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A Vault of Color: Protecting the World’s Rarest Pigments
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, you can find dragon’s blood, mummy, and a very rare ball of dried urine from cows that have been fed nothing but mango leaves (now considered a harmful process for the...
View ArticleThe Story of Zero – Getting Something from Nothing
Once upon a time, zero wasn’t really a number. Its journey to the fully fledged number we know and love today was a meandering one. Today, zero is both a placeholder, and tool, within our number system...
View ArticlePetrified Forest National Park & how petrified wood is made
Fallen coniferous trees from 211-218 million years ago can be found scattered across the desert of eastern Arizona in the form of petrified wood. Made primarily from quartz, these geological wonders...
View ArticleDinosaur fossils uncovered on an Antarctic expedition
A team of 12 scientists recently completed an audacious fossil hunting expedition to James Ross Island in Antarctica, and returned with over one ton of marine, avian, and dinosaur fossils that are...
View ArticleHow is Victorian Nectar Drop candy made?
…and why are lemon drops, cough drops, and fruit drops all called drops? In this video by Tallahassee, Florida’s Lofty Pursuits artisanal candy makers, we get an up close look at how their restored...
View ArticleThe Man Who Put the Pee in Phosphorus
In the 1660’s, German alchemist Hennig Brand thought he knew the secret to making solid gold: pee. So set was he on these golden ambitions, he dehydrated 1,500 gallons (gallons!) of human urine to make...
View ArticleSir David Attenborough at 90, an interview
In celebration of his 90th birthday on the May 8th 2016, Sir David Attenborough reflects on his incredible career as a world renowned broadcaster and naturalist. Attenborough also comments on the...
View ArticleInside the Svalbard Seed Vault – Veritasium
In the northernmost town on Earth, on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault protects around 865,000 seed samples from almost every country on our planet (including North...
View ArticleThe Dipped Painting Project by Oliver Jeffers
From children’s book author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers, a project that explores memory and loss in a mix of art and experience: The Dipped Painting Project. In November of 2014 I began the first of...
View ArticleExplaining The Tree of Life
Travel millions of years through time with Sir David Attenborough as he explains The Tree of Life. Some background on the metaphor from The New York Times: In his 1859 book “On the Origin of Species,”...
View ArticleWhy the metric system matters
The United States is one of three countries in the world that has not adopted the metric system, and that may fall to two if Burma embraces metrication. How did inches, feet, pounds, gallons, and other...
View ArticleKids Try 100 Years of Sandwiches from 1900 to 2000
If you’ve been unhappy with the food in your school lunchbox or are looking for a few new ideas, find some inspiration in this unusual but super delicious history lesson from Bon Appétit: Kids Try 100...
View ArticleSlingshots of the Oceanic
There are many ways of moving through the Universe – of traveling from one point to another over great, even extraordinary distances. There is also a way of using the world for your own ends: taking...
View ArticleInstalling massive statues with engineering and care at the Met
How do you move and install a three ton statue circa 170 BC? How do you move and install a ten ton statue? In these behind-the-scenes time lapse video from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York...
View ArticleThe Loneliest Tree in the World
In 1895, John Medley Wood discovered a cluster of peculiar Encephalartos Woodii on the fringe of the oNgoye Forest in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A basal offset of the male dioecious tree was sent to...
View ArticleThe 1995 Hubble photo that changed astronomy
If you hold a pin at arm’s length up in the air, the head of the pin covers approximately the amount of sky that appears in the Hubble Deep Field. The iconic 1995 image is crowded, not because it’s a...
View ArticlePortrait of Innovation: James Conway Farley
Born to enslaved parents in Prince Edward County, Virginia on August 10, 1854, James Conway Farley became the country’s first prominent African American photographer, winning awards for his work, as...
View ArticleThe Amazing Shapes of Ammonites
Now extinct, ammonites are abundant, prehistoric sea molluscs that first appeared in the fossil record around 240 million years ago. The images of ammonites that we often see in museums and books are...
View ArticleA Sketchy History Of Pencil Lead
When fifth-graders at Green Acres Elementary in Lebanon, Oregon asked the NPR Skunk Bear team how pencil lead was made, they looked into it… way into it. From the start of the universe (with a shout...
View ArticleWhat causes cavities?
When a team of archeologists recently came across some 15,000-year-old human remains, they made an interesting discovery: the teeth of those ancient humans were riddled with holes. So what causes...
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