TED-Ed

TED-Ed

TED-Ed’s mission is to create lessons worth sharing. Feed and expand your curiosity with our award-winning animated shorts - published on YouTube and available with supplemental learning materials on ed.ted.com. Want to suggest an idea for a TED-Ed animation, nominate an educator or animator? Visit our website at: http://ed.ted.com/get_involved. Consider backing us on Patreon. By doing so, you directly support our nonprofit mission to create free, high-quality educational content: https://www.patreon.com/teded For more information on using TED-Ed content for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film, or in an online course), please submit a Media Request using this link: https://media-requests.ted.com/

Episodes

Toward a new understanding of mental illness - Thomas Insel

October 17, 2026 • 15 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/toward-a-new-understanding-of-mental-illness-thomas-inselUploaded 07-07-13Today, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is ...
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Are pandas the most misinterpreted animal? - Lucy Cooke

October 17, 2026 • 7 mins
Uncover the most common misperceptions about pandas, and find out why it's so difficult for them to breed in captivity.--In the 1930’s, a grand panda drama unfolded at the Chicago Zoo. Zookeepers procured a female panda named Mei Mei, and they were determined to find her a mate. They found a prospective suitor named Mei Lan, and the public eagerly awaited the patter of tiny panda paws. But the wait dragged on... and on. Why w...
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Is Chandigarh truly a perfectly planned city? - Vikramāditya Prakāsh

October 17, 2026 • 7 mins
Explore the construction of the futurist city Chandigarh, a project of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and planned by Le Corbusier.--In 1947, India achieved independence from British rule — but this freedom came at a tremendous cost. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, was eager to usher his country towards a brighter, united future. And one of the projects that would prove most essential to realizing this v...
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The asteroid that came close to erasing life on Earth - Sean P. S. Gulick

October 17, 2026 • 7 mins
Dig into what happened after the Chicxulub asteroid hit the Earth, and how it caused a mass extinction— including dinosaurs.--Sixty-six million years ago, near what’s now the Yucatán Peninsula, a juvenile sauropod feasted on horsetail plants on a riverbank. Earth was a tropical planet. Behemoth and tiny dinosaurs alike soared its skies and roamed its lands while reptiles and tentacled ammonites swept its seas. But, in a...
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Making waves: The power of concentration gradients - Sasha Wright

October 17, 2026 • 7 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-motion-of-the-ocean-the-concentration-gradient-sasha-wrightUploaded 04-03-14The constant motion of our oceans represents a vast and complicated system involving many different drivers. Sasha Wright explains the physics behind one of those drivers -- the concentration gradient -- and illustrates how our oceans are continually engaging in a universal struggle for space.Lesson by Sasha W...
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Is there a difference between art and craft? - Laura Morelli

October 17, 2026 • 7 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/is-there-a-difference-between-art-and-craft-laura-morelliUploaded 06-03-14Was da Vinci an artistic genius? Sure, but he was also born in the right place at the right time -- pre-Renaissance, Western artists got little individual credit for their work. And in many non-Western cultures, traditional forms have always been prized over innovation. So, where do we get our notions of art vs. cra...
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How do we study the stars? - Yuan-Sen Ting

October 17, 2026 • 6 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-do-we-study-the-stars-yuan-sen-tingUploaded 07-10-14Our best technology can send men to the Moon and probes to the edge of our solar system, but these distances are vanishingly small compared to the size of the universe. How then can we learn about the galaxies beyond our own? Yuan-Sen Ting takes us into deep space to show how astronomers study the stars beyond our reach. Lesson by Yu...
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On positive psychology - Martin Seligman

October 17, 2026 • 27 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/martin-seligman-on-positive-psychologyUploaded 06-07-13Martin Seligman talks about psychology -- as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to become? Talk by Martin Seligman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices....
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What's the science behind whale communication? - David Gruber and Shane Gero

October 17, 2026 • 7 mins
Explore how sperm whales use an array of complex vocalizations to communicate with each other, hunt, and assess their surroundings. --Soon after whaling ships began operating in the North Pacific, an interesting trend emerged. Within just a few years, whalers saw a 58% drop in their successful strikes. Sperm whales had suddenly become harder to kill— they had begun fleeing the boats instead of forming their usual defensive ci...
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Txtng is killing language. JK!!! - John McWhorter

October 16, 2026 • 16 mins
Does texting mean the death of good writing skills? John McWhorter posits that there's much more to texting -- linguistically, culturally -- than it seems, and it's all good news. Uploaded 30-08-13Talk by John McWhorter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The true cause behind dodo bird extinction - Leon Claessens

