TED-Ed

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/who-is-alexander-von-humboldt-george-mehlerHave you heard of Alexander von Humboldt? Not likely. The geologist turned South American explorer was a bit of an 18th century super scientist, traveling over 24,000 miles to understand the relationship between nature and habitat. George Mehler details Humboldt's major accomplishments and why we should care abo...

Follow the chilling Japanese tale of Oiwa, a ghost seeking revenge after her husband poisoned her and killed her father.--Oiwa’s only hope for ending her marriage to the cruel and dishonorable samurai, Iemon, was her father. But after he tried to end the union, Iemon murdered him in cold blood. With plans to marry another, Iemon conspired to poison his wife and left her for dead. But unfortunately...

Trace a year in the life of a platypus, and explore how the animal’s unique adaptations ensure its survival.--Waddling along the parched Australian earth, a female platypus is searching for fresh water. Over the past year, a severe drought turned rivers and streams to mere trickles. She barely survived and was unable to reproduce. Could the next year bring a change in luck? Gilad Bino traces a yea...

How can you help kids get a good start? In this heartfelt and personal talk, Colin Powell, the former U.S. Secretary of State, asks parents, friends and relatives to support children from before they even get to primary school, through community and a strong sense of responsibility. (Filmed at TEDxMidAtlantic.)Talk by Colin Powell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dig into what caused the Irish potato famine, and explore how the UK government’s response turned the crisis into a catastrophe.--For over 200 years, potatoes thrived in Ireland; roughly half the country’s residents lived almost entirely on potatoes. But when harvesting began in 1845, farmers found their potatoes blackened and shriveled. While this failed harvest created a crisis, the government’s...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/early-forensics-and-crime-solving-chemists-deborah-blumIn a CSI age, we take forensic science for granted. New York did not have a medical examiner or forensic toxicologist until 1918, whose eventual arrival changed the landscape of crime investigation forever. At TEDYouth 2012, Deborah Blum prompts the audience to solve crimes with chemistry. Talk by De...

Practice more problem-solving at https://brilliant.org/TedEd--Your agent has infiltrated a life or death poker game in a hidden back room of a grand casino. Your team is on the trail of an elite society of assassins, each of whom carries a signature playing card corresponding to their role— everyone at the table is either an assassin or a potential victim. Can you identify the assassins and save t...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-infinite-life-of-pi-reynaldo-lopesThe ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is always the same: 3.14159... and on and on (literally!) forever. This irrational number, pi, has an infinite number of digits, so we'll never figure out its exact value no matter how close we seem to get. Reynaldo Lopes explains pi's vast applications to the stu...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-mystery-of-chronic-pain-elliot-kraneWe think of pain as a symptom, but there are cases where the nervous system develops feedback loops and pain becomes a terrifying disease in itself. Starting with the story of a girl whose sprained wrist turned into a nightmare, Elliot Krane talks about the complex mystery of chronic pain and reviews the facts we'r...

Download the Audible Original podcast “Moriarty: The Silent Order” and support TED-Ed's nonprofit mission: https://www.audible.com/ted-ed --One day in the fall, you called upon your friend, Sherlock Holmes, and found him in conversation with Jabez Wilson. Wilson had been working for the mysterious League of Red-Headed Men. Today, he arrived at work to find the group had disappeared, and now turns...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/building-the-seed-cathedral-thomas-heatherwickA future more beautiful? Architect Thomas Heatherwick shows five recent projects featuring ingenious bio-inspired designs. Some are remakes of the ordinary: a bus, a bridge, a power station ... And one is an extraordinary pavilion, the Seed Cathedral, a celebration of growth and light. Talk by Thomas Heatherw...

Dig into what happened after the Chicxulub asteroid hit the Earth, and how it caused a mass extinction— including dinosaurs.--Sixty-six million years ago, near what’s now the Yucatán Peninsula, a juvenile sauropod feasted on horsetail plants on a riverbank. Earth was a tropical planet. Behemoth and tiny dinosaurs alike soared its skies and roamed its lands while reptiles and tentacled ammonites sw...

