Best TED Ed talks for students

How to access the videos: 

• Go to http://ed.ted.com/
• Enter the name of the video in the search box.

Note: Each lesson comes with questions on the right side

Arts (Visual)

• The Amazing Math in Da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’
• Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans: Why Is This Art?
• Brief History of Graffiti
• Brief History of Religion in Art
• Bringing a Pop-up Book to Life
• The Case for Andy Warhol
• Cave Paintings
• The Chaotic Brilliance of Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat
• Complex Geometry and Islamic Design
• The Dawn of Art
• Doodlers Unite
• Eye vs. Camera
• Frida Kahlo: The Woman Behind the Legend
• Gyotaku: The Ancient Japanese Art of Printing Fish
• The History of Graffiti
• The History of Tattoos
• How Ancient Art Influenced Modern Art
• How Art Can Help You Analyze
• How One French Poet Combined Poetry and Visual Art
• Inside a Cartoonist’s World
• Is There a Difference Between Art and Craft
• The Many Meanings of Michelangelo’s Statue of David
• Math and Van Gogh
• The Mathematics of Sidewalk Illusions
• My Cat Could Make That (What Is Abstract Expressionism?)
• Taking Imagination Seriously
• What Color is Tuesday? Exploring Synesthesia
• What Is Color?
• What Is Minimalist Art and Why Does It Matter?
• Who Decided What Art Means
• Why Babies in Medieval Paintings Look Like Ugly Old Men
• Why Is This Painting So Captivating? (Girl with the Pearl Earring)
• Why Is This Painting So Captivating? (Las Meninas)
• Why Is This Painting So Shocking? (Guernica)

Arts (Music)

• A Different Way to Visualize Rhythm
• Animation Basics: The Art of Timing and Spacing
• A-rhythm-etic. The Math Behind the Beats
• Beatboxing 101
• A Brief History of Goths
• Earworms: Those Songs That Get Stuck in Your Head
• From Aaliyah to Jay-Z: Captured Moments in Hip-Hop History
• How Bass Instruments Work
• How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain
• How to Practice Effectively
• How to Read Music
• Johann Sebastian Bach’ Life
• Music and Creativity in Ancient Greece
• Music and Emotion Through Time
• Music and Math: The Genius of Beethoven
• Music as a Language
• The Physics of Playing a Guitar
• The Secrets of Mozart’s Magic Flute
• Why You Should Listen to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
• Why We Love Repetition in Music

Arts (Theatre)

• Development of English Drama
• Did Shakespeare Write His Plays?
• Does the Wonderful Wizard of Oz Have a Hidden Message?
• The History of Social Dance
• In on a Secret? That’s Dramatic Irony
• Shakespeare’s Best Insults
• Kabuki: The People’s Dramatic Art
• Poetry, Pentameter, Pirates (Shakespeare & Iambic Pentameter)
• The Science of Stage Fright (and How to Overcome It)
• Shakespearean Dating Tips
• Slowing Down Time (in Writing & Film)
• What’s the Definition of Comedy?
• Why Is Aristophanes Called the Father of Comedy?
• Why Is This Painting So Captivating? (Las Meninas)
• Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter
• Why Tragedies Are Alluring?

Community Service

• Recycling Styrofoam

Counseling

• Addiction
• Are You a Giver or a Taker?
• Are You a Good Listener?
• The Distracted Mind
• Does School Prepare Students for the Real World
• Debunking the Myths of OCD
• The Equation for Reaching Your Dreams
• Five Tips to Improve Critical Thinking
• Five Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain Right Now
• Five Ways You Can Help a Friend Suffering from Depression
• Friendships and Vulnerability
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
• Good and Bad Childhoods
• Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset: An Introduction
• How Does Stress Affect the Brain?
• How I Learned to Organize My Scatterbrain
• How Miscommunication Happens (and How to Avoid It)
• How to Be Confident
• How to Be More Empathetic
• How to Manage Your Time More Effectively
• How to Practice Effectively
• How to Stay Calm Under Pressure
• How to Stop Being Bored and Start Being Bold
• How to Talk to People You Disagree With
• Is Binge-Watching Bad for You?
• J.K. Rowling on the Importance of Failing
• Learning to Listen
• Manners
• Overcoming Obstacles
• The Science of Decision-Making
• Seven Healthy Tips for a Better Night’s Sleep
• A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit
• Stay in–or Leave–a Relationship?
• The Surprising Link Between Stress and Memory
• Teach Girls Bravery Not Perfection
• Three Quick Tips to Boost Your Confidence
• What Causes Addiction
• What Is Bipolar Disorder?
• What Is Depression?
• What Is Empathy?
• What Trying to Help My Friend Taught Me About Mental Health
• What You Can Do When Friendship Becomes Harmful
• Why Do People Join Cults?
• Why Do We Make Irrational Decisions?
• Why Perfect Grades Don’t Matter
• Why We Fear the Wrong Things

Debate

• Are Boys Smarter Than Girls?
• Is There a Limit to Technological Progress?
• The Lost Art of Democratic Debate
• Private School vs. Public School
• The Pros and Cons of Pesticides
• Should We Get Rid of Standardized Testing?
• Should We Look for Life Elsewhere in the Universe?
• Would You Sacrifice One Person to Save Five?

