MinuteEarth

Minute Earth

From the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the MinuteEarth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had - but once you hear the answer, you’ll want to share it with everyone you know. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. We’ll tell the incredible story of how monkeys crossed the Atlantic ocean on natural rafts, and we’ll explain why it gets hotter the deeper you dig underground.

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540 episodes
Updated Today

Episodes540

Newest first

April 11 · 1 min
Rainforests
All land plants lose water when the pores on their leaves open up during photosynthesis, and this evaporation draws more water up through their stems.
April 6 · 3 min
Why Hives Turn Against Their Queens
A honeybee hive might seem like a peaceful utopia, but in reality, it’s buzzing with internal conflict between warring factions. And the biggest conflict is between the queen and the worker bees.
April 5 · 1 min
Garbage again
Even now, in our era of modern record-keeping and data, we sometimes need to look through the garbage to see what we’re really like.
April 4 · 1 min
Garbage
Every single time you throw something away, you’re contributing to a collective time capsule.
March 30 · 3 min
Why Haven't We Domesticated Monkeys?
Monkeys seem like they would be great companions and even helpers, but they have a number of traits that make them terrible candidates for domestication.
March 29 · 1 min
Deep Sea Fish
A thousand meters down, the pressure is over 100 times what we experience at the surface, or enough to compress the air in a soccer ball to the size of a ping pong ball - and a half.
March 28 · 1 min
Metal Hoarders
Metal-hoarders use precious plant energy to collect a bunch of metal that seems to just sit there doing nothing...or does it?
March 23 · 3 min
There’s no such thing as a fake feather
Every craft feather you can buy is from a real bird.
March 22 · 1 min
Metal Hoarders
Metal-hoarding plants actively suck in way more metal than normal, and they do so by making a lot more of the special proteins that plants use to take in specific nutrients from the soil.
March 21 · 1 min
Metal Plants
This shrub is super metal. No, literally...it’s a rare, metal-hoarding plant whose bluish-green sap, when dried out, is 25% nickel – that’s ten times more nickel than the typical nickel-containing ore found in nickel mines!
March 16 · 3 min
Why is it always males that get eaten during sex?
In the middle of baby-making, a female praying mantis will sometimes chomp down on a male’s head, then devour him as she finishes mating with him. And mantises aren’t alone; many different species lunch on their lovers. But one thing is remarkably consistent: it’s almost always the females doing the eating. Why is it dudes that always end up as dinner?
March 15 · 1 min
Turbines
Spinning a turbine is the best way we know of to convert the mechanical energy of a moving substance into electrical energy.
March 14 · 1 min
Dog Breeds
In one study in Sweden, researchers ran more than 13,000 dogs of 31 different breeds through a course full of sounds, surprises, and random humans attempting to snuggle.
March 9 · 13 min
ALL THE CATS, EXPLAINED
The feline family is a hugely diverse group of lions, panthers, and –yes– kitties that have spread all over the world. MinuteEarth explains who they are and how they’re related.
March 8 · 1 min
Nefarious Plants
Some plants use what they learn about their neighbors for nefarious purposes.
March 7 · 1 min
Plant Gossip
If you seal the tops of tomato plants in airtight plastic bags and expose one of them to a harmful leaf disease, the healthy plants will detect their neighbors' illness and begin making antibiotic compounds.
March 2 · 3 min
Why Don't Our Bones Keep Growing Forever?
Fish, amphibians, and reptiles –actually, almost all vertebrates– get bigger throughout their lives; they generally keep on growing until they die. Then, there are humans, who, by the age of 20 or so, just stop getting bigger… or at least taller. Why do we stop growing partway through life?
March 1 · 1 min
Teamwork
When attacked, some plants – like corn and cotton – can summon other animals as defenders.
February 28 · 1 min
Plant Injury
Over many generations, eavesdropping plants have evolved to interpret each different combination of compounds as the signature of a specific imminent threat.
February 23 · 4 min
Do Mushrooms Benefit from Being Hallucinogenic?
Nobody knows why some mushrooms are psychedelic. I mean, we know that they contain a compound called psilocybin, which messes with the brain chemistry of lots of animals, including humans. But we don’t know why being psychedelic would be useful to mushrooms in the first place. Here are three of our best theories.

MinuteEarth

Rainforests

Why Hives Turn Against Their Queens

Garbage again

Garbage

Why Haven't We Domesticated Monkeys?

Deep Sea Fish

Metal Hoarders

There’s no such thing as a fake feather

Metal Hoarders

Metal Plants

Why is it always males that get eaten during sex?

Turbines

Dog Breeds

ALL THE CATS, EXPLAINED

Nefarious Plants

Plant Gossip

Why Don't Our Bones Keep Growing Forever?

Teamwork

Plant Injury

Do Mushrooms Benefit from Being Hallucinogenic?