Up Next
Back to Show
It's Okay to Be Smart
The Deadly Chemistry That Made Life Interesting
Season 11
Episode 10
Life’s been around on Earth for at least 3.7 billion years. But for most of that time, it was incredibly boring — just simple little cells squirming around in water. It only got interesting in the last few hundred million years. And that might never have happened without the help of a deadly, but also life-giving, element.
Sign up now for inspiring and thought-provoking media delivered straight to your inbox.
Support Provided By
15:07
We learn how spider vision works.
12:44
Let's learn the story of one of the worst natural disasters that’s ever happened!
27:56
We learn about all the reasons that Earth’s climate changes, natural and otherwise.
12:31
Turns out, we can blame it all on neutron stars and some oddities of the periodic table.
10:00
Join Joe in this whirlwind tour of the endocrine system to find the answers.
8:29
Is Everest the tallest mountain on Earth? The answer is not as simple as you might think.
17:59
Turns out we’re all at risk of being overconfident about something.
19:10
There's an absolutely weird, but surprisingly common phenomenon called sensory adaptation.
11:50
Scientists in Florida can recreate a Category 5 hurricane in a box the size of a bedroom.
10:41
Are humans still evolving? And how have our technological advances affected the process?
19:07
Illusions teach us how our brain constructs a three-dimensional reality using 2-D images.
22:18
Joe talks biology with science communicator extraordinaire Prof. Brian Cox.