells are outnumbered by our microbes 10 to 1!” I don’t remember where I first heard it. But I read it in science papers and articles by journalists, so I believed it without question. I even made one of my first videos based on this fact. Problem is, this fact is not true. So how did it remain firmly planted in our common knowledge for almost four decades without any scientific scrutiny? And how can you prepare yourself to not be fooled by other scientific urban legends? I look at a few of the most famous incorrect factoids in science, and give a few suggestions for how to make our common knowledge more correct.
Money. We all use it. But is it real? I mean, you can touch a coin or bill, but who decided that’s worth anything? And what about all those 1’s and 0’s getting swapped and traded by computers thousands of times per second? How are those worth anything? We trace the history of money, from physical barter to bitcoin, and discover that money isn’t just a lie we all agree to share, it’s been built on the back of technology and invention for millennia.
Earth’s climate is changing in a big way, and it’s because there's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any point in our species’ history. But Earth’s climate has changed before. How do we know that this time we’re the cause? We know thanks to tiny bubbles of ancient atmosphere trapped in ice.
Greetings, fellow Homo sapiens. Our species is the only remaining member of the genus of upright, walking apes known as Homo. Where did we come from? Our history just got a whole lot more complicated (in a good way) thanks to some incredible new fossils unearthed in South Africa over the past few years. I got to visit them, and the scientists who discovered them, to learn their story and ours. Meet your cousin: Homo naledi
Why are trees and other plants green? Seems like a simple question. But the answer is full of surprises. Using a special camera that can pick up light just beyond the visible range, into the near-infrared, you’ll get to see trees like you’ve never seen them before. And these other-worldly images can teach us not only why trees are green on Earth, but what color photosynthetic life on other planets might be.
What color is a banana? Duh, it’s yellow. But what is yellow? Now that you mention it, how do we see color in the first place? That’s the series of questions that led me to making this video. It started simple and took me down a rabbit hole of decoding our visual system. Turns out it’s way more interesting than I ever thought possible. You might even call it complex. In fact, it’s a wonder it even works. Biology… wow, right?
If you were taking an engineering class in school and you turned in the human body for your final exam… you would get like, a C+. Or maybe a B- at best. That’s because the human body is full of design flaws. Except they aren’t really design flaws, because the human body wasn’t designed. It was evolved, and it is still evolving. And that means some of our parts don’t work as well as they could, they just work well enough. Here’s a rundown of a few of the human body’s biggest evolutionary fails!
People say insects are the food of the future. They’re more environmentally sustainable and more humane than other sources of animal protein. Can they really catch on in western diets? I’m a pretty adventurous eater, but I’ve never actually tried edible insects. So when I got invited to an edible insect Thanksgiving feast, I had to say yes. Along the way I learned that eating bugs isn’t really that new for humans, and that this really could be a delicious food we all eat in the near future.
If everyone would just put more in the recycling bin instead of the trash can, the world would be a better place. Right? Well, that’s not exactly true. For many items that end up in the recycling bin, you’ve actually created more trash by trying to recycle them. You’ve also made it harder to recycle the stuff that CAN be saved, and basically demonstrated that recycling is broken… at least the way we do it today. Here’s how we can fix it.
I’m guessing you’re pretty familiar with ice. We use it in our drinks, slip on it, skate on it, worry about climate change melting it. But have you ever stopped to really think about this stuff? The freezing and melting of water affects so much of our world. It’s ice crystals in thunderclouds that create lightning. Ice is powerful enough crack boulders, float stones, and alter entire landscapes. Ice is such a common substance, you'd think we'd know everything about it by now. But it has some secrets and weird properties we’ve only just begun to figure out. One question about ice that's, still not totally answered, is one of the most obvious: why is ice slippery? It's a more complicated answer than it seems!
Half a century ago, astronauts got on top of a really big rocket and sent a tiny little capsule on a 384,000 km trip to the moon and back. And they were able to do it because a lot of extremely smart and dedicated people pushed engineering and chemistry to the limits in order to create a 36-story tower of carefully-controlled space fire powerful enough to escape Earth’s gravity. I went to NASA in Houston to talk to astronaut Don Pettit about how they did it, and if we’ll be able to do it again.