Design/Technology

• Animal Architects
• Animation Basics: Homemade Special Effects
• Animation Basics: The Optical Illusion of Motion
• A Brief History of Video Games (Part I)
• Building the Brooklyn Bridge
• Can Machines Read Your Emotions?
• Can a Robot be Creative?
• How a Bendy Straw Was Invented
• How an Igloo Keeps You Warm
• How Blue Jeans Were Invented
• How Cars Went from Boxy to Curvy
• How Computer Memory Works
• How Computers Translate Human Language
• How Do Hard Drives Work?
• How Do Self-Driving Cars See?
• How Do Touchscreens Work?
• How Fan Films Shaped the Lego Movie
• How Far Can We Go?
• How the Band-Aid was invented?
• How the Popsicle Was Invented
• How the Romans Flooded the Colosseum for Sea Battles
• How the Rubber Glove was Invented
• How the Sandwich Was Invented
• How Smudge-proof Lipstick Was Invented
• How Superglue Was Invented
• How a TV Works in Slow Motion
• How Was the First Metro System Built?
• Inside Your Computer
• Is Google Killing Your Memory?
• Is It Possible to Create a Perfect Vacuum?
• A Life-Saving Device That Detects Heart Attacks
• Magnetic Slime
• Meet a 12-year-old App Developer
• Nine Futuristic Materials
• The Power of Creative Constraints
• Teaching Design for Change
• Ten Dangerous Fashion Trends
• Think Like a Coder (Series)
• This One Weird Trick Will Help You Spot Clickbait
• What Are Mini Brains?
• What If Cracks in Concrete Could Fix Themselves?
• What Is the Internet of Things?
• What Is a Smartphone Made of?
• What Is the World Wide Web?
• What’s So Special About Viking Ships?

• Will We Ever Be Able to Teleport?
• Will There Ever Be a Mile-High Skyscraper?

French

• History vs. Napoleon Bonaparte
• What Caused the French Revolution?

Language & Literature

• Accents (There’s A Poem for That series)
• All the World Is a Stage (There’s a Poem for That series)
• An Antihero of One’s Own
• Animal Farm – Context and Background
• The Art of the Metaphor
• The Assassination of Julius Caesar
• The Aztec Myth of the Unluckiest Sun God
• Become a Slam Poet in Five Steps
• Beware of Nominalizations (AKA Zombie Nouns)
• A Brief History of Plural Word
• The Cambodian Myth of Thunder, Lightning, and Rain
• The Case of a Misplaced Modifier
• The Chinese Myth of the Immortal White Snake I & 2
• Comma Story
• The Clues to a Great Story
• Dare to Educate Afghan Girls
• Does Grammar Matter?
• Does the Wonderful World of Oz Have a Hidden Message?
• Everything You Need to Know to Read The Canterbury Tales
• Everything You Need to Know to Read Frankenstein
• Everything You Need to Know to Read The Odyssey
• The Evolution of the Book
• First Kiss (There’s A Poem for That series)
• Five Myths from Around the World
• For Estefani, Third Grade, Who Made Me a Card (There’s A Poem for That series)
• Francine’s Interview – Holocaust Survivor
• A Global Culture to Fight Extremism
• Grammar’s Great Divide: The Oxford Comma
• Harry Potter and the Translator’s Nightmare
• Hero: A Lesson from a Volunteer Firefighter
• A Host of Heroes
• How Can You Change Someone’s Mind?
• How Did English Evolve?
• How Did Hitler Rise to Power?
• How Do Languages Evolve?
• How False News Can Spread
• How Fiction Can Change Reality
• How the Heart Actually Pumps Blood
• How Many Verb Tenses Are There in English?
• How Miscommunication Happens
• How Misused Modifiers Can Hurt Your Writing

• How to Build a Fictional World
• How to Make Your Writing Suspenseful
• How Many Verb Tenses Are There in English?
• How to Recognize a Dystopia
• How Thor Got His Hammer
• How to Use Rhetoric to Get What You Want
• How to Use a Semicolon
• How to Write Fiction That Comes Alive
• Insults by Shakespeare
• The Irish Myth of the Giant’s Causeway
• Is There Any Truth to King Arthur’s Legends?
• The Key to Media’s Hidden Codes
• Lessons from Auschwitz: The Power of Our Words
• The Magic, Mathematical Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges
• To Make Use of Water (There’s a Poem for That series)
• Making Sense of Spelling
• Mining Literature for Deeper Meanings
• Misleading Headlines
• The Myth of Arachne
• The Myth of Cupid and Psyche
• The Myth of Hercules
• The Myth of Icarus and Daedalus
• The Myth of Jason & the Argonauts
• The Myth of King Midas and His Golden Touch
• The Myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth
• The Myth of Pandora’s Box
• The Myth of Prometheus
• The Myth of Sisyphus
• The New Colossus (There’s a Poem for That series)
• The Nutritionist There’s a Poem for That series)
• Ode to the Only Black Kid in Class (There’s a Poem for That series)
• The Opposites Game (from There’s a Poem for That series)
• Plato’s Allegory of a Cave
• Plato’s Best and Worst Ideas
• A Poetic Experiment: Walt Whitman Interpreted by Three Animators
• The Poetry of Emily Dickenson
• The Poet Who Painted with Words
• The Power of a Great Introduction
• The Power of Simple Words
• The Punishable Perils of Plagiarism
• Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Beauty of the Everyday
• A Refresher on Edgar Allan Poe
• The Road Not Taken (There’s a Poem for That series)
• The Science Behind the Myth: Homer’s “Odyssey”
• The Secret Student Resistance to Hitler
• The Second Coming (There’s a Poem for That series)
• Situational Irony: The Opposite of What You Think
• Speech Acts: Constative and Performative (Power of Words)
• Thor’s Journey to the Land of Giants
• Three Anti-Social Skills to Improve Your Writing
• Three Months After (There’s a Poem for That series)
• Titan of Terror: The Dark Imagination of H.P. Lovecraft
• To Make use of Water (There’s a Poem for That series)
• The Tragic Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice
• Vampires: Folklore, Fantasy and Fact
• What Aristotle and Joshua Bell Can Teach Us About Persuasion
• What Is an Antihero?

