In 1960, Frances Oldham Kelsey was one of the newest recruits of the Food and Drug Administration. During her first month as a reviewer at the FDA, Kelsey refused marketing authorization for a drug called thalidomide in the United States. The drug had been used to treat insomnia and workplace stress, but was later proven to have caused nerve damage, and severe birth defects.
How we can save the fishing industry and protect the ocean at the same time? The answer: create a marine reserve (a huge one). In this TED Talk, marine ecologist Enric Sala shares his bold strategy to safeguard the high seas by making a giant marine reserve that covers two-thirds of the world's ocean. Sala believes protecting the high seas will help us restore the ecological, economic and social benefits of the ocean.
67 percent of Southern California beaches will be gone by 2100. And that's all because of sand. Yes, we are using up sand faster than the planet can make it.
When you lock eyes with your secret crush, or have to go to an interview for a life-changing job opportunity, you start to feel that strange, fluttering sensation in your stomach: butterflies. Why is that?
The European Space Agency is hoping to establish a functioning moon camp by the 2020s. Of course, living on the moon won’t be easy. The moon has got no atmosphere, no magnetic field. So of many obstacles we would be facing, the biggest would be the cosmic radiation.
Smallpox is the first and only human disease that was declared eradicated on a global scale. Also, with the breakthroughs made while eradicating smallpox and a number of other creative solutions, we are now really close to making a few more diseases a thing of the past.
One day, we could be using the cold darkness of outer space to cool our buildings. In this TED Talk, physicist Aaswath Raman talks about the technology he's developing to harness "night-sky cooling" .
12 million people have already sent away samples of their DNA to consumer genetic testing companies to find out information about their own genetic makeup.
Without water, life as we know it couldn't exist. But have you ever wondered where Earth’s water came from? Well, water isn’t unique to our planet, and its origin traces beyond the solar system to the earliest days of the universe.
The consequences would be pretty severe.
Teleportation is a hypothetical mode of transportation where an object disappears from one place and that exact object reappears at another. So how does teleportation really work? Could it ever be possible?
Bacteriophage, also known as phage, is a virus specialized in killing bacteria. The virus could one day be used to fight against antibiotic resistant bacteria (or, superbugs), but how?
At the beginning of the Triassic Period, the world was hot, and very dry. But then 234 million years ago, it started to rain and didn’t stop for two million years. This period of intense rain called the Carnian Pluvial Episode killed of many of the early reptiles and set the stage for the dinosaurs to take over the world.
The brain being in a coma is nothing like being asleep. Pretty fascinating things are happening inside.
As we grow older, parts of our heart can deteriorate or become weaker. As a result, it affects the functionality of heart, which gives us some serious problems.
You simply can't walk through walls. Because according to the Pauli Exclusion Principle, no two particles can exist in the same place - it's just impossible for both the particles -- within the limits set by the uncertainty principle -- to have the same position and same velocity.
Climate change is real, and the earth is getting warmer. While you might be thinking limiting carbon dioxide emissions is the only way to help combat that, scientists are looking for plan B.