Can trees really save us from climate change? For eons, nature has relied on photosynthesis as a big way to keep carbon dioxide levels from getting out of control. But as we have put more carbon into the air, we’ve also cut down many of the forests we need to suck that carbon up. So big tree-planting initiatives like #TeamTrees to the rescue, right? Actually, we need to think bigger. Here’s three ways trees really can help us solve climate change, from a guy who wants to plant a TRILLION trees, to how we might save the forests we’ve got, to scientists hacking biology to make trees even better.
If you tried to sum up the last 150 years or so in one image, a chart of exponential growth would be a good place to start. It shows that some things change faster over time. You could apply it to life expectancy. Or compound interest. Or any number of things. But especially population growth. Back in 1798 a guy named Thomas Malthus noticed that not everything grows this way. And this caused people to worry, because they were sure it would lead to massive death and starvation and famine. But that didn’t happen, thanks to something called the Green Revolution and a guy named Norman Borlaug. As we face a future population of ten billion and a world impacted by climate change, how will we do a Green Revolution 2.0?
The first thing a baby giraffe experiences after being born is a 2 meter fall straight down to the ground. But within an hour, it’s standing, walking, and nursing on its own. And a blue whale calf, after nearly a year growing inside mom, can swim to the surface moments after being born. Human babies on the other hand? We’re born unable to move or eat on our own, we can’t communicate or fully sense our world, and we leak EVERYWHERE. If humans are so smart, why are our babies so… un-smart? You may think it’s all about head size, but the real science is more complex.
If the sun instantly switched off like a light bulb–which can’t happen, by the way–then we wouldn’t know for almost 8 and a half minutes. Light travels at the fastest speed there is, but it still takes almost 500 seconds to get to Earth. That’s how long it would take before we knew the sun went dark.But the most amazing thing about the sunlight we see is it’s actually really old. SUPER old. AMAZINGLY OLD! Tens of thousands of years old. How is that possible? Because of the physics and mathematics of random walks.
Every year, hundreds of millions of people voluntarily turn their lives upside down by setting their clocks forward one hour in the spring and back one hour in the autumn on a particular date mandated by the government wherever they happen to live. Daylight saving time is a perfect example of how a few people with the best of intentions can end up annoying millions of the rest of us for the better part of a century. And it’s time we take an honest look at how we got to this place where half the world comes unstuck in time twice a year, and ask if the supposed advantages for springing forward and falling back still hold up!
Stay informed. Stay cautious, but not scared. Listen to scientists and public health officials and follow their guidance. By protecting yourself, you’re protecting the most vulnerable among us. Together we can flatten the curve on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2. More resources below!
One of the most effective things you can do to protect yourself from catching a germ and becoming a statistic, whether it’s a global pandemic like COVID-19 or just every single other day of your life, is something that people have been trying to get you to do since you were like 2. Wash your hands. With good ol’ soap. And do it the right way. That’s it. Here’s the science of handwashing!
I’ve explained a lot of weird bodily functions on this show but there’s one that we haven’t covered that’s always confused me: Tickling. What are you for, tickling? What’s the point of you? Why do you exist? Why do you make us laugh even though we hate you? Let’s dig into our evolutionary past to try and find an answer.
SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 are nasty enemies. Invisible, mysterious, and deadly, they have spread around the world and caused much of humanity to hide away. Germs like these only succeed and spread because of our social evolution, and our social nature is why social and physical distancing is so deeply painful for us. But evolution has also given us the gifts we need to survive this difficult time. Here’s how.
Viruses keep jumping out of nature and into humans, and getting us very sick in the process. So why do zoonotic spillovers like SARS-CoV-2 happen, and why are they becoming more frequent? We asked an expert.
The largest pterosaurs like Quetzalcoatlus were closer in size to airplanes than birds. No flying animal alive today comes close to their huge size. So did giant pterosaurs actually fly? I went to see the fossil bones of the largest pterosaur that ever lived so I could learn how these winged giants actually took to the skies.
There’s a lot of confusion out there about what is and isn’t a dinosaur. And you’d be forgiven for being kinda confused. Maybe paleontologists are just messing with us. Or… maybe the question of what is and isn’t a dinosaur goes deeper than we think? Well, like an intrepid fossil hunter, I set out to dig up an answer, and what I found teaches us a lesson about how hard it is to build a picture of the past when you only have a few puzzle pieces, and a lot about why we classify things the way we do.
