The mechanisms of evolution explained in one video. The theory of evolution explains how the enormous variety of life could come into existence. How it is possible for primitive life forms to spawn the millions of different creatures, that exist today. Unfortunately, evolution is often misunderstood, because it's mechanisms seem counter intuitive.
An info-graphic trip through the wonders of the Solar system.
Fracking explained in five minutes.
Learn about the role of the sea in global warming.
Why are there stocks at all?
How much time do you have left?
How will the Universe die?
How did everything get started?
Nuclear war, cat gifs and reddit? Wait, what?
The Moon might be much bigger than you think it is.
What do you know about the Moons of Mars? Nothing? They are super cool (and strange), promise.
If Neptune didn't catch Triton we might have another Dwarf Planet in our Solar system -- maybe even another Planet or double system. We show how this could have happened.
Are you alone? To answer this question we have to take a look what "you" are first. What are you made of and where you stand in this universe. Are you your body? Your atoms? And how are your parts connected to the big picture?
The current crisis in Iraq explained in under 5 minutes.
Every second of your life you are under attack. Bacteria, viruses, spores and more living stuff wants to enter your body and use its resources for itself. The immune system is a powerful army of cells that fights like a T-Rex on speed and sacrifices itself for your survival. Without it you would die in no time. This sounds simple but the reality is complex, beautiful and just awesome. An animation of the immune system.
Planet Earth is this solid thing you are standing on right now. In your everyday life you don't really waste a thought about how amazing this is. A giant, ancient, hot rock. How did it come into existence and how big is it really? You will be surprised. The ground you are standing on is just a very, very small part of the big picture.
Neutron stars are some of the strangest things in the Universe. Not quite massive enough to become black holes they are basically atoms as big as mountains, with properties so extreme it's mind-blowing. And if you get too close to a neutron star, you are in big trouble…
We live in the most peaceful time in human history. Wait, what? Seriously? That can't be right, there are more wars than ever! Well, no and they're killing fewer and fewer people, even though the world population is at an all-time high... and the numbers prove it! We explain how we came to this conclusion, and why war might... go away.
What does the Ebola virus actually do in your body? Why is it so dangerous and why does it kill so many people? We take a look at the apocalyptic war that rages in the body after an infection by the Ebola virus and the soldiers fighting.
So what is the difference between you and a rock? This seems like an easy, even stupid question. But even the smartest people on Earth have no idea where to draw the line between living and dead things. Which leads to mind-blowing implications. What is life after all? And is death really a thing? Let's look into it together.
Most Conspiracy Theories are stupid. By the power of the internet they spread like wildfire and often poison discussions. But there is hope – we developed a way to debunk conspiracies in just a few seconds…
Atoms are very weird. Wrapping your head around exactly how weird, is close to impossible – how can you describe something that is SO removed from humans experience? But then again, they kind of make up everything, so let us try anyways.
Everybody is talking about Measles – but what does the virus actually do in the body? Is it really so harmful that you need a vaccination? We go deep into the body of an infected person and see what Measles does and how the immune system reacts to it!
Banks are a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. We all kind of know that they do stuff with money we don’t understand, while the last crisis left a feeling of deep mistrust and confusion. We try to shed a bit of light onto the banking system. Why were banks invented, why did they cause the last crisis and are there alternatives?
Nuclear Energy is a controversial subject. The pro- and anti-nuclear lobbies fight furiously, and it's difficult to decide who is right. So we're trying to clear up the issue - in this video we discuss how we got to where we are today, as the basis for discussion.
Nuclear energy might be a failed experiment. In over sixty years the technology has not only failed to keep its promise of cheap, clean and safe energy, it also caused major catastrophes and enabled more nuclear weapons while the nuclear waste problem is still not solved.
Nuclear energy might have a lot of unused potential. Not only is it one of the best mid term solutions for global warming bit despite what gut feeling tells us, it has saved millions of lives. By investing more into better technologies we might be able to make nuclear energy finally save and clean forever.
The universe is unbelievably big – trillions of stars and even more planets. So… there just has to be life out there, right? But where is it? Why don’t we see any aliens? Where are they? And more importantly, what does this tell us about our own fate in this gigantic and scary universe?
Where are all the aliens? The universe is too big and too old, why have we not met aliens yet? Do they live in computers? Were they wiped out by an ancient super intelligence? Or are we just to primitive to understand their motives? Whatever the answer is, it is incredibly important for our own future.
In 2015 the bees are still dying in masses. Which at first seems not very important until you realize that one third of all food humans consume would disappear with them. Millions could starve. The foes bees face are truly horrifying – some are a direct consequence of human greed. We need to help our small buzzing friends or we will face extremely unpleasant consequences.
What would happen to you if a black hole the size of a coin suddenly appeared in your pocket? Lets find out!