• What Is the Definition of Comedy?
• What Is Verbal Irony?
• What Makes a Hero?
• What Makes a Poem a Poem?
• What Makes Something Kafkaesque?
• What “Orwellian” Really Means
• http://www.ted.com/playlists/75/what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat (This playlist comprises regular TED videos that you may find useful for the Chew on This unit.)
• When to Use Apostrophes
• When to Use Me, Myself, and I?
• Where Do New Words Come From?
• Who Am I?
• Who Is Sherlock Holmes?
• Who Were the Vestal Virgins?
• Why Facts Don’t Convince People
• Why Should You Read Charles Dickens?
• Why Should You Read Crime and Punishment?
• Why Should you Read Don Quixote?
• Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe?
• Why Should You Read Fahrenheit 451?
• Why Should You Read the Handmaid’s Tale?
• Why Should You Read Kurt Vonnegut?
• Why Should You Read Macbeth?
• Why Should You Read A Midsummer’s Night Dream?
• Why Should You Read One Hundred Years of Solitude?
• Why Should You Read Sylvia Plath?
• Why Should You Read The Tempest?
• Why Should You Read Waiting for Godot?
• Why Should You Read War and Peace?
• Why Should You Read Sci-Fi Superstar Octavia F. Butler?
• The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen
• Will the Real Sherlock Holmes Please Stand Up?
• The World According to James Baldwin
• The World’s Most Mysterious Book

Logic & Reasoning (Riddles)

• Can You Find the Next Number in This Sequence?
• Can You Outsmart This Logical Fallacy?
• Can You Solve the Airplane Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Alien Probe Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Bridge Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Buried Treasure Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Control Room Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Counterfeit Coin Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Cuddly, Duddly, Fuddly, Wuddly Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Dark Coin Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Egg Drop Riddle?
• Can You Solve Einstein’s Riddle?
• Can You Solve the False Positive Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Fish Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Frog Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Giant Cat Army Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Giant Iron Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Jail Break Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Killer Robo-Ants Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Leonardo da Vinci Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Locker Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Mondrian Squares Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Multiplying Rabbits Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Multiverse Rescue Mission Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Passcode Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Penniless Pilgrim Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Pirate Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Prisoner Box Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Prisoner Hat Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Rebel Supplies Riddle?
• Can You Solve the River Crossing Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Rogue AI Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Secret Werewolf Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Seven Planets Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Stolen Rubies Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Temple Riddle? 
• Can You Solve the Three Gods Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Time Travel Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Troll’s Paradox Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Unstoppable Blob Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Vampire Hunter’s Riddle?
• Can You Solve the Wizard Standoff Riddle?
• Fire Crystal Riddle
• Winning at Rock, Paper, Scissors

Mathematics

• A-rhythm-etic. The Math Behind the Beats
• A Brief History of Banned Numbers
• A Brief History of Numerical Systems
• Can You Solve This?
• The Case of the Missing Fractals
• Check Your Intuition: The Birthday Problem
• The Complex Geometry of Islamic Design
• The Coin Flip Conundrum
• Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man of Math
• The Famously Difficult Green-Eyed Logic Puzzle
• A Faster Way to Add and Multiply in Your Head
• The Fundamentals of Probability
• How Big Is Infinity?

• How High Can You Count on Your Fingers?
• How the Konigsberg Bridge Problem Changed Mathematics
• How Many Ways Are There to Prove the Pythagorean Theorem?
• How Many Ways Can You Arrange a Deck of Cards?
• How Statistics Can Be Misleading
• How to Make a Hexaflexagon
• How to Prove the Pythagorean Theory
• How to Spot a Misleading Graph
• How to Visualize One Part Per Million
• The Infinite Hotel Paradox
• The Infinite Life of Pi
• Is Math Discovered or Invented?
• Is Our Climate Headed for Mathematical Chaos?
• The Last Banana: A Thought Experiment in Probability
• Making Sense of Irrational Numbers
• The Math Behind Michael Jordan’s Legendary Hang Time
• The Mathematical Secrets of Pascual’s Triangle
• The Mathematics of Sidewalk Illusions
• Mile of Pi – Numberphile
• Music and Math: The Genius of Beethoven
• Mysteries of Vernacular: Zero
• Pixar: The Math Behind the Movies
• Population Pyramids: Powerful Predictors of the Future
• Riemann’s Paradox: Pi Equals Infinity Minus Infinity
• Should I Stay or Should I Switch Doors?
• SpongeBob’s house is not a pineapple (Fibonacci Numbers)

• A Trip Through Space to Calculate Distance
• The Unexpected Math Behind Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”
• Welcome to the Virus Riddle
• What Are Vectors?
• What’s an Algorithm?
• What’s the Difference Between Accuracy and Precision?
• Where Do Math Symbols Come From?
• Why Are Manhole Covers Round?
• Why Can’t You Divide by Zero?
• Why Does Math Make So Many People Anxious?
• Why Do People Get So Anxious About Math?
• Why Do Honeybees Love Hexagons?
• Why the Metric System Matters
• Why You Can’t Divided by Zero