Wearing a mask is a cheap and easy way to help stop the spread of airborne infections like COVID-19. It’s also a sign that you want to help protect other people and have them protect you… that we’re all in this together. Here’s some awesome slow-motion schlieren imaging experiments to demonstrate why masks work! Share with someone who needs to see this.
Bottom line: Masks work. They are safe for almost everyone to wear, and the more people that wear them along with adhering to physical distancing and other strategies, then that’s more lives we’ll save. But there’s still a lot of confusion and misinformation out there when it comes both to wearing masks and the actual risks of getting infected with COVID-19. In this video I address a few of the most common myths and misunderstandings using scientific evidence.
Having bones is pretty cool. They make our blood, let us hear, and keep us from being just a squishy puddle on the floor. But for every species with bones, there’s at least 20 species on Earth with exoskeletons instead. And those exoskeleton animals are incredibly tough and strong. So why don’t WE have our skeletons on the outside? This is the story of bones!
Time passes for all of at the saem rate of one second per second. But why does it sometimes feel like time is passing so fast, or so slowly? Especially during COVID? Let’s learn about how our brains keep track of and try to make sense of time, and how they get fooled.
The fastest animal in nature isn’t what you think it is. It’s way, way smaller than that. Nature’s tiniest creatures warp the laws of physics, and they do it in ways that even human engineers would gawk at. Using the power of super slow-motion macro video, let’s uncover the biological engineering that lets nature’s fastest creatures do their zoomy thing.
I don’t want to alarm you, but the world is going to end. All of this. Gone. And scientists are certain all of this will happen. On the bright side this isn’t going to happen for 4-5 billion years. It makes me wonder: In a universe bigger than we can fathom, across eons of time, could… all of it end? Everything? The whole universe? Yes. And it probably will. Here’s how.
Geckos can grip and climb almost anything. Walking up walls, hanging upside down… even from glass. It’s almost like they can defy gravity. How do they do it? The secret lies in nanotechnology. I’ll tell you how that works and how scientists are using this incredible gripping ability to inspire next-generation adhesives
Why does everyone use a 7 day week, and where did it come from? Where do the names of the days come from? And who can we blame for Mondays? Here’s the true story of one of the oldest human customs still in use today. It gets a little weird.
You’ve probably heard of Ben Franklin and the kite. But do you know the TRUE story of how his famous experiment changed the world? Here’s the tale of how one person’s quest for scientific knowledge altered the direction of history.
Here we are, just a year after the first news of the coronavirus we now call SARS-CoV-2 and the global pandemic known as COVID-19… and scientists have already developed more than one safe & effective vaccine. How did they do that so quickly? I visited the lab whose work directly led to these first COVID vaccines, so you can learn how basic research connects to life-saving medicine. This is how to make a COVID-19 vaccine.
Everyone lies. Even you and even me. We lie about small things and we lie about big things. We lie to help ourselves and we lie to protect others. Powerful people lie, all the way down to little kids telling fibs. Why do we do this if we’re supposed to be the most socially developed species on Earth? Why can’t we tell the truth? Are we doomed to lie? Well, maybe. Here’s why.
Since the start of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the term “herd immunity” has been all over the news. But what does it really mean? One thing most people don’t realize about vaccines is that they aren’t just to protect the person who gets the shot. They also protect the population as a whole… even people who didn’t get the shot. In this video, we use lots and lots of mousetraps and ping-pong balls to show you how that works.
When is now? Seems like a pretty simple question… just look at your watch. But do you and I share the same “now”? Let’s journey from Einstein’s thought experiments about relativity to cutting edge neuroscience research to try and answer that question.
The golden ratio. Some say it’s the most mythical number in the universe. Others say it underlies everything from nature’s patterns to beauty in art and design. But, like, what is it? And does the myth of the golden ratio hold up to its mathematical reality? Let’s find out
Could humans ever evolve to have wings? Why don’t fish have propellers? Why don’t tigers have wheels? Why don’t zebras have laser turrets? These might all seem like stupid questions (and maybe they are!) but they can teach us a lot about how evolution actually works, and how it doesn’t work.
