The Origin of Consciousness – How Unaware Things Became Aware • 2019 In a Nutshell

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Consciousness is perhaps the biggest riddle in nature. In the first part of this three part video series, we explore the origins of consciousness and take a closer look on how unaware things became aware.

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In a Nutshell • 2014 - 2023 • 47 episodes •

What is Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

What is dark energy? What is dark matter? Well, if we knew exactly we would have a nobel prize – we know that they exist though. So what do we know about those strange things?

2015 • Astronomy

What Is Light?

We are so used to some things that we stopped wondering about them. Like light. What is light? Some kind of wavy thing, right? Kind of.

2015 • Physics

How Small is an Atom?

Atoms are very weird. Wrapping your head around exactly how weird, is close to impossible – how can you describe something that is SO removed from humans experience? But then again, they kind of make up everything, so let us try anyways.

2015 • Physics

Everything We Think We Know About Addiction Is Wrong

This video is adapted from Johann Hari's New York Times best-selling book 'Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.' For more information, and to take a quiz to see what you know about addiction, go to www.chasingthescream.com

2015 • Health

Quantum Computers Explained – Limits of Human Technology

Where are the limits of human technology? And can we somehow avoid them? This is where quantum computers become very interesting.

2015 • Technology

The History and Future of Everything -- Time

Time makes sense in small pieces. But when you look at huge stretches of time, it's almost impossible to wrap your head around things.

2015 • History

What is Something?

What is something? On the most fundamental level thinkable, what are things? Why are things? And why do things behave the way they do?

2015 • Physics

The Immune System Explained I – Bacteria Infection

Every second of your life you are under attack. Bacteria, viruses, spores and more living stuff wants to enter your body and use its resources for itself. The immune system is a powerful army of cells that fights like a T-Rex on speed and sacrifices itself for your survival. Without it you would die in no time. This sounds simple but the reality is complex, beautiful and just awesome. An animation of the immune system.

2014 • Health

Overpopulation – The Human Explosion Explained

In a very short amount of time the human population exploded and is still growing very fast. Will this lead to the end of our civilization?

2016 • Economics

What Happens If We Bring the Sun to Earth?

What would happen if we bring a sample (the size of a house) of the Sun to Earth?

2017 • Astronomy

Is Reality Real? The Simulation Argument

"We humans are unable to experience the true nature of the universe..."

2017 • Technology

The Rise of the Machines – Why Automation is Different this Time

Automation in the Information Age is different.

2017 • Technology

How Bacteria Rule Over Your Body – The Microbiome

What happens when microbes talk to your brain?

2017 • Health

Why Age? Should We End Aging Forever?

If you could decide today... how long do you want to live?

2017 • Health

Space Elevator

It's hard to get to space.But there is a concept that might make it possible: the space elevator. How exactly does it work.

2016 • Astronomy

How to Cure Aging – During Your Lifetime?

What if we could stop aging forever?

2017 • Health

Emergence

How can many stupid things combine to form smart things? How can proteins become living cells? How become lots of ants a colony? What is emergence?

2017 • Science

Universal Basic Income Explained – Free Money for Everybody? UBI

What is UBI? How would free money change our lives.

2017 • Economics

How Far Can We Go? Limits of Humanity.

Is there a border we will never cross? Are there places we will never be able to reach, no matter what? It turns out there are. Far, far more than you might have thought…

2016 • Astronomy

Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

Finding alien life on a distant planet would be amazing news - or would it? If we are not the only intelligent life in the universe, this probably means our days are numbered and doom is certain.

2018 • Astronomy

String Theory Explained – What is The True Nature of Reality?

Is String Theory the final solution for all of physic’s questions or an overhyped dead end?

2018 • Physics

Homeopathy Explained – Gentle Healing or Reckless Fraud?

What are the principles behind Homeopathy and does it work?

2018 • Health

A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism

Why should you care about the well-being of people half a globe away?