Philosophy

• Are We Living in a Simulation?
• Are You a Mind with a Body or a Body with a Mind?
• Does Time Exist?
• The Philosophy of Stoicism

Physical & Health Education

• An Athlete Uses Physics to Shatter World Records
• Are Food Preservatives Bad for You?
• The Benefits of a Good Night’s Sleep
• The Benefits of Good Posture
• The Complicated History of Surfing
• Could We Cure Aging During Your Lifetime?
• The Different Types of Fats
• Does Stress Cause Pimples?
• Do Fad Diets Work?
• The Effects of Sleep Deprivation
• Eradicating HIV
• The Fascinating Science of Phantom Limbs
• Five Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain
• Five Weird Involuntary Reflexes Explained!
• The Heartbreaking Text That Inspired a Crisis Help Line
• The History of the Black Fives Era in Basketball
• How Anesthesia Works
• How Aspirin Was Discovered?
• How Blood Pressure Works
• How Close Are We to Eradicating HIV?
• How Concussions Work
• How Do Blood Transfusions Works?
• How Do Cigarettes Affect the Body?
• How Does Asthma Work?
• How Does Caffeine Keep Us Awake?
• How Does Sugar Affect the Brain?
• How Does Your Body Know You’re Full?
• How Does Your Body Process Medicine?
• How Does Your Digestive System Work?
• How Does Your Heart Pump Blood?
• How Does Your Liver Work?
• How Does Your Pancreas Work?
• How Does Your Thyroid Manage Your Metabolism?
• How Do Drugs Affect the Brain?
• How Do Glasses Help You See?
• How Do Vaccines Work?
• How Do Viruses Jump from Animals to Humans?
• How Do Vitamins Work?
• How Do We Study Living Brains?
• How Do Wounds Heal?
• How Do You Get Rid of Acne?
• How Do Your Kidneys Work?

• How Do Your Lungs Work?
• How Fast Can Humans Go?
• How the Food You Eat Affects Your Brain
• How the Food You Eat Affects Your Gut
• How Hormones Work
• How Microbes Form Communities
• How Much Water Do We Need to Drink?
• How Mucus Keeps Us Healthy
• How Old Are Your Ears? (This is a hearing test that requires earphones connected to a computer set at 1080p.)
• How One Scientist Averted a National Health Crisis
• How Oxygen Travels Through the Body
• How Playing Sports Benefits Your Body and Brain
• How Old Is Your Body Really?
• How to Practice Effectively
• How Stress Affects the Brain
• How Sugar Affects the Brain
• How to Biohack Your Cells to Fight Cancer
• How to Choose a Sunscreen
• How to Eradicate a Disease
• How to Help a Friend Suffering from Depression
• How X-rays See Through Your Skin
• How to Grow a Bone
• How to Practice Effectively
• How Your Immune System Works
• How Your Muscular System Works
• Is It Bad to Hold Your Pee?
• Is Marijuana Bad for Your Brain?
• Is Radiation Dangerous?
• Lead and the Brain
• The Mysterious Science of Pain
• The Neuroscience of Pokemon Go
• Protecting the Brain Against Concussion
• Sickle Cell Disease
• The Surprising Cause of Stomach Ulcers
• The Surprising Reason Muscles Get Tired
• The Surprising Reason You Feel Awful When You’re Sick
• The Tortuous History of the Treadmill
• 23 and 1/2 Hours
• Your Body vs. Implants

• What Are Carbohydrates?
• What Are Those Floaty Things in Your Eyes?
• What Causes Addiction
• What Causes Antibiotic Resistance?
• What Causes Bad Breath?
• What Causes Baldness?
• What Causes Body Odor?
• What Causes Cavities?
• What Causes Headaches?
• What Causes Kidney Stones?
• What Causes Memory Loss?
• What Did Dogs Teach Humans About Diabetes?
• What Does Your Thyroid Do?
• What Happens During a Heart Attack?
• What Happens During a Stroke?
• What Happens When You Get Heat Stroke?
• What Happens When You Have a Concussion?
• What Herpes Can Do to Your Brain
• What Is a Calorie?
• What Is Alzheimer’s Disease?
• What Is Depression? 
• What is Ebola?
• What Is Fat?
• What Is It Like to Have Tourette’s—and How Music Gives Me Back Control?
• What’s the Big Deal with Gluten?
• What Is the Menstrual Cycle?
• What Is Narcissism?
• What Is Obesity?
• What Makes Muscles Grow
• What Would Happen If You Didn’t Drink Water?
• What Would Happen If You Didn’t Sleep?
• Why Do Blood Types Matter?
• Why Do Our Joints Pop?
• Why Do We Age?
• Why Do We Dream?
• Why Do We Hiccup?
• Why Do We Itch?
• Who Do We Make Irrational Decisions?
• Why Do We Pass Gas?
• Why Do We Sweat?
• Why Do Women Have Periods?
• Why Do You Need to Get a Flu Shot Every Year?
• Why Is Being Scared So Fun?
• Why Is the Human Body Asymmetrical?
• Why Is Meningitis So Dangerous?

