There was a group of hominins, those creatures more closely related to us than to chimpanzees, that did take a different, parallel journey from our ancestors. Our paths ran beside each other - and potentially even crossed at times - but...

Archaeology isn't exactly easy, so it's pretty impressive how often we can figure things out about people that aren't around anymore. But that's not always possible, and some mysteries leave archaeologists puzzled for centuries. From...

Have you ever heard of the Emu War? It was a hilariously disastrous attempt at wild animal population control, and while you'd think that humans would have gotten better at that sort of thing in the last hundred-ish years, that doesn't...

How prevalent is solar power, really? According to researcher Jenny Chase, it's already displacing fossil fuels in key energy markets around the world. She explains the rise of affordable solar power and dives into how her team tracked...

Corruption is often defined as misuse of a position of power for personal gain. And while corruption in politics is nothing new, it isn't limited to the political sphere; it can happen in schools, sports, businesses, or religious...

For 46 years, South Africans lived under Apartheid, a strict policy of segregation that barred the country’s Black majority from skilled, high-paying jobs, quality education, voting, and much more. So, how did these laws come to be? And...

South Africa transitioned to democracy in the 1990s with a visionary constitution, but the promises of that constitution are largely unfulfilled to this day. Public leader Lindiwe Mazibuko explores how poor leadership failed to deliver a...

Democracy is the most compelling vision we have for self-governance, says freedom advocate Yordanos Eyoel. Taking a stand against predatory and opportunist authoritarian forces, she shares how to reimagine, accelerate and protect the...

In the long term, shutting down a coal mine means cleaner air and a healthier environment — but in the short term, it can devastate a community or family that relied on the mine's paychecks to make ends meet. Environmental justice...

The myth of the Missing Link--the idea that there must be a specimen that partly resembles an ape but also partly resembles a modern human--is persistent. But the reality is that there is no missing link in our lineage, because that’s...

We can track our history of eating just about anything back through the fossil record and see the impact it’s had on our evolution. Throughout time, part of the secret to our success as a species has been our early - and sometimes fatal...

To figure out how Thrinaxodon and Broomistega became entombed together, scientists looked at the burrow itself, along with their fossilized bones. And it looks like their luck ran out, when a behavior that usually would’ve helped them...

This video contains images and video of snakes and spiders. It's possible Euchambersia possessed venom about 20 million years before the first lizards and over 150 million years before the first snakes evolved. We’ve teamed up Sarah...

Fossil evidence suggests Diictodon used burrows to breed, and that a parent stayed behind to feed and protect their young. And the parent that stayed behind? It might’ve been the male.

Greetings, fellow Homo sapiens. Our species is the only remaining member of the genus of upright, walking apes known as Homo. Where did we come from? Our history just got a whole lot more complicated (in a good way) thanks to some...

From the 1650s through the late 1800's, European colonists descended on South Africa. They sought to claim the region, becoming even more aggressive after discovering the area's abundant natural resources. To support their claims to the...

2018 was full of exciting discoveries and incredible advancements in the field of science. So today, we are taking a look back at 2018 to highlight three more great science news stories!

It's difficult to talk about African theater thanks to colonialism. Pre-colonial Africa was home to many spoken languages, and not nearly as many written languages. The chain of oral tradition was broken by colonial policies, and so many...

In the face of three simultaneous crises -- health, the economy and climate -- do we have a chance to do capitalism differently? Economist Mariana Mazzucato explains why we shouldn't try to go back to normal after the pandemic but should...

* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, war photographer James Nachtwey shows his life's work and asks TED to help him...

Hank brings you the SciShow news of the week. Recent record high temperatures and other extreme weather events around the world are climate change in action; a new fossil of an ancient human ancestor; some disturbing discoveries about...

I want you to reimagine how life is organized on earth, says global strategist Parag Khanna. As our expanding cities grow ever more connected through transportation, energy and communications networks, we evolve from geography to what he...

What are our forests really made of? From the air, ecologist Greg Asner uses a spectrometer and high-powered lasers to map nature in meticulous kaleidoscopic 3D detail -- what he calls "a very high-tech accounting system" of carbon. In...

The wheat, corn and rice we grow today may not thrive in a future threatened by climate change. Cary Fowler takes us inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vast treasury buried within a frozen mountain in Norway, that stores a diverse...