Awesome Learning

Coming up with creative ideas can be quite challenging. Casually Explained is here to show us why that is, and provides a series of tests to help you determine your own personal level of creativity. We passed that final test over two years ago.

Mental Floss shares a handful of facts and tips about beer and other alcoholic beverages, from the ways in which alcohol affect creativity, to how to open a beer bottle in a pinch, to the different kinds of hops used in brewing beer.

There was a time when each of our worlds was only as big as we could see with our own eyes. These days, our knowledge of the world, our galaxy, and the universe keeps growing. It’s Okay to Be Smart explores the ever-expanding notion of “the edge of the map.”

TED and design curator Paola Antonelli share a brief look into the history of the hoodie. In its earliest forms, hooded cloaks or capes were worn by everyone from monks to executioners. But the modern day hoodie has had quite the cultural journey as well.

Real Life Lore schools us on things that can kill us, and makes us even more afraid of spiders, snakes and frogs. They list everything from common substances such as water and sugar, to wild venom and rare elements that can easily do you in.

While roller coasters offer up plenty of thrills, a whole lot of engineering goes into making them safe enough to not snap our necks or make us pass out. TEDEd looks at the impact that these rides can have on our bodies, and how coaster safety has improved over the years.

If you’ve never seen a movie shot and played back in its original 70mm analog format, you’re missing out on a true cinematic experience. The Royal Ocean Film Society looks back at the history of this awe-inspiring format, and how it may just have saved Hollywood back in the day.

In a purely logical world, casinos and other gambling establishments would not exist, since we can easily prove that they’re losing propositions. But Wendover Productions cites studies showing how probabilities mess with our brain, and how this can be used for good.

Lessons from the Screenplay looks at how Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg wrote Shaun of the Dead to show us a great way to build a story. In the film, the supporting characters and even the story of the world are reflections of the main character’s traits.

(Gore) TierZoo looks at the upcoming balance patch, more commonly known as climate change. He expects that some animals will suffer, but some will take advantage of the patch and flourish, if only temporarily.

CGP Grey shares the ridiculous story of New Jersey and New York’s battle over the ownership of the Statue of Liberty. Thanks to England’s vague terms, Liberty Island has been in contention and eventually divided in the course of an unending struggle.

Corridor Crew wanted to give us a better way to visualize the scale of the size of the universe. So they shrunk Earth down to the size of a tennis ball (1:190,000,000) and compared it to the planets in our Solar System, as well as some of the biggest stars in our galaxy.

If you thought that rain had a teardrop shape as it fell, you’d be totally wrong. With the help of a vertical wind tunnel, It’s Okay to Be Smart shows us what these droplets of water look like as they head towards Earth, while teaching us about surface tension and air resistance.

There are lots of different schools of thought on how playing video games can both positively and negatively affect our brains and bodies. WIRED spent some time trying to separate myth and opinion from hard science and data in this fascinating report on the subject.

Did you know that “doom” used to refer to a judgment handed down in court? John Green of Mental Floss schools us about 27 words we use today, and their very different meanings back in the day. We love how Elmer Fudd had an influence on our vocabulary.

The MAKERphone is a DIY kit that comes with everything you need to build a rudimentary mobile phone – it can make calls, send texts, play music and games, and more. The instructions to build the phone will be posted online, as well as tutorials for coding apps.

Popular Twitch streamer Disguised Toast breaks down how he and his fellow top streamers make money – through donations, ads, subscriptions, and sponsorships – and gives estimates of how much they earn monthly. Ninja is raking it in.

Andy of How to Make Everything has long had an interest in extracting metals from rocks. In his latest video, he dug up some copper ore from an abandoned mine, and attempted to pull out a usable amount of copper via a technique called electrowinning.

The WASD keys are to PC gaming what the A,B, Select and Start are to video game consoles. Vox reveals that this keyboard mapping for moving is all thanks to one man – former Quake pro player Dennis “Thresh” Fong. Now that’s a hell of a legacy.

(PG-13: Language) Wisecrack looks at the original Red Dead Redemption, and how its setting and supporting characters paint a complex picture of the Wild West and America, instead of simply being a tale of good guys vs. bad guys.

Jonna Mendez is former Chief of Disguise for the CIA, which happens to be the coolest job title ever. In this interview with WIRED, she explains the lengths agencies go to disguise and protect the identities of operatives, and to stealthily obtain intelligence.

From a sunny seaside vista, to a sexy sports car, to a gorgeous woman, beautiful things bring a smile to our faces. But what is it about this totally subjective and intangible concept that makes our brains react so positively? Kurzgesagt provides their take on why this happens.

Real Life Lore shares these absurd statistics about what happens regularly on our planet everyday. Hundreds of species go extinct, thousands of Wikipedia articles are created, hundreds of thousands of cars are sold, millions of smartphones are sold, and more.