• Why Is It So Hard to Cure ALS?
• Why Is It So Hard to Cure Cancer?
• Why It’s So Hard to Cure HIV/AIDS
• Why Sitting Is Bad for You
• Why Some People Have Seasonal Allergies
• The World’s Most Infectious Killer
• Your Body vs. Implants

Psychology

• Do Politics Make Us Irrational?

Sciences

• The 2,400-year Search for the Atom (History of Atomic Theory)
• ABCs of Gas
• The Accident That Changed the World (Discovery of Penicillin)
• Activation Energy: Kickstarting Chemical Reactions
• The Amazing Ways Plants Defend Themselves
• Atoms from A to Easy!
• An Athlete Uses Physics to Shatter World Records
• Are GMOs Good or Bad?
• Are Naked Mole Rats the Strangest Mammals?
• Are We Running Out of Clean Water?
• Attack of the Killer Algae
• At What Moment Are You Dead?
• A Baffling Balloon Behavior
• Biodiesel: The Afterlife of Oil
• Biofuels and Bioprospecting for Beginners
• Birth of the Lightsaber
• The Brilliance of Bioluminescence
• Calculating the Odds of Intelligent Alien Life
• Can Animals Adapt to Climate Change?
• Can a Black Hole Be Destroyed?
• The Cancer Gene We All Have
• Can 100% Renewable Energy Power the World?
• Cannibalism in the Animal Kingdom
• Can Plants Communicate?
• Can You Survive Nuclear Fallout?
• The Carbon Cycle
• Carl Sagan on the Existence of Extraterrestrials
• The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees
• Cell Membranes: Are They More Complicated Than You Think?
• Cell vs. Virus: A Battle for Health
• The Challenges of Nuclear Power
• Climate Change: Earth’s Giant Game of Tetris
• Cloudy Climate Change: How Clouds affect Earth’s Temperature
• The Coelacanth: A Living Fossil of a Fish
• The Colossal Consequences of Supervolcanoes
• The Complicated Journey of Marine Plastic Pollution
• Conserving Our Spectacular, Vulnerable Coral Reefs
• Coral Reefs Aren’t as Doomed as You Think
• Could a Blind Eye Regenerate?
• Could the Earth Be Swallowed by a Back Hole?
• Could Human Civilization Spread Across the Whole Galaxy?
• Could You Survive 2.5 Million Years Ago?

• Could Underwater Farms Help Fight Climate Change?
• Could We Create Dark Matter?
• Could We Survive in Outer Space?
• Crazy Pool Vortex
• Creatures of the Deep
• Dark Matter: The Matter We Can’t See
• Dead Stuff: The Secret Ingredient in Our Food Chain
• The Death of Bees Explained
• The Death of the Universe
• Describing the Invisible Properties of Gas
• Diagnosing a Zombie: Brain and Behavior
• Diagnosing a Zombie: Brain and Body
• Disappearing Frogs
• DNA: The Book of You
• The Dramatic Origins of Germ Theory
• The Dust Bunnies That Built Our Planet
• Einstein’s Brilliant Mistake: Entangled States
• Einstein’s Twin Paradox Explained
• Einstein’s Miracle Year
• Electric Vocabulary
• Eli the Eel: A Mysterious Migration
• Endocrine System – Part 1 (How Hormones Work)
• The Fascinating Science of Phantom Limbs
• Finding Habitable Worlds
• The First Asteroid Ever Discovered
• Five Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain
• Football Physics: The “Impossible” Free Kick
• Four Ways to Understand the Earth’s Age
• A 40-year Plan for Energy
• Free Falling in Outer Space
• Fresh Water Scarcity: An Introduction to the Problem
• From DNA to Silly Putty, the Diverse World of Polymers
• From Outer Space to Under Our Skin: A Look at the Universe
• From the Top of the Food Chain Down: Rewilding Our World
• The Fundamentals of Space-time: Part 1
• The Fundamentals of Space-time: Part 2
• The Fundamentals of Space-time: Part 3
• The Genius of Marie Curie
• The Genius of Mendeleev’s Periodic Table
• Gravity and the Human Body
• A Guide to the Energy of the Earth
• Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox Explained
• The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
• The Higgs Field, Explained
• The History of the Barometer
• How Bacteria “Talk”
• How Batteries Work
• How Big Is the Ocean?

• How Brain Parasites Change Their Host’s Behavior
• How Breathing Works
• How the Choices You Make Affect Your Genes
• How Clouds Were Named
• How Cosmic Rays Help Us Understand the Universe
• How CRISPR Lets You Edit DNA
• How Deep Is the Ocean?
• How Did Feathers Evolve?
• How Do Animals See in the Dark?
• How Do Cancer Cells Behave Differently from Healthy Ones?
• How Do Crystals Work?
• How Does an Atom-smashing Particle Accelerator Work?
• How Does Cancer Spread?
• How Does Fracking Work?
• How Does Hibernation Work?
• How Does Work . . . Work?
• How Does Your Brain Respond to Pain?
• How Do Fish Make Electricity?
• How Do Germs Spread (and Why Do They Make Us Sick)?
• How Do Nerves Work?
• How Do Schools of Fish Swim in Harmony?
• How Do Solar Panels Work?
• How Do Tornadoes Form?
• How Do We Extract Raw Materials from Nature?
• How Do We Separate the Seemingly Inseparable?
• How Do We Smell?
• How Do We Study Living Brains?
• How Do We Study the Stars?
• How Do Wounds Heal?
• How Far Would You Have to Go to Escape Gravity?
• How Fast Are You Moving Right Now?
• How Folding a Paper Can Get You to the Moon
• How Giant Sea Creatures Eat Tiny Sea Creatures
• How Heavy Is Air?
• How Inventions Change History (for Better and for Worse)
• How I Teach Kids to Love Science
• How Levers Work
• How Life Begins in the Deep Ocean
• How Long Will Human Impacts Last?
• How Many Universes Are There?
• How Memories Form and Why We Lose Them
• How Mendel’s Pea Plants Helped Us Understand Genetics
• How Microbes Form Communities
• How Oceanographers Found the Titanic
• How Oxygen Travels Through Your Body
• How Optical Illusions Trick Your Brain
• How Small Are We in the Scale of the Universe?