The finest burritos in the world are made in San Francisco’s Mission District. But how can you get a hot & fresh one in New York City in time for lunch? Physics, that’s how. For this very serious and scientific video, we dug a classic documentary out of the vault that tells the story of the transcontinental burrito tunnel, and its successor, the transcontinental burrito hypertunnel. They are both true marvels of physics. Oh, and they aren’t real… but the science is.
Ocean currents are our planet’s circulatory system, and they keep everything from ecosystems to the climate healthy. But we’re changing Earth in ways that threaten to disrupt and even break critical ocean currents like the planet-wide Great Ocean Conveyor. This could have devastating effects on our future. In this video, we explain how ocean currents work, how climate change is threatening to disrupt them, and what we can do to stop that from happening.
A human with the metabolism of a hummingbird would need to eat about 80,000 calories a day to survive. That’s because staying warm by making your own heat takes a ton of energy. And that brings up a paradox, because creating your own body heat is incredibly expensive. The largest animals on Earth have to spend most of their day just eating enough to keep their heat engines running. So why aren’t we cold-blooded… like crocodiles? Here’s the science
Here’s a thought: What IS a thought? I know it involves my brain, and my brain is made of neurons. And my brain’s neurons are listening to other neurons all over my body. But how do those neurons actually work? Maybe you’ve heard that it involves electricity, but does that mean you’ve got little zaps and lightning bolts running through your veins like Pikachu? Don’t worry, I’m here to set you straight on what a neuron is, what an action potential is, and how fast your nervous system really communicates.
Hold on to your butts. This episode is about… butts. The science and evolutionary history of your rear end, the down-low on your derriere, shining a little light where the sun don’t shine… you get the picture. But(t) seriously, we don’t talk about this all-important hole enough, and how, from an evolutionary perspective, it might be the most important orifice on your body.
Why does sex exist? You might think the obvious answer is “reproduction” but there are plenty of organisms on Earth that don’t require sex to reproduce. And the more that scientists examined sex, they more they realized that it’s an expensive and inefficient way to get your genes to the next generation. The true purpose of sex is actually one of the longest-standing mysteries in evolutionary biology. But scientists are closer than ever to finding the answer. Here’s what we know about the evolutionary enigma of sex.
You’re alive right now… at least I’m pretty sure you are. But you’re not TOTALLY alive. Bits of you are always breaking down, being thrown out, and being replaced. Even right now, parts of you are dying. Some of your cells even died before you were born. And some will never come back. These are all very strange, mildly uncomfortable things to think about. And what’s even stranger than that is a big fraction of your body is, was, and will never be alive. So how much of you is dead?
How do zebras get their stripes? How do leopards get their spots? And how do giraffes get their giraffe-shaped thingies, whatever they are called? Would you believe the answer is… math? This is the story of a WWII wartime codebreaker and his quest to decode nature’s most beautiful patterns. Alan Turing uncovered a simple code that explains everything from stripes to spots and all the patterns in between… he was just too far ahead of his time. Only recently have biologists found evidence that his pattern-forming system
I guess we’re still doing this.
Original Title: The Self-Organizing Secret of Sand Dunes How can sand, blown by the wind, form such intricate and beautiful patterns as ripples and dunes? The answer is a surprising secret of self-organization. In this video, we travel to Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado to climb the largest sand dunes in North America and bring you the science of how wind and sand combine to create ordered landforms out of chaos. The science must flow.
The biggest thing that has ever lived on Earth… is a tree? Hard to believe, but it’s true. Travel with me to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to go inside the most massive species on our planet, and learn what unique and special evolutionary adaptations let them get so big.
This is a video about nothing. Hope you learn something!
It would be a lot easier to study the science of dreaming if we weren’t asleep every time we did it. Why do we dream? What does dreaming do for our brains? How did dreaming evolve? Here’s a look at the current theories from psychology and neuroscience.
Original Title: We’re Drowning in Plastic Pollution. Can We Actually Fix It? There’s been a lot of talk on YouTube lately about ocean plastic pollution and #TeamSeas. But there hasn’t been enough talk about the **ridiculously unthinkable scale of the ocean plastic pollution problem** or how it intersects with other environmental issues like climate change. And here’s a big spoiler alert: Nearly all environmental scientists agree that ocean plastic pollution isn’t a problem we can clean our way out of. So what CAN we do? That’s what this video is about.