What is dark energy? What is dark matter? Well, if we knew exactly we would have a nobel prize – we know that they exist though. So what do we know about those strange things?
We are so used to some things that we stopped wondering about them. Like light. What is light? Some kind of wavy thing, right? Kind of.
Facebook just announced 8 billion video views per day. This number is made out of lies, cheating and worst of all: theft. All of this is wildly known but the media giant Facebook is pretending everything is fine, while damaging independent creators in the process. How does this work?
Where are the limits of human technology? And can we somehow avoid them? This is where quantum computers become very interesting.
Black holes. Lets talk about them.
What is something? On the most fundamental level thinkable, what are things? Why are things? And why do things behave the way they do?
The last star in the universe will be a red dwarf. Red dwarfs in general might be great places to look for aliens – or planets for humans to find a new home after our solar system has died.
The war against drugs has been a terrible disaster for everybody involved. Why? And can we do something differently?
What is the Antibiotic Apocalypse? What is it all about? And how dangerous is it?
So. Space elevators. Are they are thing that we should talk about?
Is there a border we will never cross? Are there places we will never be able to reach, no matter what? It turns out there are. Far, far more than you might have thought…
So. Are you your body? And if so, how exactly does this work? Lets explore lots of confusing questions.
Humans. We have been around for a while now. When we think about our past we think about ancient civilizations, the pyramids, stuff like that. But this is only a tiny, tiny part of our history.
There are cosmic snipers firing at random into the unvierse. What are they and what happens if they hit us?
Designer babies, the end of diseases, genetically modified humans that never age. Outrageous things that used to be science fiction are suddenly becoming reality. The only thing we know for sure is that things will change irreversibly.
We have the choice to attack one of our oldest enemies with genetic engineering. But should we do it?
What if there is a way to destroy the universe so fundamentally that life as we know it will be impossible forever?
How does fusion energy work and is it a good idea?
There are a group of parasites extremely disgusting and mean. Humanity declared war on them.
It is time to reframe how we think about our past. We need a new year 0 for humanity. But which one should we choose and why?
In a very short amount of time the human population exploded and is still growing very fast. Will this lead to the end of our civilization?
We are trapped on Earth. Controlled by an ancient debt to the universe...
What shall we do once machines become conscious? Do we need to grant them rights?
Are GMOs bad for your health? Or is this fear unfounded?
Should we double down or give up and go our separate ways?
Everything will end. Even the universe. But in a future so far away that it defies description, there will still be light and therefore a chance for life. It will be around white dwarfs, the corpses of stars. But even they will fade one day...
Automation in the Information Age is different.
The philosophy of Kurzgesagt.
Size is the most under appreciated regulator of living things. Let us demonstrate that by throwing animals from buildings.
Black holes are scary things. But they also might reveal the true nature of the universe to us.
What happens if we bring the sun to earth? No, seriously.
What happens when microbes talk to your brain?
If you could decide today... how long do you want to live?
What if we could stop aging forever?
How can many stupid things combine to form smart things? How can proteins become living cells? How become lots of ants a colony? What is emergence?
What is UBI? How would free money change our lives.
Finding alien life on a distant planet would be amazing news - or would it? If we are not the only intelligent life in the universe, this probably means our days are numbered and doom is certain.
What are the principles behind Homeopathy and does it work?
Is String Theory the final solution for all of physic’s questions or an over-hyped dead end?
Why should you care about the well-being of people half a globe away?
A war has been raging for billions of years, killing trillions every single day, while we don’t even notice. This war involves the single deadliest being on our planet: the bacteriophage.
We take a fair look at some of the best counter arguments for legalization and see how they hold up in review.
Modern life would be impossible without plastic – but we have long since lost control over our invention. Why has plastic turned into a problem and what do we know about its dangers?
Did you ever wonder what happened if you detonated a nuclear bomb in the Marianas Trench? No? We neither! Let us find out together!
Are wormholes real or are they just magic disguised as physics and maths? And if they are real how do they work and where can we find them?
Did you know that we could start building a Lunar Base today?
Meat is a complicated issue. But also a delicious one. Let's talk about it.
It’s hard to define what makes something beautiful, but we seem to know beauty when we see it. Why is that and how does beauty affect our subconscious?
Space travel is the most exciting adventure for humanity, but in an irony of history we may stop ourselves from going into space the more we do it. With every rocket launched we are creating a deadly trap for mankind.
If humans want to expand into space, it will take us incredible amounts of energy. How do we do that? Easy: we will just use the sun’s energy by realizing the most ambitious construction project in history. This is how it works.
Out in the vast coldness of outer space, there are planets that travel alone through darkness without the boundaries of a system. Here’s how this can happen – and why these frozen deserts might secretly harbor alien life.
Organic food is a huge trend: it promises a healthier and better life. But can Organic food really live up to the expectations or is it just baloney?
