Why is cotton in everything? | Michael R. Stiff
Centuries ago, the Inca developed ingenuous suits of armor that could protect warriors from even the fiercest physical attacks. These hardy...
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Education
TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing
TED-Ed's commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED's mission of spreading great ideas. Within TED-Ed's growing library of TED-Ed animations, you will find carefully...
Episodes
20 of 44 episodes
What was so special about Viking ships? | Jan Bill
As the Roman Empire flourished, Scandinavians had small settlements and no central government. Yet by the 11th century, they had spread far...
Mating frenzies, sperm hoards, and brood raids: The life of a fire ant queen | Walter R. Tschinkel
In the spring, just after a heavy rainfall, male and female fire ants swarm the skies for a day of romance, known as the nuptial flight. Tho...
The Artists | Think Like A Coder, Ep 5 | Alex Rosenthal
This is episode 5 of our animated series "Think Like A Coder." This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hed...
Can you solve the dragon jousting riddle? | Alex Gendler
After years of war, the world's kingdoms have come to an agreement. Every five years, teams representing the elves, goblins, and treefolk wi...
The mysterious life and death of Rasputin | Eden Girma
On a night in 1916, Russian aristocrats set a plot of assassination into motion. If all went as planned, a man would be dead by morning, tho...
Could a breathalyzer detect cancer? | Julian Burschka
How is it that a breathalyzer can measure the alcohol content in someone's blood, hours after they had their last drink, based on their brea...
A brief history of alcohol | Rod Phillips
Nobody knows exactly when humans began to create fermented beverages. The earliest known evidence comes from 7,000 BCE in China, where resid...
Why should you read "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding? | Jill Dash
After witnessing the atrocities of his fellow man in World War II, William Golding was losing his faith in humanity. Later, during the Cold...
Hacking bacteria to fight cancer | Tal Danino
In 1884, an unlucky patient who had a rapidly growing cancer in his neck came down with an unrelated bacterial skin infection. As he recover...
The Train Heist | Think Like A Coder, Ep 4 | Alex Rosenthal
This is episode 4 of our animated series "Think Like A Coder." This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hed...
How does chemotherapy work? | Hyunsoo Joshua No
During World War I, scientists were trying to develop an antidote to the poisonous yellow cloud known as mustard gas. They discovered the ga...
Why doesn't the Leaning Tower of Pisa fall over? | Alex Gendler
In 1990, the Italian government enlisted top engineers to stabilize Pisa's famous Leaning Tower. There'd been many attempts during its 800 y...
How corn conquered the world | Chris A. Kniesly
Corn currently accounts for more than one tenth of our global crop production. And over 99% of cultivated corn is the exact same type: Yello...
Is marijuana bad for your brain? | Anees Bahji
In 1970, marijuana was classified as a schedule 1 drug in the United States: the strictest designation possible, meaning it was completely i...
Can you outsmart this logical fallacy? | Alex Gendler
Meet Lucy. She was a math major in college, and aced all her courses in probability and statistics. Which do you think is more likely: that...
History's "worst" nun | Theresa A. Yugar
Juana Ramírez de Asbaje sat before a panel of prestigious theologians, jurists, and mathematicians. They had been invited to test Juana's kn...
How does laser eye surgery work? | Dan Reinstein
In 1948, Spanish ophthalmologist Jose Ignacio Barraquer Moner was fed up with glasses. He wanted a solution for blurry vision that fixed the...
The Furnace Bots | Think Like A Coder, Ep 3 | Alex Rosenthal
This is episode 3 of our animated series "Think Like A Coder." This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hed...
The myth of Loki and the master builder | Alex Gendler
Asgard, a realm of wonders, was where the Norse Gods made their home. There Odin's great hall of Valhalla towered above the mountains and Bi...