NOVA: Atomic Clocks
Modern life runs on some of the strangest ideas ever discovered.
Scientists discovered a new species of octopus—and it’s tiny and blue
This tiny octopus was found on the deep seafloor off of the Galápagos Islands and left scientists awe-struck. The teensy blue octopus is an entirely new species, now called Microeledone…
The Second-to-Last Mammoths Ever
About 5,700 years ago, on a small, isolated island off the coast of Alaska, a herd of woolly mammoths crossed a treeless tundra.
Punch Card Archive
Punched cards were once a ubiquitous part of accounting, data collection and early computing. At their peak of use, in the 1950s and 60s, hundreds of companies around the world…
In Our Time: M.C. Escher
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the work of Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), the graphic artist and printmaker best known for his impossible buildings, paradoxical perspectives, and repeating geometric patterns. Born…
Craft in America: Science
Nature, space, algorithms, and more serve as inspiration for artists connecting their work to the world around them, from the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico to the computer science…
PBS Eons: There’s No Single Cradle of Humankind
It would take decades for paleontologists to realize that maybe there wasn’t just one so-called "cradle of humankind," and realize that maybe they’d been asking the wrong question all along.
PBS Eons: When Did the First Flower Bloom?
During the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs were more diverse, more fierce, and more strange than ever. But something else was happening under the feet of the terrible lizards: for the first…
How the brown rat quietly spread across the world
The brown rat has spread to almost every continent around the world. But how did they get here? And are they here to stay? {read} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k04BwP9_U4
Why Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird – Ada Palmer
Renaissance history is so much wilder and weirder than you would have expected. Very fun chatting with Ada Palmer (historian, novelist, and composer based at the University of Chicago).