Humans love to explore. Strangely enough even horrible places – like Mars. Let’s see how building a Mars base could work and how insanely nerve-wracking exactly it would be.
Everybody feels lonely sometimes. But only few of us are aware how important this feeling was for our ancestors - and that our modern world can turn it into something that really hurts us. Why do we feel this way and what can we do about it?
Consciousness is perhaps the biggest riddle in nature. In the first part of this three part video series, we explore the origins of consciousness and take a closer look on how unaware things became aware.
What happens if make a huge pile from all 15,000 nuclear bombs and pull the trigger? And what happens if we make an even bigger pile?
Inside neutron stars we can find the weirdest and most dangerous substance in the universe: Strange matter. What is strange matter, how dangerous is it and what can it tell us about the origin of the universe?
Vaccines are one of our best tools to prevent dangerous diseases, but they come with side effects. So would it be safer not to vaccinate?
Being a citizen of the European Union means that many aspects of our lives are regulated by a weird entity. It feels like a huge bureaucracy is making decisions over our heads. How democratic is the EU really and does your vote actually affect anything?
Over the last few years eating meat has increasingly been associated with health risks, like heart disease, cancer and an early death. How unhealthy is meat really?
Electricity is all around us, all the time. It makes our lives easier, safer, more fun and most of us never think about it. But is there such a thing as too much electricity? Electronic devices emit an electromagnetic field, which is suspected to cause cancer. We read countless sources on this topic to summarize the results of the latest research for you.
One of the key players of our immune system is the complement system. An army of millions and trillions of tiny bombs, which work together in a complex and elegant dance to stop intruders in your body.
Every day billions of soldiers fight a merciless war on thousands of fronts, that has been going on for over one hundred million years: the world war of the ants.
The Egg, a story by Andy Weir, animated by Kurzgesagt. This video was more than 2 years in the making and is a little bit different than the others on this channel. We hope you like it.
Sometimes the world feels boring. All the remote islands are visited, the arctic conquered, the dense jungles discovered. Except, there is still a place to explore: A wet deadly desert where mysterious creatures live in total darkness: The deep sea. Let us dive down.
In nearly every corner of the Earth, ants wage war against each other. Their weapons are what nature gave them. Some have strong armour, deadly stingers or sharp mandibles. And then there is this tiny, and not very impressive ant. But it rules the biggest empire any ant has ever built. A colony spanning continents and fighting wars that leave millions of casualties. Let’s take a look at this unlikely warrioress: Linepithema humile, the Argentine ant.
As you may have noticed, we like to blow stuff up on this channel. So when the International Red Cross approached us to collaborate on a video about nuclear weapons, we were more than excited. Until we did the research. It turned out we were a bit oblivious off the real impact of nuclear weapons in the real world, on a real city. And especially, how helpless even the most developed nations on earth would be if an attack occurred today. So hopefully this video demonstrates how extremely non fun a real world nuclear attack would be, without being to gruesome. This collaboration was a blast (no pun intended) and we want to say a huge thank you to the International Red Cross!
Neutron stars are one of the most extreme and violent things in the universe. Giant atomic nuclei, only a few kilometers in diameter but as massive as stars. And they owe their existence to the death of something majestic.
Getting to space is incredibly hard, expensive and needs a lot of resources. A more efficient way to get there is a Skyhook (or Spacetether), an ever rotating cable with a counter weight, that catapults spaceships from earth orbit into the depths of space.
Everybody is familiar with the feeling that things are not as they should be. That you are not successful enough, your relationships not satisfying enough. That you don’t have the things you crave. In this video we want to talk about one of the strongest predictors of how happy people are, how easily they make friends and how good they are at dealing with hardship. An antidote against dissatisfaction so to speak: Gratitude.
For most of our history, the human population grew slowly. Until new discoveries brought us more food and made us live longer. In just a hundred years the human population quadrupled. This led to apocalyptic visions of an overcrowded earth. But the population growth rate actually peaked in the 1960s. Since then, fertility rates have crashed as countries industrialize and develop. World population is now expected to balance out at around 11 billion by the end of the century. But the big picture conceals the details.
Nothing in the Universe is static. In the milky way, billions of stars orbit the galactic center. Some, like our sun, are pretty consistent, keeping a distance of around 30,000 light years from the galactic center, completing an orbit every 230 million years. This dance is not an orderly ballet - more like a skating rink filled with drunk toddlers. This chaos makes the galaxy dangerous. Our solar neighbourhood is constantly changing, with stars moving hundreds of kilometers every second. Only the vast distances between objects protect us from the dangers out there. But we might get unlucky in the future. At some point we could encounter a star going supernova. Or a massive object passing by and showering earth with asteroids. If something like this were to happen we would likely know thousands, if not millions of years in advance. But we still couldn’t do much about it. Unless… we move our whole solar system out of the way.