Explore how geothermal energy— the heat in the Earth’s crust— is being used to create renewable electricity and power.--While the weather in Iceland is often cold, wet, and windy, a nearly endless supply of heat bubbles away below the surface. In fact, almost every building in the country is heated by geothermal energy in a process with virtually no carbon emissions. So how exactly does this renew...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/building-a-dinosaur-from-a-chicken-jack-hornerRenowned paleontologist Jack Horner has spent his career trying to reconstruct a dinosaur. He's found fossils with extraordinarily well-preserved blood vessels and soft tissues, but never intact DNA. So, in a new approach, he's taking living descendants of the dinosaur (chickens) and genetically engineering t...

Trace the history of barber-surgeons, and find out what led to barbers performing medical procedures in medieval Europe.--It’s a cold morning in 15th century France and you’re off to the barber for a shave and haircut. You hear the familiar sound of singing inside and eye a bowl of blood in the window. You grab a cup of ale and examine the array of teeth strung from the walls. Suddenly, a scream s...

Physicists are used to the idea that subatomic particles behave according to the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics, completely different to human-scale objects. In a breakthrough experiment, Aaron O'Connell has blurred that distinction by creating an object that is visible to the unaided eye, but provably in two places at the same time. In this talk he suggests an intriguing way of thinking about...

Explore the massive structures known as the Fermi bubbles, and dig into the prevailing theories about how they came to be.--In 2010, NASA announced the discovery of a never-before-seen galactic object: two gigantic gaseous bubbles, each emanating an impressive 25,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers were perplexed: what created these structures? And could this mean that th...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/comma-story-terisa-folaronIt isn't easy holding complex sentences together (just ask a conjunction or a subordinate), but the clever little comma can help lighten the load. But how to tell when help is really needed? Terisa Folaron offers some tricks of the comma trade. Lesson by Terisa Folaron, animation by Brett Underhill. Learn more about your ad choi...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/making-a-car-for-blind-drivers-dennis-hongUsing robotics, laser rangefinders, GPS and smart feedback tools, Dennis Hong is building a car for drivers who are blind. It's not a "self-driving" car, he's careful to note, but a car in which a non-sighted driver can determine speed, proximity and route -- and drive independently. Talk by Dennis Hong. Learn mo...

Explore how the US government hunted bison to near-extinction in the 1800s to force Native Americans onto reservations.--By the mid-1700s, many Plains nations survived on North America’s largest land mammals: bison. They ate its meat, made the hides into winter coats and blankets, and used the bones and horns for tools. But in the following decades, millions of bison would be deliberately slaughte...

Discover what we know — and don’t know — about the causes and treatment of seizures, and what to do if you encounter someone experiencing a seizure.--Nearly 3,000 years ago, a Babylonian tablet described a curious illness called “miqtu” that caused symptoms ranging from facial twitching to full body convulsions. Today we know miqtu as seizures, and modern medicine has developed numerous treatments...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/myths-and-misconceptions-about-evolution-alex-gendlerHow does evolution really work? Actually, not how some of our common evolutionary metaphors would have us believe. For instance, it's species, not individual organisms, that adapt to produce evolution, and genes don't "want" to be passed on -- a gene can't want anything at all! Alex Gendler sets the re...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-we-ll-stop-polio-for-good-bruce-aylwardPolio is almost completely eradicated. But as Bruce Aylward says: Almost isn't good enough with a disease this terrifying. Aylward lays out the plan to continue the scientific miracle that ended polio in most of the world -- and to snuff it out everywhere, forever. Talk by Bruce Aylward. Learn more about your ad...

Explore the history of humanity’s deadliest diseases, and find out how our progress and innovation exposed us to new pathogens.--Since humanity’s earliest days, we’ve been plagued by countless disease-causing pathogens. Invisible and persistent, these microorganisms and the illnesses they incur have killed more humans than anything else in history. But which disease has been the deadliest? Dan Kwa...

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-weird-wonderful-world-of-bioluminescence-edith-widderIn the deep, dark ocean, many sea creatures make their own light for hunting, mating and self-defense. Bioluminescence expert Edith Widder was one of the first to film this glimmering world. At TED2011, she brings some of her glowing friends onstage, and shows more astonishing footage of glowing un...