Celebrating Jean-Michel Basquiat today with this beautiful animation!
From the TED-Ed Lesson The chaotic brilliance of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat - Jordana Moore Saggese
Animation by Héloïse Dorsan Rachet
Oh, hi, didn’t see you there.
Excuse us while we get ready for a little summer vacation! See you again in the Fall!
From the TED-Ed Lesson Which sunscreen should you choose? - Mary Poffenroth with animation by Rob Kohr & Travis Spangler
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How 3 animators interpreted the same Whitman poem in different ways
One of the most amazing things about poetry is its seemingly infinite capacity for interpretation. To illustrate that fact, TED-Ed launched a great poetic experiment. We gave one Walt Whitman poem to three of our in-house animators, and asked them to interpret it using three different styles of animation. They were each given a recording of the text to work from, which was supplied by three local poets who also interpreted the text using their voices. The result? A stunning video that breathes three very different lives into Walt Whitman’s timeless poem, “A Noiseless Patient Spider.”
Interpretation #1 by Jeremiah Dickey
Medium: Paint on Glass
Interpretation #2 by Biljana Labovic
Medium: Video
Interpretation #3 by Lisa LaBracio
Medium: Scratchboard
Watch all of the interpretations here: A poetic experiment: Walt Whitman, interpreted by three animators - Justin Moore
Happy Birthday to Walt Whitman today!
Today, we celebrate Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday! Happy birthday, Walt!!
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Fun Fact Friday!
Did you know that over 100,000 metric tons of caffeine are consumed around the world every year? That’s equivalent to the weight of 14 Eiffel Towers!
From the TED-Ed Lesson How does caffeine keep us awake? - Hanan Qasim
Animation by Adriatic Animation
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Today, the treadmill is one of the most common ways to get in your weekly workout, but did you know that in the 1800s, treadmills were created to punish English prisoners?
The original version was invented in 1818 by English engineer Sir William Cubitt. While the prisoners stepped on 24 spokes of a large paddle wheel, the rotation made gears pump out water, crush grain, or power mills, which is where the name “treadmill” originated.
Watch the dark and twisted history of the treadmill: The treadmill’s dark and twisted past - Conor Heffernan
Animation by Yukai Du
Fun Fact Friday!
What is imposter syndrome?
Even after writing eleven books and winning several prestigious awards, Maya Angelou couldn’t escape the nagging doubt that she hadn’t really earned her accomplishments.
Albert Einstein experienced something similar: he described himself as an “involuntary swindler” whose work didn’t deserve as much attention as it had received. Accomplishments at the level of Angelou’s or Einstein’s are rare, but their feeling of fraudulence is extremely common. Why can’t so many of us shake feelings that we haven’t earned our accomplishments, or that our ideas and skills aren’t worthy of others’ attention?
Psychologist Pauline Rose Clance was the first to study this unwarranted sense of insecurity. She and her patients experienced something that goes by a number of names-- imposter phenomenon, imposter experience, and imposter syndrome. Together with colleague Suzanne Imes, Clance first studied imposterism in female college students and faculty. Their work established pervasive feelings of fraudulence in this group. Since that first study, the same thing has been established across gender, race, age, and a huge range of occupations, though it may be more prevalent and disproportionately affect the experiences of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups.
To call it a syndrome is to downplay how universal it is. It's not a disease or an abnormality, and it isn’t necessarily tied to depression, anxiety, or self-esteem. Where do these feelings of fraudulence come from? People who are highly skilled or accomplished tend to think others are just as skilled. This can spiral into feelings that they don’t deserve accolades and opportunities over other people. And as Angelou and Einstein experienced, there’s often no threshold of accomplishment that puts these feelings to rest.
The good news? Talking about imposter syndrome helps! Hearing that an advisor or mentor has experienced feelings of imposterism can help relieve those feelings. The same goes for peers. Even simply finding out there’s a term for these feelings can be an incredible relief. Once you’re aware of the phenomenon, you can combat your own imposter syndrome by collecting and revisiting positive feedback. One scientist who kept blaming herself for problems in her lab started to document the causes every time something went wrong. Eventually, she realized most of the problems came from equipment failure, and came to recognize her own competence. We may never be able to banish these feelings entirely, but we can have open conversations about academic or professional challenges. With increasing awareness of how common these experiences are, perhaps we can feel freer to be frank about our feelings and build confidence in some simple truths: you have talent, you are capable, and you belong.