Over the last decade milk has become a bit controversial. Some people say it’s a necessary and nutritious food, vital for healthy bones, but others say it can cause cancer and lead to an early death. So who is right? And why are we drinking it anyway?
For years, you have been asking us how we make our videos. So let’s finally talk about it! From research, writing the script, illustrating, to animating, narrating and composing music, a Kurzgesagt video takes roughly 1.200 hours to produce!
Cancer is a creepy and mysterious thing. While we tried to understand it, to get better at killing it, we discovered a biological paradox that remains unsolved to this day: large animals seem to be immune to cancer. Which doesn’t make any sense – the bigger a being, the more cancer it should have. To understand why, we first need to take a look at the nature of cancer itself.
A huge thanks to the experts who helped us on short notice with the video. Especially “Our World in Data”, the online publication for research and data on the world’s largest problems – and how to make progress solving them. Check out their site. It also includes a constantly updated page on the Corona Pandemic. In December 2019 the Chinese authorities notified the world that a virus was spreading through their communities. In the following months it spread to other countries, with cases doubling within days. This virus is the “Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2”, that causes the disease called COVID19, and that everyone simply calls Coronavirus. What actually happens when it infects a human and what should we all do?
At this very second, you are on a narrow ledge between life and death. You probably don’t feel it, but there is an incredible amount of activity going on inside you. And this activity can never stop. Picture yourself as a slinky falling down an escalator moving upwards – the falling part represents the self replicating processes of your cells, the escalator represents the laws of physics, driving you forwards. To be alive is to be in motion but never arriving anywhere. If you reach the top of the escalator there is no more falling possible and you are dead forever. Somewhat unsettlingly, the universe wants you to reach the top. How do you avoid that and why are you alive?
In September of 1940, an 18-year-old mechanic named Marcel Ravidat was walking his dog, Robot, in the countryside of Southwestern France when the dog disappeared down a hole. Robot eventually returned but the next day, Ravidat went to the spot with three friends to explore the hole. And after quite a bit of digging, they discovered a cave with walls covered with paintings, including over 900 paintings of animals, horses, stags, bison and also species that are now extinct, including a wooly rhinoceros. The paintings were astonishingly detailed and vivid with red, yellow and black paint made from pulverized mineral pigments that were usually blown through a narrow tube, possibly a hollowed bone, onto the walls of the cave. It would eventually be established that these artworks were at least 17,000 years old.
The sun. Smooth and round and peaceful. Except when it suddenly vomits radiation and plasma in random directions. These solar flares and coronal mass ejections, or CMEs can hit earth and have serious consequences for humanity. How exactly do they work, how bad could they be and can we prepare for them?
Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have released over 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide or CO2 into the earth's atmosphere. In the year 2019 we were still pumping out around 37 billion more. That’s 50% more than the year 2000 and almost three times as much as 50 years ago. And it’s not just CO2. We’re also pumping out growing volumes of other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. Combining all of our greenhouse gases, we’re emitting 51 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents each year. And emissions keep rising – but they need to get down to 0!
Humans are proud of a lot of things, from particle accelerators, to poetry to pokemon. All of them made possible because of something humans value extremely highly: intelligence.
The observable universe is a big place that has been around for more than 13 billion years. Up to two trillion galaxies made up of something like 20,000 billion billion stars surround our home galaxy. In the milky way alone scientists assume there are some 40 billion earth like planets in the habitable zone of their stars. When we look at these numbers it is hard to imagine that there is nobody else out there.
Getting rare materials from the ground into your phone is ugly. The mining industry is responsible for air and water pollution and the destruction of entire landscapes. But what if we could replace the mining industry on Earth with a clean process that can’t harm anyone? Well, we can. All we need to do is look up.
Deep in tropical jungles lie floating kingdoms ruled by beautiful and deadly masters: They are sort of the high elves of the ant kingdoms: Talented architects that create castles and city states. But they are also fierce and expansionist warriors and their kingdoms are ensnared in a never ending war for survival. Oecophylla weaver ants.
What is the largest star in the Universe? And why is it that large? And what ARE stars anyway?
Climate Change is just too much. There is never any good news. Only graphs that get more and more red and angry. Almost every year breaks some horrible record, from the harshest heat waves to the most rapid Glacier melt. It’s endless and relentless. We have known for decades that rapid Climate Change is being caused by the release of Greenhouse Gases. But instead of reducing them, in 2019 the world was emitting 50% more CO2 than in the year 2000. And emissions are still rising. Why is that? Why is it so hard to just stop emitting these gases?