Original Title: Here's What I Learned... I’m vaccinated. I’m boosted. And I still got infected with the omicron variant of COVID-19. Here’s what I learned, and what it means for the possible end of this pandemic.
Original Title: Why Every Video Is An Illusion Movies. Video games. YouTube videos. All of them work because we accidentally figured out a way to fool your brain’s visual processing system, and you don’t even know it’s happening. In this video, I talk to neuroscientist David Eagleman about the secret illusions that make the moving picture possible.
Reading. You’re doing it right now. I bet you don’t even have to think about it. But have you ever wondered what’s happening in your brain to turn all these weird symbols into meaning? This video will teach you how to read all over again. What you’re doing right now is way more amazing than you ever realized.
How many times do you look in a mirror every day? Have you ever stopped to wonder how they actually work? Mirrors do strange things to our world, seemingly flipping everything so that what was right is left and what was left is right. But what if I told you that mirrors don’t actually flip the world left to right? The real magic of mirrors is far stranger and more interesting, as you’re about to learn.
Why do whales, elephants, and other large animals not get cancer? Logically, the larger an animal is, and the longer it lives, the more likely it should be to get cancer. But these giants don’t. Why is that? And can the answer help humanity?
Original Title: What Is Life? I recently got to sit down with physicist and science communicator extraordinaire Prof. Brian Cox. Did we talk about black holes, the Big Bang, or alien worlds? Nope! We talked about biology. Specifically, what is “life” and how did it begin? You might not expect it, but looking at life through the lens of physics can teach us a lot about why interesting groups of atoms like you and me exist.
Optical illusions are fun, but they can also teach us a lot about how our brains work. In particular, how our brains accomplish the incredible feat of constructing a three-dimensional reality using nothing but 2-D images from our eyes. A young artist and psychology researcher named Adelbert Ames, Jr. developed a series of illusions that help us understand how this process of constructing reality actually works. Sometimes we need to be fooled in order to gain understanding.
We’re living longer. Dying less. Human life expectancy has doubled in just a couple centuries. Machines and meals and medicines keeping us alive long past the age where we can make babies. Does this mean our species is no longer under the influence of natural selection? Have humans stopped evolving?
Hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones are Earth’s most powerful storms, capable of unleashing destruction and death on coastal areas worldwide. As climate change warms Earth’s oceans, we face more risk of storms rapidly intensifying into category 5, sometimes in less than a single day. Being able to predict these rapidly intensifying storms will save lives, but studying hurricanes in detail is difficult and dangerous. So in order to improve our understanding of hurricanes, scientists have built a machine that can create hurricane conditions indoors.
There is an absolutely weird, but surprisingly common phenomenon called sensory adaptation that you experience every day in countless ways without even realizing it. Without this very strange phenomenon, you would be lost, overwhelmed, and completely unable to navigate the external world. In this episode, we’ll explore the many ways your brain “tunes out” most of what’s going on around you so that you can be the high-functioning smart people that we know you are.
You may not be an expert, but perhaps you feel pretty confident that you could ride a motorcycle, or give someone a decent haircut - if you absolutely had to - right? Not so much, according to the psychological phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Turns out we’re all at risk of being overconfident about something. Watch Joe put this theory to the test as he tries to land a 737 (in a simulator, of course). Oh, did we mention Joe's not a pilot?
What's the tallest mountain on Earth? It might seem like an easy question to answer, but in reality it's one that brings up more NEW questions than answers. It turns out that the way we measure mountains rests on a lot of approximations, assumptions, and averages. And when you dig into those, there's several contenders for the tallest mountain, each with their own good case for the title. So, which mountain do YOU think should take the throne?
There is no phase of a human’s lifetime that is as strange and disgus....er....magical as the transition from childhood into adulthood - that handful of years that we call . . . PUBERTY. Why does it happen? How does it work? Why is it so weird? Join Joe in this whirlwind tour of the endocrine system to find the answers.