Learn more about imposter syndrome by watching the TED-Ed Lesson What is imposter syndrome and how can you combat it? - Elizabeth Cox
Animation by Sharon Colman
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How do vaccines work?
Using the same principles that the body uses to defend itself, scientists use vaccines to trigger the body’s adaptive immune system, without exposing humans to the full strength disease. This has resulted in many vaccines, which each work uniquely, separated into many different types.
First, we have live attenuated vaccines. These are made of the pathogen itself, but a much weaker and tamer version.
Next, we have inactive vaccines, in which the pathogens have been killed. The weakening and inactivation in both types of vaccine ensures that pathogens don’t develop into the full-blown disease. But just like a disease, they trigger an immune response, teaching the body to recognize and attack by making a profile of pathogens in preparation.
Another type, the subunit vaccine, is only made from one part of the pathogen, called an antigen, the ingredient that actually triggers the immune response. By even further isolating specific components of antigens, like proteins or polysaccharides, these vaccines can prompt specific responses.
Scientists are now building a whole new range of vaccines called DNA vaccines. For this variety, they isolate the very genes that make the specific antigens the body needs to trigger its immune response to specific pathogens. When injected into the human body, those genes instruct cells in the body to make the antigens. This causes a stronger immune response and prepares the body for any future threats, and because the vaccine only includes specific genetic material, it doesn’t include any other ingredients from the rest of the pathogen.
If these vaccines become a success, we might be able to build more effective treatments for invasive pathogens in years to come.
To learn more about the body’s adaptive immune system and how vaccines work, watch the TED-Ed Lesson How do vaccines work? - Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut
Animation by Cinematic
On this day in 1980, the World Health Organization announced that the smallpox virus had been eradicated, largely thanks to the smallpox vaccine.
Help us spread scientific information about vaccines and how they work!
Watch + share the TED-Ed Lesson How do vaccines work? - Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut
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5 actions to protect birds where you live
Welcome to Earth Week on TED-Ed Tumblr! We’ll be sharing ways for you to be a more considerate resident of Planet Earth all week (that you can apply…all year!)
In honor of Earth Day, we took a few tips from Audubon on how to take action to protect birds! We’ve paired them with some of our favorite bird visuals from our TED-Ed Lessons <3
1. Reduce or eliminate pesticide and herbicide use. By using few chemicals in and around your home, you will help keep birds, pets, and your family healthy.
2. Plant native plants. Native flora provides birds with food in the form of fruit and seeds, and is home to tasty invertebrates like bugs and spiders.
3. Identify the non-native invasive plants in your region, and work to remove them from your yard. And don’t bring any new invasives into your backyard! Invasives don’t provide as much good food or habitat as natives do, and can threaten healthy ecosystems.
4. Attract hummingbirds with sugar water, made by combining four parts hot water to one part white sugar, boiled for one to two minutes. Never use honey, artificial sweeteners, or food coloring. Clean hummingbird feeders with a solution of one part white vinegar to four parts water once a week.
5. Make your windows visible to birds to prevent crashes. Put up screens, close drapes and blinds when you leave the house, or stick multiple decals on the glass (decals need to be no more than two to four inches apart to be effective).
And here are some TED-Ed Lessons to watch for the love of the birds:
Love the Earth, and the Earth will love you back! Happy Earth Week!
Artwork & Animation above by Artrake Studio, Lisa LaBracio + Tara Sunil Thomas, & Compote Collective.
Today is Bird Day! Here are some ways to make the planet a happier place for all the birdies of the world!
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May the Fourth be with you.
From the TED-Ed Lesson The hidden meanings of yin and yang - John Bellaimey
Animation by TED-Ed
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Happy 455th, William Shakespeare!
Let Shakespeare be your matchmaker in Shakespearean dating tips - Anthony John Peters
Animation by Kat Llewellyn
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We just love this Earth Day TED-Ed medley so much, we have to celebrate it again.