2018 • Economics

The Deadliest Being on Planet Earth – The Bacteriophage

A war has been raging for billions of years, killing trillions every single day, while we don’t even notice. This war involves the single deadliest being on our planet: The Bacteriophage.

2018 • Science

How We Could Build a Moon Base TODAY – Space Colonization 1

Did you know that we could start building a Lunar Base today?

2018 • Astronomy

Why Meat is the Best Worst Thing in the World ??

Meat is a complicated issue. But also a delicious one. Let's talk about it.

2018 • Environment

Is Organic Really Better? Healthy Food or Trendy Scam?

Organic food is a huge trend: it promises a healthier and better life. But can Organic food really live up to the expectations or is it just baloney?

2019 • Health

Measles Explained — Vaccinate or Not?

Everybody is talking about Measles – but what does the virus actually do in the body? Is it really so harmful that you need a vaccination? We go deep into the body of an infected person and see what Measles does and how the immune system reacts to it!

2015 • Health

Loneliness

Everybody feels lonely sometimes. But only few of us are aware how important this feeling was for our ancestors - and that our modern world can turn it into something that really hurts us. Why do we feel this way and what can we do about it?

2019 • Lifehack

The Origin of Consciousness – How Unaware Things Became Aware

Consciousness is perhaps the biggest riddle in nature. In the first part of this three part video series, we explore the origins of consciousness and take a closer look on how unaware things became aware.

2019 • Brain

Fusion Power Explained – Future or Failure

How does Fusion Energy work and is it a good idea?

Technology

Plastic Pollution: How Humans are Turning the World into Plastic

Modern life would be impossible without plastic – but we have long since lost control over our invention. Why has plastic turned into a problem and what do we know about its dangers? This video is a collaboration with UN Environment and their Clean Seas campaign, If you want to take action to turn the tide on plastics, go to http://www.cleanseas.org and make your pledge.

2019 • Environment

Tiny Bombs in your Blood - The Complement System

One of the key players of our immune system is the complement system. An army of millions and trillions of tiny bombs, which work together in a complex and elegant dance to stop intruders in your body.

2019 • Health

What Happened Before History? Human Origins

Humans. We have been around for a while now. When we think about our past we think about ancient civilizations, the pyramids, stuff like that. But this is only a tiny, tiny part of our history.

2016 • History

What are you?

So. Are you your body? And if so, how exactly does this work? Lets explore lots of confusing questions.

2016 • Physics

Time

Time makes sense in small pieces, but when you look at huge stretches of time, it's almost impossible to wrap your head around things.

2018 • History

The Most Extreme Things that are not Black Holes

Neutron stars are one of the most extreme and violent things in the universe. Giant atomic nuclei, only a few kilometers in diameter but as massive as stars. And they owe their existence to the death of something majestic.

2019 • Astronomy

An Antidote to Dissatisfaction

Everybody is familiar with the feeling that things are not as they should be. That you are not successful enough, your relationships not satisfying enough. That you don’t have the things you crave. In this video we want to talk about one of the strongest predictors of how happy people are, how easily they make friends and how good they are at dealing with hardship. An antidote against dissatisfaction so to speak: Gratitude.

2019 • Lifehack

The Coronavirus Explained & What You Should Do

In December 2019 the Chinese authorities notified the world that a virus was spreading through their communities. In the following months it spread to other countries, with cases doubling within days. This virus is the “Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2”, that causes the disease called COVID19, and that everyone simply calls Coronavirus.

2020 • Health

Who Is Responsible For Climate Change? – Who Needs To Fix It?

Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have released over 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide or CO2 into the earth's atmosphere. In the year 2019 we were still pumping out around 37 billion more. That’s 50% more than the year 2000 and almost three times as much as 50 years ago. And it’s not just CO2. We’re also pumping out growing volumes of other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. Combining all of our greenhouse gases, we’re emitting 51 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents each year. And emissions keep rising – but they need to get down to 0!

