Top Science Stories of 2016 • 2016

53:18

Glass so strong you can jump on it, rubber so tough it protects a clay pot dropped from 50 feet, endless varieties of plastic. Scientists and engineers have created virtually indestructible versions of common materials by manipulating the chains of interlocking atoms that give them strength—but have they made them too tough? Host David Pogue explores the fantastic chemistry behind the everyday.

S1E1 • Beyond the Elements • 2020 • Science

63:45

2020 has been an unprecedented year in science. From a global pandemic and race to find a cure, to exploring our planetary neighbors and our own world, stay in the know with the latest stories that defined this tumultuous year.

2020 • Science

117:34

Science journalist Angela Saini and disability rights activist Adam Pearson, reveal that eugenics - the controversial idea that was a driving force behind the Nazi death camps - originated in the upper echelons of the British scientific community.

2019 • Science

51:11

As the director of one of a world renowned institute for scientific research -- the Institute for Advanced Study -- Robbert Dijkgraaf is a pioneer in the field of mathematical physics. This string theory specialist draws from his experiences to elucidate current advances in physics.

3/10 • Curiosity Retreats: 2014 Lectures • 2014 • Science

59:01

Antarctica is the last great wilderness. It's the coldest, windiest, driest and most isolated place on Earth. And every winter, for over three months of the year, the sun never rises. But it's also home to the British Antarctic Survey's Halley Research Station. A veteran of living and working at Halley in the early eighties, BBC weatherman Peter Gibbs makes an emotional return to the place he once called home. A place that, during his time, was key to the discovery of the ozone hole. The journey starts with an arduous 12-day, 3000-mile voyage onboard the RRS Ernest Shackleton. Once on the ice shelf, Peter is delighted to finally arrive at the futuristic research station and marvels at the cutting edge science being done at Halley today. From vital discoveries about how our lives are vulnerable to the sun's activities, to studying interplanetary travel and the threat of man-made climate change. But Peter's journey is also something of a rescue mission. The research station's home is a floating ice shelf that constantly moves and cracks, and the ice shelf has developed a chasm that could cast Halley adrift on a massive iceberg.

Horizon • 2016 • Science

3:02

How do you know you’re real? Is existence all just a big dream? Has some mad scientist duped us into simply believing that we exist? James Zucker investigates all of these questions (and more) in this mind-boggling tribute to René Descartes’s "Meditations on First Philosophy."

TED-Ed • Science