For Earth Day, we decided to create a short video that shows off the animated Earths from all of our TED-Ed lessons. We gathered more than 60 beautifully designed Planet Earths from over 600 animated lessons, and we’re so excited to share the results with you!
We hope this medley helps to celebrate our ONE beautiful Planet Earth each and every day.
Love the Earth, and the Earth will love you back! Happy Earth Day, Tumblr! Thanks for joining us this week!
And, an extra special shout out to the amazing composer behind this video - Cem Misirlioglu // WORKPLAYWORK.
Happy Earth Day tumblr!!
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What flies through the night, silently guarding and protecting our world from evil? Batman? Try…a bat. Like Batman, bats are widely misunderstood and vilified. Not only do bats eat pesky insects like mosquitoes and crop pests, they disperse seeds and pollinate plants, and have even inspired the design for robotic airplanes. Help dispel the myth that bats are dangerous villains and spread the word why they, instead, deserve a hero’s welcome – and our protection.
From the TED-Ed Lesson I’m Batman - Amy Wray
Animation by TED-Ed
Today is Bat Appreciation Day!
Help us spread the good word, and check out the TED-Ed Lesson I’m Batman - Amy Wray
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How Stress Affects the Brain
Are you sleeping restlessly, feeling irritable or moody, forgetting little things, and feeling overwhelmed and isolated? Don’t worry. We’ve all been there. You’re probably just stressed out. Stress isn’t always a bad thing. It can be handy for a burst of extra energy and focus, like when you’re playing a competitive sport, or have to speak in public. But when its continuous, the kind most of us face day in and day out, it actually begins to change your brain. Chronic stress, like being overworked or having arguments at home, can affect brain size, its structure, and how it functions, right down to the level of your genes.
Stress begins with something called the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis, series of interactions between endocrine glands in the brain and on the kidney, which controls your body’s reaction to stress. When your brain detects a stressful situation, your HPA axis is instantly activated and releases a hormone called cortisol, which primes your body for instant action. But high levels of cortisol over long periods of time wreak havoc on your brain. For example, chronic stress increases the activity level and number of neural connections in the amygdala, your brain’s fear center. And as levels of cortisol rise, electric signals in your hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with learning, memories, and stress control, deteriorate.
The hippocampus also inhibits the activity of the HPA axis, so when it weakens, so does your ability to control your stress. That’s not all, though. Cortisol can literally cause your brain to shrink in size.
Too much of it results in the loss of synaptic connections between neurons and the shrinking of your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain the regulates behaviors like concentration, decision-making, judgement, and social interaction. It also leads to fewer new brain cells being made in the hippocampus. This means chronic stress might make it harder for you to learn and remember things, and also set the stage for more serious mental problems, like depression and eventually Alzheimer’s disease.
It’s not all bad news, though. There are many ways to reverse what cortisol does to your stressed brain. The most powerful weapons are exercise and meditation, which involves breathing deeply and being aware and focused on your surroundings. Both of these activities decrease your stress and increase the size of the hippocampus, thereby improving your memory.
So don’t feel defeated by the pressures of daily life. Get in control of your stress before it takes control of you.
From the TED-Ed Lesson How stress affects your brain - Madhumita Murgia
Animation by Andrew Zimbelman
Today is National Stress Awareness Day. Dedicate some time today to sit back and chill, if you can. You deserve it.
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“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
Happy birthday, Leonardo da Vinci!
From the TED-Ed Lesson Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man of math - James Earle
Animation by TED-Ed
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Allergy Season Explained
Happy First Day of Spring, Tumblr!
What better way to celebrate than to **ACHOO!!**….wait, what were we saying?
Ah, spring! Grass growing, flowers blooming, trees growing new leaves, but if you get allergies, this explosion of new life probably inspires more dread than joy.
Step outside, and within minutes, you’re sneezing and congested. Your nose is running, your eyes are swollen and watery, your throat is itchy. For you and millions of others, it’s seasonal allergy time. So what’s behind this onslaught of mucus?
The answer lies within you. It’s your immune system. Seasonal allergies, also called hay fever, or allergic rhinitis, are a hypersensitive immune response to something that’s not actually harmful. Pollen from trees and grass, and mold spores from tiny fungi find their way into your mucous membranes and your body attacks these innocuous travelers the same way it would infectious bacteria.
