Be Smart

At CERN, physicists are searching for answers to some of the biggest questions ever — like how the universe started and where everything comes from. To get one step closer to an answer, CERN scientists recreated the first moment after the Big Bang… making extreme temperatures that hadn’t existed anywhere in the universe in 13.8 billion years. Join us to see how they did it.

The Big Apple is really a seaside city built on an archipelago. In the wake of a century of industrial pollution and climate change-fueled superstorms like Hurricane Sandy, New York’s waterways need help. Learn how Billion Oyster Project is working to restore one of the world’s greatest lost ecosystems in order to clean up New York’s water and protect it from an uncertain climate future.

Crashing a car is usually a terrible accident. But in this episode, we’ll meet four engineers who crash cars for a living. They do it to understand the physics behind a dangerous crash… so they can hack those same physics principles to protect drivers and passengers instead of endangering them.

Humans can develop intense relationships, even obsessions, with the things we’re fans of. A huge part of our identities, our emotions, and our lives get tied up in these things. Why is that?

Despite being one of the rarest letters in English, the letter X is everywhere. We sign letters with it, we rate movies with it, we name all sorts of things after it. We’re kind of obsessed with it. And that’s probably all thanks to math, where x stands for the unknown. But how x took on this role is a bit of an unknown itself, and the theories that are out there are truly bizarre.

The universe is full of stuff, ranging from huge things like stars all the way to tiny particles you can’t see with the naked eye. But what is the most average thing in the universe? We’re on a mission to uncover it with a combination of math, physics, and a little calculator wizardry. The answer is more surprising than you’d think!

The idea of the lone genius creating everything isn’t just misleading. It’s harmful and wrong. Innovation thrives when people work together, and rather than nice linear paths, new ideas come from chance events and unexpected connections. This video tells the story of one such invention, and offers a new idea about how new ideas are really born.

Over 200 years ago, scientists were looking at sunlight through a prism when they noticed that part of the rainbow was missing. There were dark lines where there should have been colors. Since then, scientists have unlocked the secrets encoded in these lines, using it to uncover mind-boggling facts about the fundamental nature of our universe and about worlds light-years away.

Does any other creature on Earth undergo a life transformation as dramatic as the butterfly? I think not. Unfortunately, children's books about very hungry caterpillars skip all the COOL and WEIRD and GROSS stuff that happens along the way. It's time to dig into all the mind-blowing biology behind metamorphosis!

Scorpions are a frightening and deadly group of animals. But their venom is one of nature's most unique chemical cocktails. Here’s how scientists are using it for inspiration to design new medicines and pain killers.

Our appetite for meat is one of the greatest environmental challenges we face. Join me on a mind-blowing visit to UPSIDE Foods, the world's most advanced cultivated meat production facility, as we ask whether cultivated meat can deliver on its promises to help the environment while keeping meat on our plates.

Life’s been around on Earth for at least 3.7 billion years. But for most of that time, it was incredibly boring — just simple little cells squirming around in water. It only got interesting in the last few hundred million years. And that might never have happened without the help of a deadly, but also life-giving, element.