Awesome Kurzgesagt

Science video makers Kurzgesagt teamed up with author and online personality John Green to create an animated clip to accompany an excerpt from his podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed. The focus of the episode is on the possible meaning of cave paintings, and what they might tell us about the human condition.

Inspired by the myth of King Midas, Kurzgesagt takes on a hypothetical situation that none of us were worried about: what might happen to the planet and its occupants if all of a sudden everything turned into gold. Physics aside, it’s an entertaining thought experiment with all kinds of ridiculous consequences.

The ability to upload one’s knowledge, experiences and even consciousness into a computer is a frequent concept in science fiction. In this Cyberpunk 2077 inspired episode, Kurzgesagt explores what would be necessary to store and simulate our minds, along with some of the ethical concerns about digitizing humanity.

Pretty much every living thing on our planet depends on the sun in one way or another. But what might happen if the Earth didn’t have our solar system to count on and was left out on its own? Kurzgesagt explores the horrible things that might happen to us if a star got too close and knocked Earth out of its orbit.

Each of our bodies is teeming with trillions of bacteria at any given moment. Thankfully, these microscopic organisms generally work in harmony with our cells. But how did evolution prevent bacteria from becoming as big as a whale? Kurzgesagt explores this question in the latest episode of their Life & Size series.

To celebrate the release of their Human Era Calendar for the year 12,021, Kurzgesagt looks to the distant future to imagine what it might be like for future archeologists as they attempt to reconstruct our present, along with the challenges we face figuring out our past.

Science education channel Kurzgesagt teamed up with storytellers Wait But Why to create their first official mobile app, an interactive plaything that lets you view the relative size of things in the universe. Swipe left to zoom in. Swipe right to zoom out. Then tap on objects for fun facts about them. Available on iOS and Android.

If you think our galaxy’s sun is big, wait ’til you get a load of Kurzgesagt’s latest science video, which explores the universe in search of the biggest, brightest, densest, and most energetic stars. Along the way, you’ll learn how a star’s age can influence its size dramatically.

Kurzgesagt introduces us to the oecophylla weaver ant. These long-legged insects dwell in tropical jungles, building incredible colonies that spread upwards and sideways between trees. They’re not only incredibly industrious, they’re fierce warriors and defenders of their kingdoms.

Many of the rarest and most precious materials used here on Earth comes from some form of mining. But might there be a better way to harvest these without depleting and polluting our home planet? Kurzgesagt explores the potential for mining a nearly endless supply of resources from lifeless asteroids.

We prefer the title “What MIGHT Aliens Look Like?” for Kurgezagt’s video, in which they explore the possibilities of alien life forms, and attempt to explain how they might appear, using something called The Kardashev Scale, which estimates a civilization’s potential for technology based on the availability of energy.

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.

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are frequent occurrences on the Sun. Some have been known to disrupt radio waves, but could they actually cause damage? Kurzgesagt stares directly into the Sun to educate us on solar storms, why they occur, and if a strong enough super storm could actually wipe out civilization.

From birth, mammals rely on milk for nutrition. We’ve been taught for decades that drinking cow’s milk is good for us, and part of a nutritious day. But as Kurzgesagt explains, recent studies call into question whether milk is really good for us, or if it’s slowly killing us. Plus, its production has dire environmental consequences.

Things are always changing in the universe, so it’s possible that someday in the distant future that the Earth could be in danger from a catastrophic force. But is there a way that we could avoid such a fate given enough notice and ingenuity? Kurzgesagt digs into a theoretical method to do just that, by moving our entire solar system.

If you follow them on any regular basis, you know that Kurzgesagt is mostly focused on videos about science, the future, and the nature of our universe. But this time, they offer up a clip that is more about improving our lives in the here and now, looking at how gratitude works, and why it’s so important for us to embrace it.