THE BEST Learning

Hundreds of millions of years ago, the earliest ancestors of cephalopods like squids rose up from the ocean floor, donning a hard shell. PBS Eons explores the evolutionary adaptations that caused the squid to shed its protective outer covering to improve its mobility.

Michael Stevens of Vsauce fame (and now DONG) explains the history of International Morse Code, and offers up tips and tricks to learn the seemingly antiquated system of dots and dashes that’s still used today to transmit and recieve emergency signals.

(Gore) TierZoo looks at the different levels and ways that animals use to mask their presence. Stealth in nature mainly manifests in visual ways, from colors to the ability to change shape and texture. But other animals have ways of rendering stealth useless.

Historia Civilis is packed with excellent history lessons. While researching, they sometimes stumble across random knowledge that don’t fit into their normal flow. Here are three such strange tales. If nothing else, it’s worth listening to for dog name ideas.

Dinosaur Comics creator Ryan North wants to be competent if he ever became a time traveler. So he wrote How to Invent Everything, a funny but informative history guide that will help time travelers rebuild civilization in case their journey goes awry.

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.

Dyeing your sneakers is a great way to bring new life to an old pair, or simply make your grails that stand out from the crowd. High Snobiety goes over the process in this easy-to-follow DIY guide. Just be sure your kicks are clean before you try this.

Now that individual humans don’t need to forage or hunt for food, or build their own shelter, we really don’t need to do much to survive. Casually Explained goes over modern humankind’s general lack of motivation, along with some of our other wonderful traits.

Tokyo has experienced explosive population growth. To help cram more people into limited space, a famed Japanese architecture firm came up with the idea to build an enormous pyramid to house a million residents. Kento Bento explains their unusual idea and its challenges.

Wisecrack’s Garyx Wormuloid breaks down the themes explored by the Marvel mega movie Avengers: Infinity War. It’s about the perils of power unchecked – making decisions that decide the fate of billions of lives, while no one dares tell you about your weird get up.

With words like “though,” “cough,” “rough,” and “thought” all pronounced very differently, it’s a wonder anyone can speak English. Aaron Alon’s video talks about the strange nature of our language, then he starts speaking in a very strange way indeed.

Wisecrack looks at the power of virtual reality. VR is a step up from other forms of fiction, further crossing the gap between knowledge and experience. Aside from being a platform for games and films, it may be an effective therapeutic and social tool as well.

Has your car been in a fender bender? Adam’s Life Hacks shows us how to remove dents by dousing the surface with boiling water, then pulling on the area with a plunger or suction cup. The hack works best on sheet metal or plastic panels, so it won’t work in all cases.

Today I Found Out explores one of life’s many imponderables (and a question Jerry Seinfeld asked first) – why is there a cereal called “Grape-Nuts” that contains neither grapes, nor nuts. Simon Whistler goes on to give us a few more facts about Post’s long-running cereal.

MP3 players are now a niche product, mainly integrated as a software feature in our phones. But back in 1979, before the mp3 file and the Internet were even invented, a man named Kane Kramer already envisioned a digital music player and an online marketplace for songs.

Kaptain Kristian is back with his latest “visual love letter,” a tribute to the animation of the Walt Disney Company. He explores a dozen different techniques Disney animators have used to make their creations lifelike, and that any animator could use to improve their craft.

(PG-13: Language) Sam O’Nella Academy gives new meaning to The Killers’ “are we human, or are we dancer?” by sharing the story of Daniel Dancer. This 18th century man loved money so much he went to the extremest of extremes to pinch pennies.

Getting spaceships and satellites into orbit requires powerful rockets and all of the challenges that come with them. But would it be possible to use a giant cannon of sorts to shoot these objects safely into orbit instead? Curious Droid explores the possibilities.

Meat is delicious and packed with proteins and fats, but it’s being produced in quantities that are far greater than what nature intended. With a nod to Bob’s Burgers, Kurzgesagt explores the impact of mass-producing livestock to fill our bellies. We’re having salad for lunch.

(PG-13: Language) There were human species before us, each of which is now extinct. Evolution led to us homo sapiens, who have managed to hang on largely because of our ability to communicate. exurb1a provides his cynical take on the state of the human race.

Polyphonic takes us through the blues and rock scenes from the ’40s to the ’80s to look at the invention and evolution of the electric guitar distortion. For such an important and flexible effect, its funny to think that its origins and development mainly came from accidents.

The short answer? No. It’s Okay to Be Smart discusses the results of several studies and trends across history about humans’ height. For now, it appears that genes largely determine height, but one’s food and environment have a significant effect as well.

AsapScience shares facts and fiction about lying. It turns out that humans are pretty bad at guessing if someone’s lying – even if their job depended on it. But scientists are figuring out that there are clues underneath our skin that give liars away.

(Gore) TierZoo’s latest episode speculates what would happen if humans were nerfed. Specifically, if we were dumber. Would cats and dogs still survive? Would lions be the king of the entire planet? Or would the humble ant colonize the globe?

The thought of setting up shop and living on the surface of the moon seems like a far away sci-fi dream, but we actually have the technology and smarts to do it in the next decade – assuming we had the funding. Kurzgesagt explains, in part one of their series about space colonization.

Kano’s Computing Kit Touch teaches kids and electronics beginners about the parts of a computer and the basics of programming by building a touchscreen PC from scratch. It’s based on the Raspberry Pi 3 and comes with over 100 challenges and stories.