TED Ed

Joined January 2026

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Your phones camera isn't as good as you think
When the Visualphone VP210 hit the market in 1999, it advertised a never-before-seen feature: a camera. With only 0.11 megapixels and storage for 20 photos, the Visualphone is a relic compared to modern devices sporting three distinct cameras, each with up to 100 times more resolution. But while this technology has improved dramatically in the 21st century, engineers are rapidly approaching a hard limit on phone camera quality. To understand this limit, we first need to know how phone cameras work.
By TED Ed3 minutes ago in Education
5 signs you're a good driver
As one of the agency’s best employees, you’ve been selected as a finalist to potentially take on a new top-secret mission. You've already shown your aptitude for surveillance and disguise, but the agency is looking to test one last critical skill: how well you can drive. To prove yourself, you’ll need to complete a series of complicated challenges behind the wheel. As the test begins, you notice that the distances between yourself and the cars around you are being meticulously monitored. One of the most widely recommended strategies when it comes to safe driving
By TED Edabout an hour ago in Education
How smart are crows?
In one of Aesop’s 2,500-year-old fables, a crow is searching for water. It spies a pitcher and discovers liquid inside— but it's beyond reach. Soon, the crow begins dropping pebbles into the pitcher. One by one, they displace the water, and the crow quenches its thirst. Interestingly, this fable turns out to be pretty accurate. In a 2014 experiment, scientists placed a food reward in a tube partially filled with water and watched as crow after crow dropped stone after stone in until the food was in beak-snatching distance.
By TED Edabout an hour ago in Education
Why Do We Dream?
In the third millenium BCE, Mesopotamian kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. A thousand years later, Ancient Egyptians wrote a dream book listing over a hundred common dreams and their meanings. And in the years since, we haven't paused in our quest to understand why we dream. So, after a great deal of scientific research, technological advancement, and persistence, we still don't have any definite answers, but we have some interesting theories. We dream to fulfill our wishes.
By TED Edabout an hour ago in Education
How exactly do inhaler work?
Early 20th century writer, Marcel Proust, finished his magnum opus “In Search of Lost Time” from bed— in a cork-lined room to keep allergens out. Proust suffered from severe asthma. At the time, there weren’t great treatments. When breathlessness set in, he’d burn powders that filled the space with smoke and fumes. Or, for a quick fix, he’d smoke a doctor-recommended anti-asthma cigarette. These powders and cigarettes commonly contained thorn apple, which can open your airways. However, both were clearly terrible ideas.
By TED Edabout 16 hours ago in Education
How did Hitler rise to power?
How did Adolf Hitler, a tyrant who orchestrated one of the largest genocides in human history, rise to power in a democratic country? The story begins at the end of World War I. With the successful Allied advance in 1918, Germany realized the war was unwinnable and signed an armistice ending the fighting. As its imperial government collapsed, civil unrest and worker strikes spread across the nation. Fearing a Communist revolution, major parties joined to suppress the uprisings, establishing the parliamentary Weimar Republic.
By TED Edabout 17 hours ago in Education
What happens to your brain without any social contact?
Everyone needs time to themselves, and peaceful solitude has stress-relieving benefits. But being alone takes on an entirely different dimension when it creeps up or is forced upon you. When that's the case, the effects can be surprisingly extensive. And though different people experience distinct effects at different times, symptoms tend to become more severe and persistent the longer one's isolated. When someone is involuntarily confined to one space indefinitely— for days, weeks, months, or even years—
By TED Edabout 17 hours ago in Education
Was Alexander the great really that great?
Order, order! Who do we have on the stand today? Alexander... the Great, eh? Well, what’s so great about him? Your honor, the better question is, what's not great about him? He was the King of Macedon and considered a living demigod by Egyptians and Greeks alike. He conquered Persia when it was one of Earth's largest empires. And he was a thoughtful student of Aristotle, creative enough to untie the impossibly tight Gordian knot by cutting it in half. The Gordian knot is a myth— just like the countless other stories invented to enhance Alexander’s legend!
By TED Edabout 18 hours ago in Education
Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day?
While most people avoid spending the night in jail, Jean Béliveau jumped at the opportunity. For the past three years, Béliveau had been walking from country to country, with the goal of circumnavigating the globe on foot. This required sleeping in tents, strangers’ homes, and the occasional jail cell along the way. But this morning, as Béliveau was ready to leave, the police chief, who had agreed to his sleeping arrangement, was nowhere to be found, and the guards weren’t buying his story. Few people have the time or desire to walk such extreme lengths.
By TED Edabout 18 hours ago in Education
What’s the best position to sleep in?
In the 1970s, psychoanalyst Samuel Dunkell proposed a curious, albeit almost completely unsubstantiated, theory that the position you sleep in reflects your personality. For example, preferring to snooze in the so-called royal position indicated self-confidence, while sleeping semi-fetal meant you’re sensible and well adjusted. While Dunkell’s ideas lack any definitive proof, how we sleep can impact our health. So, what’s the best position to sleep in? Sleep positions go by countless creative names—
By TED Edabout 18 hours ago in Education
A brief history of chess
The attacking infantry advances steadily, their elephants already having broken the defensive line. The king tries to retreat, but enemy cavalry flanks him from the rear. Escape is impossible. But this isn’t a real war– nor is it just a game. Over the roughly one-and-a-half millennia of its existence, chess has been known as a tool of military strategy, a metaphor for human affairs, and a benchmark of genius. While our earliest records of chess are in the 7th century, legend tells that the game’s origins lie a century earlier.
By TED Edabout 18 hours ago in Education
What staying up all night does to your brain
You’re just one Roman Empire history final away from a relaxing spring break. But you still have so much to study! So you decide to follow in the footsteps of many students before you and pull an all-nighter. When you stay up all night, you're fighting against your body's natural circadian rhythms. These are the cyclical changes that virtually all living things experience over the course of a 24-hour period— such as sleeping and waking— and they’re heavily influenced by light. But for the moment, you're alert and powering through
By TED Edabout 18 hours ago in Education