2020 • Environment

Could Solar Storms Destroy Civilization? Solar Flares & Coronal Mass Ejections

The sun. Smooth and round and peaceful. Except when it suddenly vomits radiation and plasma in random directions. These solar flares and coronal mass ejections, or CMEs can hit earth and have serious consequences for humanity.

2020 • Astronomy

Geoengineering: A Horrible Idea We Might Have to Do

By the end of the 21st century, humanity is becoming desperate. Decades of heatwaves and droughts have led to unusually poor harvests, while the warming oceans yield fewer fish each year. In the tropical zones, millions suffer from famine and resource wars have made millions more flee to the north. As things quickly get worse, in an act of desperation, the world's governments decide to enact an emergency plan...

2020 • Technology

The Largest Black Hole in the Universe - Size Comparison

The largest things in the universe are black holes. In contrast to things like planets or stars they have no physical size limit, and can literally grow endlessly. Although in reality specific things need to happen to create different kinds of black holes, from really tiny ones to the largest single things in the universe. So how do black holes grow and how large is the largest of them all?

Astronomy

Can YOU Fix Climate Change?

Never before in human history have we been richer, more advanced or powerful. And yet we feel overwhelmed in the face of rapid climate change. It seems simple on the surface. Greenhouse gases trap energy from the Sun and transfer it to our atmosphere. This leads to warmer winters, harsher summers. Dry places become drier and wet places wetter. Countless ecosystems will die while the rising oceans swallow coasts and the cities we build on them.

2021 • Environment

3 Arguments Why Marijuana Should Stay Illegal Reviewed

We take a fair look at some of the best counter arguments for legalization and see how they hold up in review.

2023 • Health

Your Body Killed Cancer 5 Minutes Ago

Somewhere in your body, your immune system just quietly killed one of your own cells, stopping it from becoming cancer, and saving your life. It does that all the time. The vast majority of cancer cells you develop will be killed without you ever noticing. Which is an incredibly hard job because of what cancer cells are: parts of yourself that start to behave as individuals even if it hurts you. What is cancer and how does your body kill it all the time?

2023 • Health

The Black Hole That Kills Galaxies - Quasars

The universe isn't just a vast empty ocean sprinkled with galaxies – most of the atoms are actually drifting in between, in the intergalactic medium. If we look closely, we can see who is in charge here: Quasars, the single most powerful objects in existence. As small as a grain of sand compared to the amazon river, they reside in the centers of some galaxies, shining with the power of a trillion stars, blasting out huge jets of matter, completely reshaping the cosmos around them. They are so powerful that they can kill a galaxy. What are they, and how do they mold the structure of the universe at their whim?

2023 • Astronomy

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Your Brain on Tech

Technology isn’t just changing our lives. It’s literally changing our brains -- and maybe for the better. In this episode, I’m a human lab rat in a groundbreaking study at UC Irvine, where scientists test how playing 3D video games affects my spatial memory. Will 10 days of gaming improve my ability to physically navigate a giant, 60-foot maze? And will an fMRI machine detect any physical changes to my brain?

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Journalist and author Jelani Cobb investigates how 'hate tools' like propaganda, dehumanization, the internet, symbols, and more can incite, amplify and spread hatred.

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For most of human history, our brains dealt with pretty straight forward problems. But that brain is the exact same one we now use to post pictures of our pets on social media, fill out Excel spreadsheets, and worry about the next payment on our credit card.

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Behaviour and Belief

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.

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Enhanced Humans

In the first episode, we are exploring technologies that promise to provide humans with superpowers, and witness experiments that are literally changing minds!

S1E1Supersapiens Rise of the Mind • 2017 • Brain

The Stilwell Brain

There are 100 billion individual neurons in the human brain. Working together, they allow us to make sense of, and move through, the world around us. Scientists have built replicas of the human brain with computers, but no one has ever successfully made a brain out of humans. On this episode, I’ll travel back to my hometown of Stilwell, Kansas, and turn it into a working brain!

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