Awesome Learning

Modern audio and video devices connect to your TV or receiver’s HDMI port. If you were wondering why there are often still other connectors and slots at the back of your TV, check out Techquickie’s video explaining each connector’s purpose.

Even though there are 365 days in a year there’s a 50% chance that two people in a group of 23 will share the same birthday. Increase the number of people to 75 and there’s nearly a 100% chance of a match. How can that be? Kevin of Vsauce2 explains the math.

While we’re most familiar with planets which are bound to a solar system, there are countless rogue planets out there which float in the darkness of space. It turns out that those frozen conditions might actually provide a home to lifeforms. Kurzgesagt explains.

Have you ever wondered how its possible for animals to rest for months on end without eating, drinking, or doing their business? Well it’s because sleep and hibernation are completely different things. TED-Ed presenter Sheena Lee Faherty explains.

Insider shares a simple overview of a machine that makes LED Christmas lights. The machine handles everything from preparing the wires to testing the finished product with no human intervention.

Ever wonder what it is about a song that makes it feel “Christmassy?” Vox explores how some secular Christmas hits share a common musical thread through the use of a specific chord progresssion. Guess we better get to work on our big holiday hit for next year.

If you think your credit card’s frequent flyer miles program is a great deal, Adam Ruins Everything is here to make you think again. Airlines and banks create convoluted and ever-changing rules that make redeeming miles difficult and confusing.

No, Kurzgesagt’s latest video isn’t about building a fancy vacuum cleaner. Instead, it’s an explanation of how we might go about creating a megastructure in space, capable of harnessing the power of a star, by containing it. Basically, it would be the largest task every undertaken.

(Gore) TierZoo looks at the best and worst animals you can have in terms of providing mobility, attack, or morale to a human. With the exception of cats and dogs, you have only a handful of practical options. And that is why we’re all for pet robots.

How to Make Everything is trying to make a printed t-shirt from scratch. Amazed at the difficulty of the endeavor, he decided to look into why clothes are so cheap these days. A combination of industrialization, necessity and global reach led to the rise of fast fashion.

When you think about how cheese is made, it sounds kind of gross. But we still love the gooey, stinky stuff, and gobble it up with fervor. TED-Ed’s Paul Kindstedt looks back at the earliest beginnings of this delectable dairy product, roughly 10,000 years ago.

Adam Ruins Everything tackles some of the frustrating aspects of “owning” a device in the modern day. Some companies make it nearly impossible for us to repair our devices, while others have lied about lethal errors in their products.

Meet Arnold, the king of animated hypotheticals is here to explore what might happen to us if we actually could cure aging, and live at least 10 times longer we can today. The result isn’t all butterflies and lollipops. Also, nice segue to the sponsorship, guys.

Did you know that in the 1600’s elephants wore massive armor to protect them in battle? Us neither. Royal Armouries Museum curator Natasha Bennett presents the incredible pachyderm armor in their collection. Oh, they also wore swords on their tusks. Damn.

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.

We all know that the Tyrannosaurus rex was a gigantic and vicious dinosaur. PBS Eons explores why the killer dino evolved in the way that it did, and why it never lost its silly little dangly arms before going extinct.

TED-Ed shares a head-scratcher that you can solve, even with brute force thinking. You need to build a time travel machine by forming a triangle of one of two colors. But you have no way of knowing which color will appear when you connect the time travel dots.

The “normal” human body temperature is around 98.6ºF. So shouldn’t air that’s at around that temperature feel neutral? SciShow explains why air that’s that warm feels hot. Our skin is actually a few degrees cooler our body temp, and our body is constantly generating heat.

Pretty much every society in recorded history has had some form of dance as part of its culture. Why is something that seems so frivolous is so ingrained into human nature? Aeon provides their take on the importance of dance and movement to humanity.

Shopping for a mattress can be a real pain. Between the nonsensical pricing, weird product names, and confusing features, the industry seems to be engineered to bewilder consumers. Adam Conover offers his take on the extra-slimy industry of sleep.

We know there are always crumbs and debris at the bottom of containers of chips, cereals, nuts and other solid mixtures. What’s strange is that shaking the container doesn’t solve the problem – it makes it worse. Scientists call it the Brazil Nut effect.

(PG-13: Language) “What do I want a way outta here for?” Lessons from the Screenplay uses Good Will Hunting to demonstrate how writing fictional characters can sometimes be writing about psychology. Characters have traumas that need to be overcome before they change.

From falling, to avalanches, to hypothermia, to extreme altitude sickness, there are many ways to die ascending Mt. Everest. Wendover Productions offers a look at some of the many things expeditions put in place to help improve climbers’ chances of survival.

These days, we all spend countless hours staring at digital screens, from smartphones, to tablets, to televisions, to computers. But is the notion that looking at these backlit devices can permanently harm your eyesight a myth or reality? SciShow provides their brief take.

There have been numerous recorded instances of groups of people losing their minds at the same time. The always informative, and usually gross Sam O’ Nella Academy shares some of the more notable cases of the bizarre behavior known as mass psychogenic illness.

Stanford mathematician Tadashi Tokieda explains a strange phenonmenon which occurs when tapping the inside of a coffee mug with a spoon – as it creates differently-pitched tones depending on where you place the spoon. More from Quanta Magazine. (Thanks Susan!)