There’s a crime wave sweeping the world right now. A new kind of theft that takes just minutes to carry out. These criminals are on the hunt for something that fetches big bucks on the black market. Numbers are skyrocketing, and public officials are scrambling for answers. Turns out, we can blame it all on neutron stars and some oddities of the periodic table. When it comes to neutron crime, it's hard to get a charge to stick… heh heh
You’ve seen it in the comment section before: “Climate change is natural. It’s happened before and it will keep happening”. In reality, comments like these are the newest kind of climate change denial. In this video we’re going to learn about all the reasons that Earth’s climate changes, natural and otherwise, and then how we know that modern climate change can’t be blamed on natural forces. Maybe we can finally put this biggest myth about climate change in the trash.
One day around 15,000 years ago, a wall of ice 2,000 feet tall and 30 miles wide suddenly broke wide open, and it unleashed the largest flood that we know of in the history of Earth. Come and hit the road with me as we search for the geologic fingerprints of the Missoula Ice Age Floods, and learn the story of one of the worst natural disasters that’s ever happened!
All of modern society relies upon a seemingly simple but surprisingly complex unit of measurement: the second. But knowing exactly what a “second” is is more complicated than you might think!
There are some startlingly black animals out there, whether they’re in the deep ocean or in the darkest corners of the rainforest. But humans have created some stunningly black substances too, using science and engineering. So who wins, nature or humans? In this video, I go in search of the blackest black things on Earth to see what’s really the blackest… and why.
Embarrassment. Awkwardness. Cringe. No matter what you call it. it’s one of the most unique human emotions, and one that’s particularly hard to figure out. But if a feeling exists and has lasted through evolution, then it probably has a purpose!
Animals as simple as bees and as complex as you and me… like to have fun. But what’s the point of fun? Do all animals have fun? And for that matter, what is fun?
500 years before the Scientific Revolution, the mathematician Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham spent hours in a dark room studying the light that filtered in. Not only did he revolutionize how we literally see the world, he pioneered the scientific method that is now the backbone of modern science.
Why do we see rainbows in soap bubbles? What makes an oil slick so oddly beautiful? Iridescent colors, which transform depending on the angle you look at them, are all over nature. How does physics make these shifting rainbows? We’re going to find out with the help of the National Museum of Natural History's most spectacular specimens – from bird feathers and beetle wings to fossils and gemstones.
As the Earth warms due to human-caused climate change, billions of people in the developing world will face life-threatening heat waves, raising the demand for air conditioning. But powering all of that cooling is going to take more energy, which will require burning more fossil fuels! Are there new air conditioning technologies on the horizon that could solve this paradox?
In the race to survive, both predators and prey use visual tricks to get ahead. One nearly universal trick is countershading, a color pattern that helps animals erase their own shadows or blend into different backgrounds. It’s worked well enough that nature has produced this pattern over and over again, all over Earth, for at least tens of millions of years.
The biggest (and most mysterious!) migration in the world happens every night in the ocean as 10 billion tons of zooplankton swim to the surface to feed. This undersea journey is known as Diel vertical migration, and it occurs in every ocean in the world. By learning more about why this happens, science can unlock the secrets behind other phenomena, like our biological clocks…and even climate change.
Nothing can travel faster than light — in a vacuum. But when light slows down, sometimes matter can blaze past that speed limit, creating a stunning glow called Cherenkov radiation. We can see this glow in a nuclear reactor as high-energy particles speed by. It offers us a window into a realm of the universe that is usually invisible to us.
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 episode, we explore how physics is at the core of every syllable, starting with the first word most of us ever speak.
A few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a top-secret, first-of-its-kind US spy satellite program was declassified, leading to the unexpected story of how former enemies became scientific allies, and technology invented for Cold War espionage was repurposed to study and combat the newest and greatest threat to human civilization: Climate Change.
Life’s been around on Earth for at least 3.7 billion years. But for most of that time, it was incredibly boring — just simple little cells squirming around in water. It only got interesting in the last few hundred million years. And that might never have happened without the help of a deadly, but also life-giving, element.
Our appetite for meat is one of the greatest environmental challenges we face. Join me on a mind-blowing visit to UPSIDE Foods, the world's most advanced cultivated meat production facility, as we ask whether cultivated meat can deliver on its promises to help the environment while keeping meat on our plates.
Scorpions have been terrorizing other creatures on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. They’ve evolved a perfect cocktail of venom that can mess up both predators and prey. But they are also an evolutionary marvel that could show us the way to some powerful new life-saving medicines.