For the fifth time, we present to you the Human Era Calendar for the year 12,021 – this time it is all about the journey of humanity, beginning tens of thousands of years ago, leading into the revolution of agriculture, to ancient high civilizations and the beginning of modern times, culminating in a vision for our future. You can get the limited Edition now until we sell out and then never again. As always the calendar features 12 illustrated pages printed on high quality paper in Europe and the US. And this year the cover is especially shiny. The calendar will look great on your wall and let you dream about a glorious future. We truly have come far as a species!
By the end of the 21st century, humanity is becoming desperate. Decades of heatwaves and droughts have led to unusually poor harvests, while the warming oceans yield fewer fish each year. In the tropical zones, millions suffer from famine and resource wars have made millions more flee to the north. As things quickly get worse, in an act of desperation, the world's governments decide to enact an emergency plan... It is far from certain that a grim scenario like this will play out. But the failure of world leaders to effectively address climate change, makes it far from impossible. So in the near future it might become necessary to try something radical to slow down rapid climate change: Geoengineering. Interventions so massive in scale that they might undo centuries of human behavior. Or make everything much worse. What is geoengineering, is it really an option and what if it goes wrong?
In and out, in and out. Staying alive is about doing things. This very second, your cells are combusting glucose molecules with oxygen to make energy available, which keeps you alive for another precious moment. To get the oxygen to your cells you are breathing. Breathing is an answer to a very hard problem: How do you get the resources that your cells need to survive, from the outside, to the inside of your cells? Every living thing has to solve this problem and the solution is surprisingly different depending on one of the most important regulators of life: Size.
The night sky seems peaceful and orderly. But in reality, stars are careening through the galaxy at speeds of hundreds of thousands of kilometres per hour. Not bound by static formations but changing neighbourhoods constantly. Fortunately space is big, and so the stars of the Milky Way are very unlikely to hit us. Unfortunately, they don’t have to hit anything to make us have a really bad time on earth. And there are already stars starting to get very close.
The desire to be free from the limits of the human experience is as old as our first stories. We exist in an endless universe, only bound by the laws of physics and yet, our consciousness is trapped in mortal machines made of meat. With the breathtaking explosion of innovation and progress, for the first time the concept of leaving our flesh piles behind and uploading our minds into a digital utopia seems possible. Even like the logical next step on our evolutionary ladder.
What would happen if we were to detonate a very very powerful nuclear weapon on the moon? Would the explosion knock its orbit towards earth, causing tidal waves and misery? Could the moon be destroyed, showering the earth in a rain of meteoric death?
Nuclear energy creates an uneasy feeling of danger for many people: ancient and dangerous minerals are concentrated to awaken seemingly unnatural powers, creating toxic elements that, if they escape, can and have killed people in horrible ways. How many people has nuclear energy killed and how?
Let us explore the scientific mystery of what would happen to you, if Earth suddenly turned into gold! The “Midaspocalypse”, based on the ancient tale of King Midas who was cursed so everything he touched turned into gold.
Do we need nuclear energy to stop climate change? More and more voices from science, environmental activists and the press have been saying so in recent years – but this comes as a shock to those who are fighting against nuclear energy and the problems that come with it. So who is right? Well - it is complicated.
Black holes are the most powerful and extreme things in the universe and they are wildly weird and complicated. What would happen if you fell inside one and what are they really?
Is there a border we will never cross? Are there places we will never reach, no matter how hard we try? It turns out, there are. Even with sci-fi technology, we are trapped in a limited pocket of the Universe and the finite stuff within it. How much universe is there for us and how far can we go?
Wrapping your mind around your life is pretty hard, because you are up to your neck in it. It's like trying to understand the ocean while learning how to swim. On most days you are busy just keeping your head above water. So it is not easy to figure out what to do with your life and how to spend your time. There are a million distractions. Your family, friends and romantic partners, boring work, and exciting projects. Video games to play and books to read. And then there is your couch that somebody needs to lie on. It’s easy to get lost. So let us take a step back and take a look at your life from the outside.
66 million years ago, maybe on a Tuesday afternoon, life was the same as it had been the day before or a thousand years before or pretty much a million years before. Things were good for our feathered dinosaur buddies. Until a tiny, tiny detail in the sky changed.
Leaving earth to find new homes in space is an old dream of humanity and will sooner or later be necessary for our survival. The planet that gets the most attention is Mars, a small, toxic and energy poor planet that just about seems good enough for a colony of depressed humans huddled in underground cities. But what if we think bigger? What if we take Venus, one of the most hostile and deadly places in the solar system and turn it into a colony? Not by building lofty cloud cities, but by creating a proper second earth? It might be easier than you think.
The largest things in the universe are black holes. In contrast to things like planets or stars they have no physical size limit, and can literally grow endlessly. Although in reality specific things need to happen to create different kinds of black holes, from really tiny ones to the largest single things in the universe. So how do black holes grow and how large is the largest of them all?
