For centuries, chess has captured hearts and minds - and pawns - and it's more popular than ever. What makes this ever-changing board game so special?
Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.
Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?
BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v
ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116
With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.
Cory Booker and others discuss how slavery, housing discrimination and centuries of inequality have compounded to create a racial wealth gap.
2018 • Economics
Scientific feat or terrifying social experiment? Specialists in the field discuss the high stakes and ethical controversies of gene editing.
2018 • Technology
Cryptocurrency has made people billionaires, but is digital cash the next revolution? Learn about this anonymous currency and why it's so coveted.
2018 • Economics
Explained examines why diets are often unsuccessful. It looks at the science that suggests that low carb, low fat, and body type diets as well as supplements and detoxification regimes simple do not work in helping most people lose weight. While the diet industry pushes us to avoid calories the food industry encourage us to eat more of them.
2018 • Health
Does the stock market accurately reflect the status of the economy? Finance specialists discuss market history, valuations and CEO incentives.
2018 • Economics
The term eSports is short for "electronic sports". It is introduced to describe competitive video gaming. What's competitive video gaming? It's basically just people playing video games in some form of competition.
2018 • Technology
Explained examines the possibility of extraterrestrial life and looks at why we have not yet found evidence for its existence despite efforts to look for it. It considers the Fermi paradox which suggests that given the vastness of the universe that there should be a great deal of extraterrestrial life in our galaxy. It also consider conspiracy theories about U.F.O.
2018 • Astronomy
The story of the exclamation point. How it came to be and are we overusing it today?
2018 • Design
Explained looks at the popular English sport of cricket. First developed in the mid-1800s, cricket has grown into one of the most popular sports in the world. It looks at the complicated and confusing rules behind the game and examines how the British Empire exported the game to its colonies including the West Indies and India. It also looks at different forms of the game including test cricket and Twenty20 cricket.
2018 • People
Scientists are working to understand and even slow the aging process.
2018 • Health
The female orgasm is more elusive when a man is involved. Discover the reasons why -- and how women are embracing hands-on solutions.
2018 • Health
Political correctness can sometimes feel like a tug-of-war between inclusivity and free speech. Experts discuss the concepts behind the fraught term.
2018 • People
Hillary Clinton and Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss the cultural norms at the center of the worldwide gender pay gap, including the "motherhood penalty"
2018 • Economics
The global water crisis is at an inflection point. How do we price our most valuable resource, while also ensuring access to it as a human right?
2018 • Environment
There are more billionaires than ever. But how does this vast accumulation of wealth affect the world?
2019 • Economics
What goes on inside an animal's mind? Figuring out how they think and feel might just be the key to understanding our own place in the world.
2019 • Nature
It began with bloomers. Then came spandex. Now we sport leggings and other activewear everywhere. How did comfy, casual clothing go mainstream?
2019 • Lifehack
Computer code now controls how we live. But how did these programming languages evolve? And how can they be used to build a new and better world?
2019 • Technology
(This episode is from before the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic) - In this episode from 2019, experts including Bill Gates discuss the history of pandemics, how they spread and what could be done to contain them.
2019 • Health
The planet's current rate of meat consumption is unprecedented -- and becoming unsustainable. In the future, will meat alternatives be the answer?
2019 • Health
Oil led to huge advancements - and vast inequities. As the planet warms, why is it so hard to turn away from fossil fuels, and can it be done in time?
2021 • Environment
As the planet warms, hurricanes could become even more dangerous and destructive. What can be done to survive and minimize the threat of these storms?
2021 • Nature
The Instagram face. A shapely posterior. Cosmetic surgery can make the latest beauty trends a reality. Explore its origins and effects, inside and out.
2021 • Health
From the waltz to voguing, dance crazes have connected people throughout history. But when a dance catches on, who gets the credit - and compensation?
2021 • Music
Dirt roads. Pickup trucks. Hip-hop? As the borders around country music shift, who decides what defines the popular genre, and who gets to be a star?
2021 • Music
Fairy tales have survived thousands of years for a reason. Explore their far-flung history and how the stories speak to fundamental human concerns.
2021 • Creativity
Humans are the only Earthlings with complex language. But at what cost was that ability acquired? In this episode, I visit Tetsuro Matsuzawa to learn about his influential cognitive tradeoff hypothesis.
S3E1 • Mind Field • 2019 • Brain
Join us as we explore the revolutionary science of "neuroplasticity" - a concept that expands not just our knowledge of how our brains work, but how we use them. For centuries the human brain has been thought of as incapable of fundamental change. People suffering from neurological defects, brain damage or strokes were usually written-off as hopeless cases. But recent and continuing research into the human brain is radically changing how we look at the potential for neurological recovery. The human brain, as we are now quickly learning, has a remarkable ability to change itself - in fact, even to rewire itself. The Brain that Changes Itself, based on the best-selling book by Toronto psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Norman Doidge, presents a strong case for reconsidering how we view the human mind.
S48E08 • The Nature of Things • 2008 • Brain
How can a lie become true? In this episode, Dr. Aaron Blaisdell and I create a game show that is actually a giant “human Skinner Box” to observe the formation of superstitious beliefs. And Dr. Samuel Veissière helps me design and perform a placebo reverse exorcism, harnessing the power of belief in both science and religion to convince normal people that a spirit has possessed their bodies.
S3E7 • Mind Field • 2019 • Brain
In this episode I visit a researcher who is studying memory by using machine learning and neuroimaging to detect and predict people's brain states. I also travel to Japan to meet with a team working on ways to record the content of peoples’ dreams.
S3E8 • Mind Field • 2019 • Brain
Psychology. Neuroscience. Drugs. All can be tools of interrogation. In this episode, an expert shows me how to coerce unsuspecting subjects into signing false confessions; a police psychologist questions me about my personal life after I am injected with a truth serum; and I match wits against a new brainwave-reading lie-detection method developed at Northwestern University.
S2E3 • Mind Field • 2017 • Brain
Hallucinogenic drugs—popularly called psychedelics—have been used by human societies for thousands of years. Today, scientists are taking a second look at many of these mind-altering substances—both natural and synthetic—and discovering that they can have profoundly positive clinical impacts, helping patients struggling with a range of afflictions from addiction to depression and PTSD.