How Thermite turned the clickety-clack of railroads into seamless, silent tracks.

LSD-fiend, surfer, maverick — Kary Mullis might be the weirdest person ever to win the Nobel Prize.

This musical instrument is 400,000+ years old and still growing.

The surprising genius of Strandbeests.

You probably don’t understand how a rainbow really works.

The mistakes of Amelia Earhart’s final flight, and the physics that could have saved her.

Glass is one of the most important materials humans have ever made.

Being better at math can make you worse at math problems, and it’s completely rational.

The single principle that underpins all of physics.

Europa Clipper is looking for signs of alien life in a very deadly place.

The world’s first look inside a thermite reaction.

How do QR codes work? The checkerboard patterns taking over the world, demystified.

Can you trust your phone?

Myths and misconceptions about planes.

Democracy might be mathematically impossible – here’s why.

Audio illusions show us that hearing is about more than just sensing frequency. Which ones trick you every time?

The robots of our future may look nothing like humans at all.

We experimented to see how much pain our volunteers could handle.

How jumping spiders reveal an entire secret world of colors.

Avalanches are beautiful, majestic, and completely terrifying – this is a video all about the science of avalanches.