The human immune system is the most complex biological system we know, after the human brain, and yet, most of us never learn how it works. Or what it is. Your immune System consists of hundreds of tiny and two large organs, it has its own transport network spread throughout your body. Every day it makes hundreds of billions of fresh cells. It is not some sort of abstract entity. Your immune system is YOU. Your biology protecting you from the billions of microorganisms that want to consume you and from your own perverted cells that turn into cancer. It's so manifold that it is impossible to cover in one video, so we’ll make a series looking at different aspects of it. Today, what happens when your body is invaded and your first lines of defenses are engaged in a fight for life and death?
Hidden in the microverse all around you, there is a merciless war being fought by the true rulers of this planet, microorganisms. Amoebae, protists, bacteria, archaea and fungi compete for resources and space. And then there are the strange horrors that are viruses, hunting everyone else. Not even being alive, they are the tiniest, most abundant and deadliest beings on earth, killing trillions every day. Not interested in resources, only in living things to take over. Or so we thought. It turns out that there are giant viruses that blur the line between life and death – and other viruses hunting them.
Never before in human history have we been richer, more advanced or powerful. And yet we feel overwhelmed in the face of rapid climate change. It seems simple on the surface. Greenhouse gases trap energy from the Sun and transfer it to our atmosphere. This leads to warmer winters, harsher summers. Dry places become drier and wet places wetter. Countless ecosystems will die while the rising oceans swallow coasts and the cities we build on them. So why don’t we just like… prevent all of that? Well, it’s complicated.
The past is a vast and mysterious land that begins at the big bang and ends in the present, expanding with each passing moment. It is the home of everything that came before, the key to understanding our present. Here we find the most amazing creatures to ever roam our planet, hundreds of millions of species so diverse that our imagination cannot do them justice. Unfortunately the past carefully guards its secrets.
You are not a person, you are a planet, made of roughly 40 trillion cells. There is so much of you, that if your cells were human-sized, you would be as big as 20 Mount Everests. For your creepy-crawly inhabitants, this makes your body an ecosystem, rich in resources and warmth and space. A perfect place to move into and have a family. While some of these guests are welcome, most are not. Your immune system is the guardian of this planet, the force tasked with protecting yourself against the constant danger of invasion.
Food is arguably the best thing about being alive. No other bodily pleasure is enjoyed multiple times every day and never gets old. It is an expression of culture, our parents' love and a means of celebration or comfort. That’s why it hits a special nerve when we are told we should change what and how we eat to fight rapid climate change. One of the most delicious foods, meat, gets the worst press. It doesn’t help that the topic is really hard to properly research yourself and debates get emotional quickly. But clearly science can give us an answer! The reality is, well, it’s complicated. Let’s take a look at three climate arguments against meat that are used a lot and see what happens.
Kurzgesagt is lying to you, in every video, even in this one. Because our videos distill very complex subjects into flashy ten minute videos and unfortunately, reality is, well, complicated. The question of how we deal with that, is central to what we do on this channel and something we think about a lot.
The Universe is incredibly big and seems full of potential for life, with billions of habitable planets. If an advanced civilization had the technology to travel between the stars, at just 0.1% of the speed of light, It could colonize our galaxy in roughly 100 million years. Which is not that long given the billions of years the milky way has existed – so in principle any spacefaring civilization should be able to spread rapidly over huge sectors of the galaxy. And yet we see nothing, hear nothing, the universe seems empty. Devoid of others. This is the Fermi Paradox, which we have discussed in more detail in other videos. Confronted with the seemingly empty universe, humanity faces a dilemma. We desperately want to know if we are alone in the Milky Way. We want to call out and reveal ourselves to anyone watching but that could be the last thing we ever do. Because maybe the universe is not empty. Maybe it’s full of civilizations but they are hiding from each other. Maybe the civiliza
Today we are answering an age-old very scientific and important question: What if the moon crashes into earth? It’s more interesting and weird than you probably think. Let's start with the basics: Why isn't the Moon on its way to crash into us already?
When we think about alien civilizations we tend to look into the vastness of space, to far away planets. But there is another incredibly vast dimension that we might be giving too little thought to: time. Could it be that over the last hundreds of millions of years, other civilizations existed on earth? Indigenous technological species that rose and died out? And that they or their artifacts are buried beneath our feet? What does science have to say about this and what are the implications for us?
Our home is burning. Rapid climate change is destabilizing our world. It seems our emissions will not fall quickly enough to avoid runaway warming and we may soon hit tipping points that will lead to the collapse of ecosystems and our civilization. While scientists, activists and much of the younger generation urge action, it appears most politicians are not committed to do anything meaningful while the fossil fuel industry still works actively against change. It seems humanity can’t overcome its greed and obsession with short term profit and personal gain to save itself. And so for many the future looks grim and hopeless. Young people feel particularly anxious and depressed. Instead of looking ahead to a lifetime of opportunity they wonder if they will even have a future or if they should bring kids into this world. It’s an age of doom and hopelessness and giving up seems the only sensible thing to do. But that’s not true. You are not doomed. Humanity is not doomed.