• How Smart Are Dolphins?
• How Pandemics Spread
• How Plants Tell Time
• How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries
• How Small Are We in the Scale of the Universe?
• How Smart Are Orangutans?
• How Spontaneous Brain Activity Keeps You Alive
• How Squids Outsmart Their Predators
• How Sugar Affects the Brain
• How to Biohack Your Cells and Fight Cancer
• How to Build a Dark Matter Detector
• How to Create Cleaner Coal
• How to Detect a Supernova
• How to Eradicate a Disease
• How to Fly Around the World Without Fuel
• How to Grow a Glacier
• How to Sequence the Human Genome
• How to Speed Up Chemical Reactions (and Get a Date)
• How to Squeeze Electricity Out of Crystals
• How Squids Outsmart their Predators
• How Tornadoes Form
• How to Track a Tornado
• How Tsunamis Work
• How Turtle Shells Evolved
• How We See Color
• How Whales Breathe, Communicate . . . and Fart with Their Faces
• How X-rays See Through Your Skin
• Humans Are More See-Through Than They Look
• If Matter Falls Down, Does Antimatter Fall Up?
• If Molecules Were People
• If Superpowers Were Real: Body Mass
• If Superpowers Were Real: Flight
• If Superpowers Were Real: Immortality
• If Superpowers Were Real: Invisibility
• If Superpowers Were Real: Super Speed
• If Superpowers Were Real: Super Strength
• The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks
• The Incredible Collaboration Behind the International Space Station
• The Insanely Painful Sting of the Bullet Ant
• Inside the Amazing Octopus Brain
• Inside the Ant Colony
• Inside the Minds of Animals
• Insights into Cell Membranes Via Dish Detergent
• Invasive Species
• The Invisible Motion of Still Objects
• Is DNA the Future of Data Storage?
• Is Fire a Solid, Liquid, or Gas?
• Is Light a Particle or a Wave?
• Is Space Trying to Kill Us?
• Is Telekinesis Real?
• Is There a Center of the Universe?
• Is Time Travel Possible?
• The Journey to Pluto, the Farthest World Ever Explored

• Just How Small Is an Atom?
• The Life Cycle of a Neutron Star
• The Life Cycle of a Plastic Bottle
• Light Seconds, Light Years, Light Centuries: How to Measure Extreme Distances
• Light Waves, Visible and Invisible
• Living with Less Water
• The Loathsome, Lethal Mosquito
• The Lovable (and Lethal) Sea Lion
• Magical Metals, How Shape Memory Alloys Work
• Mammoths vs. Mastodons
• Meet the Frog That Barfs Up Its Babies
• Meet the Tardigrade, the Toughest Animal on Earth
• The Moon Illusion
• The Most Groundbreaking Scientist You’ve Never Heard of
• The Most Lightening-Struck Place on Earth
• The Most Astounding Fact – Neil deGrasse
• The Most Lightning Struck Place on Earth
• The Most Radioactive Places on Earth
• My Glacier Cave Discoveries
• Nature’s Smallest Factory: The Calvin Cycle
• A Needle in Countless Haystacks: Finding Habitable Worlds
• The Neuroscience of Pokemon Go
• Newton’s 3 Laws, with a Bicycle
• The Nurdles’ Quest for Ocean Domination (Plastics in the Ocean)
• Origins of Gold
• The Pangaea Pop-up
• Parasite Tales: The Jewel Wasp’s Zombie Slave
• Pavlovian Reactions Aren’t Just for Dogs
• Penguins: Popularity, Peril and Poop
• The Physics of the “Hardest Move” in Ballet
• The Physics of Surfing
• Poison vs. Venom: What’s the Difference?
• Proof of Evolution That You Can Find on the Body
• The Race to Sequence the Human Genome
• Radioactivity: Expect the Unexpected 
• A Rare, Spectacular Total Eclipse of the Sun
• Reasons for the Seasons
• RNAi: Slicing, Dicing and Serving Your Cells
• Rosalind Franklin: DNAs Unsung Hero
• Sally Ride on Dumb Questions
• The Science of Skin
• The Science of Skin Color
• The Science of Smog
• The Science of Symmetry
• The Secret Language of Trees
• The Secret Life of Plankton
• The Secret Powers of Jellyfish
• The Secrets of the X Chromosome
• The Secret to Rising Sea Levels