October 16, 2026 • 7 mins
Uncover the most common misperceptions about dodos, and find out the truth of how the flightless birds actually went extinct.--Dodos are commonly considered brainless, blundering birds that were poorly adapted and doomed to die off, making their human-mediated extinction effortless and inevitable. But that’s not the case. So, what were dodos actually like? And what really caused their downfall? Leon Claessens uncovers the tru...
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The history of the Boston Tea Party - Ben Labaree

October 16, 2026 • 5 mins
Discover what led American colonists in 1773 to toss tea into the Boston Harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party.--Before the Revolutionary War, American colonists were taxed heavily for importing tea from Britain. The colonists, not fans of "taxation without representation", reacted by dumping tea into the Boston Harbor, a night now known as the Boston Tea Party. Ben Labaree gets into the nitty-gritty of that famous re...
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The vanished craft of democratic debate - Michael Sandel

October 16, 2026 • 23 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-lost-art-of-democratic-debate-michael-sandelDemocracy thrives on civil debate, Michael Sandel says -- but we're shamefully out of practice. He leads a fun refresher, with TEDsters sparring over a recent Supreme Court case (PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin) whose outcome reveals the critical ingredient in justice.Talk by Michael Sandel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...
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Creating a digital museum of museums with Amit Sood

October 16, 2026 • 7 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/building-a-museum-of-museums-on-the-web-amit-soodImagine being able to see artwork in the greatest museums around the world without leaving your chair. Driven by his passion for art, Amit Sood tells the story of how he developed Art Project to let people do just that.Talk by Amit Sood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Making a TED-Ed Lesson: Synesthesia and playing cards

October 16, 2026 • 5 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/making-a-ted-ed-lesson-synesthesia-and-playing-cardsUploaded 07-07-13How can a pack of playing cards accurately explain the complicated and nuanced neurological condition, synesthesia? TED-Ed animators explain the process of creating an original animation from planning (storyboard and animatic) to fruition, including the special secrets behind this animation (think playdough and green scr...
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The myth of Sisyphus - Alex Gendler

October 16, 2026 • 6 mins
Download a free audiobook version of "Man's Search for Meaning" and support TED-Ed's nonprofit mission: https://adbl.co/2z7JGWxUploaded 13-11-18Check out our full book recommendation: https://bit.ly/2JYUn1ySisyphus was both a clever ruler who made his city prosperous, and a devious tyrant who seduced his niece and killed visitors to show off his power. While his violation of the sacred hospitality tradition greatly angered the gods...
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The secret force of smiling - Ron Gutman

October 16, 2026 • 10 mins
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-hidden-power-of-smiling-ron-gutmanRon Gutman reviews a raft of studies about smiling, and reveals some surprising results. Did you know your smile can be a predictor of how long you'll live -- and that a simple smile has a measurable effect on your overall well-being? Prepare to flex a few facial muscles as you learn more about this evolutionarily contagious behavior.Talk by Ron Gutma...
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Why is pneumonia so dangerous? - Eve Gaus and Vanessa Ruiz

October 16, 2026 • 6 mins
Explore how pneumonia attacks the tiny air sacs in your lungs and how your immune system works to fight off the infection.Uploaded 30-11-20--Every time you breathe, air travels down the trachea, through a series of channels, and then reaches little clusters of air sacs in the lungs. These tiny sacs facilitate a crucial exchange: allowing oxygen from the air we breathe into the bloodstream and clearing out carbon dioxide. Pneumonia ...
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What makes a language... a language? - Martin Hilpert

October 16, 2026 • 6 mins
Dig into the distinction between a language and a dialect, and uncover the history of standardized languages.Uploaded 09-09-21--Outside of China, Mandarin and Cantonese are often referred to as Chinese dialects, despite being even more dissimilar than Spanish and Italian. On the other hand, speakers of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, which are three distinct languages, can usually communicate with each other in their native tongues...
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Can you navigate the magical maze riddle? - Alex Rosenthal

October 16, 2026 • 6 mins
Practice more problem-solving at https://brilliant.org/TedEd--Today is the annual wizard tournament featuring competitors from three schools, and you’re in charge. The wizards have entered the maze and compete in your chosen events in utmost secrecy; only you and they see what happens. But a dark wizard appears and casts a forgetting curse— throwing the results into question. Can you figure out who won the tournament? A...
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