The Brain Eating Amoeba A war has been going on for billions of years that breeds well armed monsters who struggle with other monsters for survival. Having no particular interest in us, most of them are relatively harmless, as our immune systems deal with their weapons handily. But there are exceptions. Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba that not only has developed a deadly taste for human brains but is also a match for our defenses and a guest in dramatic headlines. What happens when this monster enters your body?
Look around you. Where are you? Where is this place you are occupying? Somewhere in a room, maybe in a city on a continent on a planet orbiting a star in a galaxy among billions. But… where is all of that? While this may feel like a daft question, it turns out that the concept of an absolute position is something humans made up. In a nutshell, the universe is a big bag of space that has things in it. If someone removed all these things, the stars and planets and black holes and dust, there would just be empty space left. In empty space, the concept of having a position loses all meaning. Empty space is uniform, the same everywhere.
If you are like most people, there is a gap between the person you are and the person you wish to be. There are little things you think you should do and big things you ought to achieve. From working out regularly, eating healthy, learning a language, working on your novel, reading more or simply actually doing your hobby instead of browsing reddit. But it can seem that to achieve your goals, you have to become a different person. Someone who is consistent, puts in more effort, has discipline and willpower. Maybe you have tried your hardest to be like that. And it worked! For a while. Until you find yourself slipping back into your old ways. In the end, you always seem to fail. And with every failed attempt, you become more and more frustrated and annoyed with yourself. If you believe “success and hustle” internet, it is all your own fault: if you don't succeed, you just didn’t want it enough and the failure is all you. But change is actually hard. But as with most things...
The future of humanity seems insecure. Rapid climate change, political division, our greed and failings make it hard to look at our species with a lot of optimism and so many people think our end is in sight. But humans always thought they lived in the end times. Every generation assumes they’re important enough to witness the apocalypse and then life just goes on. This is a problem because it leads to short term thinking and prevents us from creating the best world for ourselves and our descendants. What makes this worse is that we actually may live at an extremely critical moment in human history. To understand why, let us look at the temporal window of humanity and ask: When will the last human be born and how many people will there ever be?
In the 1970s thousands of Chickenheads rained from the sky in Europe, making foxes and other wildlife confused and very happy. Why? They were filled with a vaccine to fight the deadliest virus known to humanity – since the 1930s a rabies epidemic had been sweeping across wildlife populations in Europe and humans wanted to finally get rid of the virus once and for all. Rabies is named after Lyssa, the ancient Greek spirit of mad rage, and has been haunting us for at least 4000 years. It can turn animals into angry beasts and humans into zombies that fear water. But what makes Lyssa fascinating is not just how bizarre and deadly its infection is, but also how incredibly good it is at avoiding our defenses.
At its height, the Roman Empire was home to about 30 % of the world’s population, and in many ways the pinnacle of human advancement. Rome became the first city in history to reach one million inhabitants and was a center of technological, legal, and economic progress. An empire impossible to topple, stable and rich and powerful. Until it wasn’t anymore. First slowly then suddenly, the most powerful civilization on earth collapsed. If this is how it has been over the ages, what about us today? Will we lose our industrial technology, and with that our greatest achievements, from one dollar pizza to smartphones or laser eye surgery? Will all this go away too?
Friends make life good. They provide the scaffolding that makes it not just bearable but fun. They give us a sense of meaning and purpose and are a source of security, self esteem and happiness. Almost nothing predicts how happy you will be as how connected you feel and a lack of social connection is associated with a number of diseases and a shorter life. But maybe you have scrolled through your phone, unsure who to call to go to a movie with, to celebrate with or ask for comfort. You may realize that you don’t have enough friends and feel lonely. And it is not just you. Disconnectedness and loneliness are widespread. Many people want more close friends but don’t know how to get them.
The universe is pretty big and very strange. Hundreds of billions of galaxies with sextillions of stars and planets and in the middle of it all there is earth, with you and us. But as enormous as the universe seems looking up, it seems to get even larger when you start looking down. You are towering over worlds within worlds, within worlds – each in plain sight and yet hidden from your experience. Let’s go on a journey – we’ll start in a park, about a thousand meters long, enough for a 15 minute walk. Every time we click a magic button, we’ll become a thousand times smaller. Ready? Let’s go.
The new 12,023 Human Era Calendar is here! https://kgs.link/calendar WORLDWIDE SHIPPING AVAILABLE. This time you can join us on a journey through the microcosm. Curious? Head over to our shop and get it while supplies last.