• Separation Techniques and Why They Matter
• Seven Ocean Mysteries
• Sex Determination: More Complicated Than You Thought
• Should We Eat Bugs?
• Should We Look for Life Elsewhere in the Universe?
• The Single-Celled Organism That Almost Wiped Out Life on Earth
• The Standard Model of Particle Physics
• Solving the Puzzle of the Periodic Table
• The Sonic Boom Problem
• The Strengths and Weaknesses of Acids and Bases
• Sunlight Is Way Older Than You Think
• The Sun’s Surprising Movement Across the Sky
• The Surprising Effects of Rewilding
• The Surprising (and Invisible) Signatures of Sea Creatures
• The Surprising Reasons Animals Play Dead
• The Survival of the Sea Turtle
• Symbiosis: A Surprising Tale of Species Cooperation
• Synesthesia (Note: It’s the combination of two or more senses.)
• Theory vs. Law: What’s the Difference
• Three Different Ways Mammals Give Birth
• Three Planets That Shouldn’t Exist
• This Is Your Brain on Pain
• Three Different Ways Animals Give Birth
• Three Ways to Destroy the Universe
• Turbulence: One of the Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of Physics
• Twisting Tale of DNA
• A Vanishing Island off the Louisiana Coast (Climate Change)
• Visualizing Hidden Worlds Inside Your Body
• Vultures: Heroes of the Ecosystem
• The Wacky Story of Cell Theory
• The Weird and Wonderful Metamorphosis of a Butterfly
• The Weird, Wonderful World of Bioluminescence
• What Is Dark Matter
• What Are Gravitational Waves
• What Are Meteors?
• What Are Mini Brains?
• What Are the Odds of Finding Intelligent Alien Life?
• What Causes a Solar Eclipse?
• What Happened to Antimatter?
• What Happens When Continents Collide?
• What If the Earth Stopped Spinning?
• What If We Could Look Inside Human Brains?
• What Is an Aurora?
• What Is the Biggest Single-Celled Organism?
• What Is the Coldest Thing in the World?
• What Is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?
• What Is Entropy?
• What Is a Fungus?

• What Is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?
• What Is Invisible? More Than You Think
• What Is Metallic Glass?
• What Is Plasma?
• What Is the Shape of a Molecule? 
• What Is the Universe Made of?
• What Is Work? (Understanding Physical Laws)
• What Light Can Teach Us About the Universe
• What Outer Space Does to Your Body
• What Percentage of Your Brain Do You Use?
• What Would Happen If Every Human Suddenly Disappeared?
• What Would Happen If the World Went Vegetarian?
• What Would It Be Like to Live on the Moon?
• What’s Wrong with Our Food System
• What You Can Learn from an Ancient Skeleton
• When Is Water Safe to Drink?
• When Will the Next Ice Age Happen?
• When Will the Next Mass Extinction Occur?
• Where Does Gold Come From?
• Where Do Genes Come From?
• Where Have All the Honeybees Gone?
• Where We Get Our Fresh Water
• Which Came First: The Chicken or the Egg?
• Who Won the Space Race?
• Why Are Blue Whales So Enormous?
• Why Are Earthquakes So Hard to Predict?
• Why Are Fish Fish-Shaped?
• Why Aren’t We Only Using Solar Power?
• Why Are Sharks So Awesome?
• Why Are Sloths So Slow?
• Why Are Some People Left-handed?
• Why Are There So Many Insects?
• Why Be Skeptical? (of Scientific Studies)
• Why Can’t We See Evidence of Alien Life?
• Why Do Animals Form Swarms?
• Why Doesn’t Anything Stick to Teflon?
• Why Does the Sun Really Shine?
• Why Do Humans Have a Third Eyelid?
• Why Do Mirrors Flip Vertically but Not Horizontally?
• Why Don’t Ants Get Stuck in Traffic?
• Why Don’t Perpetual Motion Machines Ever Work?
• Why Do We Age?
• Why Do We Cry? The Three Types of Tears
• Why Do We Harvest Horseshoe Crab Blood?
• Why Do We Pass Gas?
• Why Do We Wrinkle When Wet?
• Why Do Whales Sing?
• Why Is Cotton in Everything?
• Why Is Glass Transparent?

• Why Is NASA Sending a Spacecraft to a Metal World?
• Why Total Solar Eclipse Is Such a Big Deal?
• Will Future Spacecraft Fit in Our Pockets?
• Will the Ocean Ever Run Out of Fish?
• Will We Ever Be Able to Teleport?
• Would You Move to Mars?
• Would You Weigh Less in an Elevator?
• You Are Your Microbes

