Awesome Biology

If you’ve ever gotten gored by your adorable little kitty cat’s hook-like claws, you know how sharp they can be. Science educator Kyle Hill explains the biology behind cat claws, what makes them different from our fingernails, and how they manage to stay so razor-sharp.

Using high-precision digital models and laser etching techniques, CinkS labs is creating a series of glass cubes which display intricate 3D images of viruses, bacteria, and cells. The crystal cubes come in 3cm, 7cm, and 10cm sizes, as well as an 8cm sphere. And yes, they even have a COVID-19 model.

Even when you’re sound asleep, there are billions of processes going on inside of your body. Kurzgesagt explores the forces, energy sources, and organic compounds at work that keep us alive and ticking, despite the universe’s tendency towards entropy.

The human body is an amazing organic machine that performs countless tasks every minute of every day. In this video from The Infographics Show, they tally up some of the things that your body will do in the next minute – or twice as much while you watch the entire 2 minute clip.

Did you know that most bees don’t have yellow and black stripes, or that most Christmas trees aren’t pine trees? MinuteEarth sets the facts straight on four very different subjects where we thought things were one way, but aren’t.

If you’ve ever seen a beehive up close, you know how its made up of hundreds of nearly perfect hexagonal cells. Why is that, and how do bees know how to make such perfect geometry? TED-Ed provides a brief explanation of this strange intersection of evolutionary biology and architecture.

Researchers from The University of Vermont and Tufts University have created tiny “xenobots,” which use living cells manipulated to perform tasks. AI algorithms guided the microsurgery used to create these organic machines which could someday clean microplastics from oceans, or repair organs in our bodies.

Want to know about our genetic ancestors? American Museum of Natural History’s fascinating video takes us back to the moment where humans branched off from chimpanzees, and illustrates our progress via maps of significant archaeological discoveries.

This new channel is a collaboration by SciShow host Hank Green, musician Andrew Huang, and microorganism enthusiast James Weiss. It delves deep into the world of the trillions of microscopic organisms that surround us. We recommend starting off with Meet the Microcosmos for a primer to this fascinating universe.

Kurzgesagt once again dives deep within our bodies, this time to explore the complement system, a part of our immune system which can activate to help defend us from disease, but that also needs to be kept in check to keep from destroying us from the inside.

There’s an oft-repeated story among school children that if you managed to keep your eyeballs open while sneezing, that they’d pop right out of their sockets. SciShow digs into this little gem to see if there’s any reason to actually be worried the next time you let out an atchoo.

(PG-13: Language) When you think of it, the skeletons of all creatures are a little weird looking, but some are definitely weirder than others. Tune in to this lesson from the Sam O’Nella Academy and enjoy 10 of the worst bone designs that mother nature has bestowed upon the world.

You might think that mammals always ate meat, but it turns out it was an evolutionary necessity due to changes in Earth’s climate. Kurzgesagt explores whether or not this change in our diets was actually good for us, or if eating meat truly has a negative impact on our health.

We wouldn’t be here on this planet if it weren’t for evolution – and a big part of the evolutionary process is natural selection. Primer presents a great 10 minute lesson on how the whole “survival of the fittest” thing works, along with a visual simulation with little blobby creatures.

Using computer modeling and robotics, scientists are attempting to replicate the movements of creatures who have long been extinct. Nature video shows us how they brought back the Orobates pabsti – a crocodile-like animal who lived before the dinosaurs.

Fingerprints have been used as a reliable method of personal identification for over 500 years. MinuteEarth provides a brief explanation about what makes each of our digits different, and why it’s basically impossible for two to ever be the same.

It’s Okay to Be Smart’s first ever rhyming video title takes us inside the gasses inside of our digestive systems, schooling us on the reasons flatulence happens, how some animals take advantage of them, why farts smell, and why we find them funny.

It’s a process that almost all mammals go through – starting out toothless, then growing baby teeth, then their replacement with permanent adult teeth. It’s Okay to Be Smart explains the strange and at times creepy science behind this biological mechanism.

We all know that boys’ voices get deeper as they go through puberty, but hormones aren’t the only process in play as our voices evolve. TED-Ed educator Shaylin A. Schundler explains how other physical changes affect the sound of our voices as we get older.

Ever wonder why it stings and feels so uncomfortable if you get water up your nose? SciShow explains how the warm and salty environs of your sinuses don’t care for the cool and fresh water found in most swimming pools.

Kurzgesagt wraps up 2017 with a follow up to its fascinating clip about the relationship between an organism’s size and the way it evolves. This time out, we learn how we might actually explode if we weren’t the size we were meant to be. Say, was that Barb at 1:30?

Sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing. We’ve had it engrained our whole lives that those are THE five human senses, but there are many other things we can detect that don’t tie to an obvious sensory organ. Vox delves into some of our abilities which didn’t make the short list.

We’re sure that we’re oversimplifying in our headline, but we’ll let TED-Ed and molecular biologist Anusuya Willis explain how the single-celled cyanobacteria which nearly wiped out most life on Earth, then gave us the oxygen and plants we all need to exist.