The immune system has a memory. When a foreign substance gets tagged as threatening, white blood cells produce customized antibodies that will recognize the offender the next time around. They then promptly recruit the body’s defense team. But sometimes, the immune system accidentally discriminates against harmless substances, like pollen. When it wafts in again, antibodies on the surface of white blood cells recognize it and latch on.
This triggers the cell to release inflammatory chemicals, like histamine, which stimulate nerve cells, and cause blood vessels in the mucous membranes to swell and leak fluid. In other words, itchiness, sneezing, congestion, and a runny nose.
Allergies usually, but not always, show up for the first time during childhood. But why do some people get allergies and others don’t? Allergies tend to run in families, so genetics may be one culprit. In fact, errors in a gene that helps regulate the immune system are associated with higher rates of allergies. The environment you grow up in matters, too. Being exposed to an allergen as a baby makes you less likely to actually develop an allergy to it. People who grow up on farms, in big families, and in the developing world also tend to have fewer allergies, although there are plenty of exceptions, partly thanks to genetics. One theory is that as children, they encounter more of the microbes and parasites that co-evolved with traditional hunter-gatherer societies.
Called the hygiene hypothesis, the idea is that when the immune system isn’t exposed to the familiar cast of microbes, it’ll keep itself busy mounting defenses against harmless substances, like pollen. Another theory is that an immune system toughened up by a barrage of pathogens is less likely to overreact to allergens. Pollen is a common offender, just because we encounter so much of it, but there’s a long list of substances: dust, animal dander, insect venom, medications, certain foods, that can send your immune system into overdrive. Some of these reactions can be scary. An allergy can develop into full-blown anaphylaxis, which typically brings on severe swelling, shortness of breath, and very low blood pressure. It can be deadly.
But as we who suffer from seasonal allergies know, even non-life threatening allergy symptoms can make you miserable. So what can you do about it? Medications can help reduce the symptoms. The most common ones keep histamines from binding to your cells. These antihistamines stop the inflammation response. Steroids can help dial down the immune system. Another more permanent option is immunotherapy. Deliberate, controlled exposure to gradually increasing amounts of an allergen can teach the immune system that it isn’t dangerous after all.
Of course, you can always just wait your seasonal allergies out. The spring pollen onslaught dwindles by mid-summer…just in time for ragweed season!
From the TED-Ed Lesson Why do people have seasonal allergies? - Eleanor Nelsen
Animation by TED-Ed
For all you allergy sufferers of the world, Happy Spring?
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On this day in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human being to travel into space.
Happy International Day of Human Space Flight!
From the TED-Ed Lesson Could we survive prolonged space travel? - Lisa Nip
Animation by Bassam Kurdali
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How do you know you exist?
But, really. How do you know you’re real?
In his ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’, René Descartes tried to answer that very question, demolishing all of his preconceived notions and opinions to begin again from the foundations.
Sure, you have your senses. But your senses often deceive you. Maybe the body you perceive yourself to have isn’t really there. Maybe all of reality, even its abstract concepts like time, shape, color, and numbers are false.
And, who’s to say you’re not dreaming? When you’re awake, you know you’re awake. But, when you’re not, do you know you’re not? How do we know that this right here is not a dream? What if you’ve been tricked into believing that reality is real? The world, your perceptions of it, your very body - you can’t disprove that they’re all just made up. And how could you exist without them? You couldn’t, so - you don’t.
Life is but a dream, and I bet you aren’t row-row-rowing the boat merrily at all. You’re rowing it wearily. Like the duped, non-existent doof you are/aren’t.
Don’t buy it? Good. Have you been persuaded? Even better. Because by being persuaded, you would prove that you are a persuaded being. You can’t be nothing if you think you’re something, even if that something…is nothing. Because no matter what you think, you’re a thinking thing.
Or, as Descartes put it, “I think, therefore I am.”
And so are you. Really.
From the TED-Ed Lesson How do you know you exist? - James Zucker
Animation by Stretch Films, Inc.
Sending a shout out to René Descartes on his birthday!
From the TED-Ed Lesson How do you know you exist? - James Zucker
Animation by Stretch Films, Inc.