medium is the message

PBS Space Time examines the Silurian hypothesis, the idea that an industrial civilization could have existed on Earth before humans. It looks at what traces such a civilization might leave in the geological record.

ScienceClic gives a 15-minute animated introduction to quantum field theory, covering fields, spin, conserved quantities, the standard model and interactions.

Veritasium asks people where a tree's mass comes from, then explains that most of a dry tree's mass originates from carbon dioxide in the air. It combines street interviews with a short explanation of photosynthesis.

Marcus du Sautoy of the BBC demonstrates the wisdom of the crowd, showing that averaging many guesses of jelly beans in a jar lands near the true count.

Historia Civilis explains the origins and governing system of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy. It covers the Great Law and the league's surprisingly intricate legal and political structure.

The first episode of Crash Course World History, in which John Green covers the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and how it shaped civilization. It is delivered fast and with jokes.

3Blue1Brown visualizes the Riemann zeta function and the analytic continuation that extends it beyond where its series converges, building toward the Riemann hypothesis.

Technology Connections explains how dishwashers work and how to use them well, including detergent use, the prewash cycle and why pre-rinsing hurts. It follows his earlier dishwasher videos.

Not Just Bikes explains missing middle housing, such as duplexes, townhouses and small apartment buildings. The video argues that zoning in the US and Canada has made these options almost illegal.

PBS Space Time explains the Higgs field and how the Higgs mechanism gives particles mass within quantum field theory. It is a ten-minute overview for a lay audience.

IEEE Spectrum interviews Samsung display researcher Johan Feenstra on how electrowetting displays work. He explains why they can match LCD capability while being about three times more efficient.

Illumina's 3D animation of its sequencing-by-synthesis workflow, from sample preparation and cluster generation to sequencing on a flow cell and data analysis.

A Medlife Crisis video by cardiologist Rohin Francis on overdiagnosis and over-screening. It explains how detecting more disease does not necessarily mean saving more lives, and covers harms such as unnecessary treatment.

Robert Miles explains the orthogonality thesis: how an agent can be highly intelligent while pursuing goals that seem stupid or alien to humans. He separates intelligence from goals and touches on the stamp-collector example.

Veritasium tells the story of Thomas Midgley Jr., who introduced leaded gasoline and CFCs, and covers the science behind lead exposure and ozone damage. It also touches on isotope geochemistry used to uncover the history.

A Veritasium video on the logistic map, showing how a simple population equation leads to chaos and bifurcation. It connects the idea to convection, neuron firing and the Mandelbrot set, with interactive animations.

Vox explains the Berlin and Kay research showing that languages around the world tend to invent color words in the same order. It walks through the hierarchy and the debate around it.

Veritasium explores why energy is not conserved in general relativity, using Emmy Noether's theorem linking symmetries to conservation laws. Physicists interviewed explain energy loss in an expanding universe.

Musician Adam Neely examines whether certain keys sound sadder than others, looking at the history of tuning systems and temperaments and at how instrument timbre shapes the emotional character we hear. It draws on historical aesthetics writing and audio examples.

CGP Grey explains how the 2015 UK general election showed the flaws of first-past-the-post voting, with parties like UKIP winning many votes but few seats.

A fast, absurdist 19-minute animated run through the history of the whole world, narrated and scored by Bill Wurtz in his distinctive style. It compresses millennia of events into jokes, songs and quick visuals.

Terence Tao and Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown walk through the cosmic distance ladder, showing how humans measured distances from the Earth to the Moon, Sun, planets and beyond. It includes animations and the history behind each step.

Engineering Explained compares the lifecycle emissions of keeping an old car with those of buying a new, more efficient one. It weighs manufacturing emissions against emissions from driving, and covers gas versus electric cars.

Veritasium visits the US Navy's Crane facility to test top night vision goggles. It explains how image intensifier tubes and thermal or digital systems work and compares the generations of the technology.

Musician Benn Jordan explains and demonstrates adversarial noise that poison-pills music files against AI training and scraping.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains superdeterminism as an interpretation of quantum mechanics, addressing common objections and misconceptions, including the worry that it kills free will or science. She ties it to Bell's theorem and hidden variables.

A video arguing that exercise matters for the brain as much as the body, linking movement, the nervous system and BDNF to learning and memory. It draws on research connecting complex movement to brain development.

Technology Connections follows up on his analog TV video to clear up the debate over whether CRT phosphor dots are pixels. He explains the shadow mask, color triads and how they relate to the scanned picture.

Astrophysicist Dr. Becky explains the Hubble tension, the disagreement between expansion-rate measurements from the cosmic microwave background and the distance ladder, and what early JWST Cepheid observations add.

A short CGP Grey explainer on why 'Holland' is wrong as a name for the whole country of the Netherlands. It covers the country's provinces and its constituent territories.

VFX supervisor Jonas Ussing examines what studios mean by "no CGI", showing how much invisible CGI hides behind practical-effects marketing. It is the first part of a multi-part series that includes analysis of doctored behind-the-scenes footage.

The first part of Extra History's animated miniseries on the South Sea Bubble. It explains how England's government debt led Robert Harley to turn to financier John Blunt, whose schemes began inflating artificial demand for shares.

An Isaac Arthur episode on civilizations in the far future, past the Black Hole Era. It covers iron stars, Boltzmann brains, reversible computing and the idea of reversing entropy.

A short Al Jazeera animation narrated by Amy Goodman presenting Noam Chomsky's five filters of the mass media: ownership, advertising, media elite sourcing, flak and a common enemy. It is part of the MediaTheorised series.

Historia Civilis tells the story of 46 BCE, the 445-day year in which Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar. It covers the political context, including the civil war, Cato and Cicero.

Historia Civilis explains the constitution of ancient Athens, including its assembly, offices and use of sortition to choose leaders. It draws on Aristotle and Plutarch.

Numberphile's Ben Sparks shows why the golden ratio is the most irrational number, using seeds, continued fractions and rational approximations. He also explains why plants use it for spacing leaves and seeds.

Tom Scott explains the design of the British BS 1363 plug and socket, including fuses, shutters and safety features, and why he thinks it beats other plugs.

A 20-minute S3 episode touring Terraform Industries, a startup making synthetic natural gas from air and solar power. It walks through the reactor, injection system, direct air capture and electrolyzer, plus the company's cost goals and next milestone.

CGP Grey, adapting The Dictator's Handbook, explains how rulers keep power and why succession causes trouble when they die. It is the sequel to his video on the rules for rulers.