Social Studies/World Cultures

• Actually, the World Isn’t Flat
• The Ancient Origins of the Olympics
• The Arctic vs. the Antarctic
• Are Ghost Ships Real?
• The City of Walls: Constantinople
• The Dangerous Race to the South Pole
• A Day in the Life of an Ancient Athenian
• A Day in the Life of a Roman Solider
• Democracy: A Short Introduction
• Did the Amazons Really Exist?
• Did Ancient Troy Really Exist?
• The Difference Between the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England Explained
• The Egyptian Book of the Dead: A Guide to the Underworld
• The Fascinating History of Cemeteries
• The Five Major World Religions
• From Slave to Rebel Gladiator: The Life of Spartacus
• A Glimpse of Teenage Life in Ancient Rome
• Greeting the World in Peace
• The Hidden Meanings of Yin and Yang
• The History and Genghis Khan
• The History of Japan
• The History of Marriage
• The History of Saint Patrick
• History vs. Augustus
• History vs. Che Guevara
• History vs. Christopher Columbus
• History vs. Cleopatra
• History vs. Henry VIII
• History vs. Napoleon Bonaparte
• History vs. Vladimir Lenin
• How Did Dracula Become the World’s Most Famous Vampire?
• How Did Polynesian Wayfinders Navigate the Pacific Ocean?
• How Do You Decide Where to Go in a Zombie Apocalypse? (Geography)
• How Magellan Circumnavigated the Globe
• How Much Food Can You Buy for $5 Around the World?
• How the Normans Changed the History of Europe
• How North America Got Its Shape
• How to Make a Mummy
• Incredible History of China’s Terracotta Warriors
• Islam, the Quran, and the Five Pillars
• It’s a Church. It’s a Mosque. It’s Hagia Sophia
• Learn to Read Chinese with Ease
• Legend of Annapurna
• The Life of an African Revolutionary
• The Most Successful Pirate of All Time
• The Murder of Ancient Alexandria’s Greatest Scholar
• The Myth Behind the Chinese Zodiac
• The Origins of Russia
• Overpopulation: The Human Explosion Explained
• The Paradox of Value
• The Past, Present, and Future of the Bubonic Plague
• The Pharaoh That Wouldn’t Be Forgotten
• The Philosophy of the Buddha
• The Population Pyramid
• The Rise and Fall of the Assyrian Empire
• The Rise and Fall of the Byzantine Empire
• The Rise and Fall of the Inca Empire
• The Secret Messages of Viking Runestones
• The Secret Student Resistance to Hitler
• The Silk Road: Connecting the Ancient World Through Trade
• The Tale of Sunken Cities
• Terra Cotta Warriors
• This Is Sparta
• The United Nations
• Urbanization and the Evolution of Cities Across 10,000 years
• The Wars That Inspired Games of Thrones
• What Are the Universal Human Rights?
• What Can You Learn from an Ancient Skeleton?
• What Determines the Value of Money?
• What Did Democracy Really Mean in Athens?
• What Does It Mean to Be a Refugee?
• What Gives a Dollar Bill Its Value?
• What Happens When Continents Collide?
• What History Lies Beneath the Sea?
• What Is Power?
• What Is the Tragedy of Commons?
• What Makes the Great Wall of China So Extraordinary?
• What Really Happened to the Library of Alexandria?
• What’s So Great about the Great Lakes?
• What’s So Special About Viking Ships?
• Where Do Superstitions Come From?
• Where Did Russia Come From?
• Who Built Great Zimbabwe and Why?
• Who Built the Pyramids?
• Who Was Confucius?
• Who Was Voltaire?
• Why All World Maps Are Wrong
• Why Can’t We Just Print More Money to Pay Off Debt?
• Why Cultural Exchange Matters
• William the Conqueror
• World War II: Why It’s So Important 70 Years Later

Spanish

• The Psychology of Accents
• The Real History of Cinco de Mayo

Special Education

• ADHD: Finding What Works for Me
• Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
• The Fascinating Reason That Children Write Letters Backwards (blog post)
• How Braille Was Invented
• A New Way to Diagnose Autism
• The Psychology of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Toward a New Understanding of Mental Illness
• What Does This Symbol Actually Mean?
• What Is Bipolar Disorder?
• What Is Dyslexia?
• What Is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?
• Was Leonardo da Vinci Dyslexic?

U.S. History/Government

• America’s Native Prisoners of War
• Bad Romance Parody: Women’s Suffrage
• The Breathtaking Courage of Harriet Tubman
• The Contributions of Female Explorers
• The Courage of Harriet Tubman
• Democracy: A Short Introduction
• A Digital Reimagining of Gettysburg
• Does Your Vote Count? The Electoral College Explained
• The Exceptional Life of Benjamin Banneker
• The Fight for the Right to Vote in the United States
• Gerrymandering: How Drawing Jagged Lines Can Impact an Election
• The Historical Audacity of the Louisiana Purchase
• The Historic Women’s Suffrage March in Washington
• Historical Role Models
• History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
• History vs. Andrew Jackson
• History vs. Christopher Columbus
• How the Berlin Wall Fell
• How Does Impeachment Work?
• How Do U.S. Supreme Court Justices Get Appointed?
• How One Piece of Legislation Divided a Nation (Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854)
• How to Turn Protest into Powerful Change
• How to Understand Power
• How We Conquered the Deadly Smallpox Virus
• The Infamous and Ingenious Ho Chi Minh Trail
• Inventing the American Presidency
• The Liberties Originally Omitted from the Constitution (The Missing Bill of Rights)
• The Oddities of the First American Election
• The Making of the American Constitution
• The Missing Plague That Could Have Changed History (New World Colonization)
• The Moral Dangers of Non-lethal Weapons
• Neil DeGrasse Replies to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
• The Oddities of the First American Election

• The Past, Present and Future of the Bubonic Plague
• The Story Behind the Boston Tea Party
• A Three-Minute Guide to the Bill of Rights

• The True Story of Sacajawea
• Ugly History: The 1937 Haitian Massacre
• Ugly History: Witch Hunts
• An Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement
• The Upside of Isolated Civilizations
• The Watergate Scandal: United States vs. Nixon
• What Happened to Trial by Jury?
• What Is McCarthyism? And How Did It Happen?
• What Is an Executive Order?
• What Is Power?
• What You Might Not Know About the Declaration of Independence
• Why Is the Constitution So Hard to Amend?
• Why Wasn’t the Bill of Rights Originally in the Constitution?
• World War II: Why Is It So Important 70 Years Later?