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 way. It's time to dig into all the mind-blowing biology behind metamorphosis!
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 encoded in these lines, using it to uncover mind-boggling facts about the fundamental nature of our universe and about worlds light-years away.
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. This video tells the story of one such invention, and offers a new idea about how new ideas are really born.
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 than one might think! And as long as we are at it - let’s talk about what the most average thing in the known universe might be!
Humans can develop intense relationships, even obsessions, with the things we’re fans of. A huge part of our identities, our emotions, and our lives get tied up in these things. Why are we like this?
No one ever wants to get in a car crash. But if you ever do, be very thankful for the engineers who crash test cars. You may have seen crash test simulations on TikTok using physics engines like BeamNG but I promise you they are nothing compared to the real thing! Join us for this DEEP dive into the physics of car crashes and the ways that engineers hack Newton's laws to keep you safe.
When people picture New York City they see skyscrapers, subways, and a concrete jungle. But the Big Apple is really a seaside city built on an archipelago. In the wake of a century of industrial pollution and climate change-fueled superstorms like Hurricane Sandy, New York’s waterways need help. Learn how Billion Oyster Project is working to restore one of the world’s greatest lost ecosystems in order to clean up New York’s water and protect it from an uncertain climate future.
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 scientists think that we shouldn't?
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 missions ever, landing on an asteroid and sending a rock sample back to Earth. Today, we’re going to take a look at what it brought back.
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 cool engineers in Switzerland to learn about the space junk problem and the giant space claw that might be the perfect solution.
On April 8, 2024, the Moon’s shadow will fall on Earth, creating a total solar eclipse across North America. 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 — and that we’re alive at a time when we can see and predict them. We made this video so you can learn how to watch an eclipse safely, what to look for during an eclipse, why eclipses happen, and how eclipses have helped advance scientific research.
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 that ladder and explore how each rung has revealed something new and previously unthinkable about the universe we live in.
New technology is revolutionizing how we study and protect nature. In this video, we’ll learn how artificial intelligence is being used to decode the sonic landscapes of the ocean - specifically, whale song. That’s right, there may come a day soon where AI allows us to understand and talk to whales. But some scientists are saying: the question may not be CAN we talk to whales, but SHOULD we talk to whales?
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 death for centuries. Can it predict mine?
We all know Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, right? Natural selection? But what about his lesser-know theory of evolution: sexual selection. Let’s talk about how animals like peacocks, whose eye-catching physical traits make them evolutionarily stronger even though their flashy looks make them more vulnerable to predators. Hint: it’s all about the chemistry.
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 perceive larger numbers. This "number sense" impacts our psychology, history, and behavior in the most fascinating ways.
Why do the same, self-repeating patterns appear in trees, rivers, lightning, and even inside our own bodies? Is there some secret, hidden rule of nature or mathematics that makes these intricate designs appear all over the place? Let’s talk about fractals.
Have you ever looked at 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 facial pareidolia. Here's the neuroscience and psychology of how this weird brain phenomenon works!
Despite what you may have heard or learned in school, the sun is NOT in fact the center of the solar system. And it won’t be until 2027… But this being a science channel, you might be thinking “What the heck is this guy talking about? Of course the sun is the center of the solar system. We’ve known that for more than 600 years.” Like most things in science, it’s not quite that simple.
Ever wonder why certain sounds make us cringe or even feel sick? Join me as I react to some of the most universally hated sounds, from nails on a chalkboard to the infamous word "moist," and we explore the science of why these sounds are so unbearable to so many and how they can impact our lives.
In this episode we're joined by a leading political scientist to help us figure out the complex psychological and social factors that motivate us to vote… or not to. We discuss how and why our decision whether or not to vote might not be a rational one. And why it is important to understand that. And why it’s important to vote!
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 humans one day become an interplanetary species.
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 teach us about how other animals see and perceive the world.
For centuries, diamonds were one of the most mysterious materials on Earth. They were beautiful, indestructible, and completely unexplained. Today, we’re exploring how scientists unlocked their secrets, and how one lab recreates the extreme conditions in Earth's mantle to make diamonds… out of dead people.
We’re celebrating our 2 millionth subscriber with a special Q&A episode!
What better way to kick off 2020 than with me being silly? I’ll be back with a new video in a couple weeks.