The Earth is a gigantic ball of semi-molten rock, with a heart of iron as hot as the surface of the Sun. Titanic amounts of heat left over from its birth and the radioactive decay of trillions of tons of radioactive elements find no escape but up. Currents of rock spanning thousands of kilometers carry this energy to the surface. Earth’s crust is the only thing in their way. It feels solid to us, but it is only a fragile barrier, an apple skin around a flaming behemoth. True apocalypses can break through and unleash eruptions tens of times more powerful than all of our nuclear weapons combined, subjecting the climate to centuries worth of change in a single year, while drowning continents in toxic ash and gases: supervolcanoes. How big can they get? And will they put an end to humanity?
Here in the Kurzgesagt labs we test very important ideas to see what happens when you blow things up or play with black holes. Many of you suggested that we look into an idea that sounds reasonable: Shooting nuclear waste into space. It is one of those concepts that seems like an easy fix for one of the main problems with nuclear energy. But it turns out this idea is not just bad but horribly bad and it gets worse the longer you think about it.
Supernovae are the most powerful explosions in the universe, unleashing enough energy to outshine galaxies. We have no real metaphor for their power – if the sun were to magically go supernova it would feel like you were being hit by the energy of a nuclear explosion, every second. For weeks. While supernovae are the engines of creation, forging the elements that enable life, they also burn sterile whole regions of galaxies. So what would happen if one hit earth?
Everything changed when the slaver nation attacked. What used to be a thriving colony is now a captured country. Slaves do the work, serving their new masters until they die, only to be replaced by new victims harvested in brutal raids. But let us go back to the beginning…
Mars is a disappointing hellhole lacking practically everything we need to stay alive. It looks like we’ll only ever have small crews spend a miserable time hidden underground. Except, we could terraform it into a green new world. But to solve the planet’s problems, we first need to make it worse and turn it into oceans of lava with gigantic lasers.
Black hole stars may have been the largest stars to ever exist. They burned brighter than galaxies and were Larger than any star today or that could ever exist in the future. But besides their scale, what makes them special and weird is that deep inside, they were occupied by a cosmic parasite, an endlessly hungry black hole. How is that even possible?
You are cells. Your muscles, organs, skin and hair. They are in your blood and in your bones. Cells are biological robots. They don’t want anything, they don’t feel anything. They are never sad or happy. They just are, right here, right now. They are as conscious as a stone or a chair or a neutron star. Cells just follow their programming that has been evolving and changing for billions of years, molded by natural selection. They are impossible machines and yet, here they are, driven entirely by the fundamental forces of the universe. The smallest unit of life, right at the border where physics becomes biology. Sometimes, to get a truer understanding of how amazing something is, you need to hold your breath and dive in really deep. So, what are cells and how do they work?
There is this idea floating around that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. That surviving a disease leaves you better off. And it seems to make sense because we have all experienced this. When you go through hardship, often you come out more resilient, more ready to face a difficult situation in the future. But it turns out that sometimes, what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. So, what happens when you get sick?
In 2023, Kurzgesagt has existed for 10 years (which is insanely long in internet years). We are among the largest sciencey channels on Youtube and still a bit of a black box to people. So let us talk about ourselves in three parts: Our backstory, how we finance our work, and the values of Kurzgesagt!
The universe is magnificent and vast. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, trillions of stars, and even more planets. If even the tiniest fraction are habitable, then the Universe should be teeming with life. And yet we see nothing, only vast emptiness. Where is everyone else? The answer to this riddle could be as exciting as it is creepy: we are early, born before almost all other life – but very soon this may change. Not only might aliens appear, they could quickly surround us. An irreversible competition for the universe might be about to begin.
Somewhere in your body, your immune system just quietly killed one of your own cells, stopping it from becoming cancer, and saving your life. It does that all the time. The vast majority of cancer cells you develop will be killed without you ever noticing. Which is an incredibly hard job because of what cancer cells are: parts of yourself that start to behave as individuals even if it hurts you. What is cancer and how does your body kill it all the time?
The universe isn't just a vast empty ocean sprinkled with galaxies – most of the atoms are actually drifting in between, in the intergalactic medium. If we look closely, we can see who is in charge here: Quasars, the single most powerful objects in existence. As small as a grain of sand compared to the amazon river, they reside in the centers of some galaxies, shining with the power of a trillion stars, blasting out huge jets of matter, completely reshaping the cosmos around them. They are so powerful that they can kill a galaxy. What are they, and how do they mold the structure of the universe at their whim?
An undead city under siege, soldiers and police ruthlessly shooting down waves of zombies that flood from infected streets, trying to escape and infect more cities. This is what happens when your body fights cancer, more exciting than any movie. How does this battle for survival unfold?
A breathtaking scientific revolution is taking place – biotechnology has been progressing at stunning speed, giving us the tools to eventually gain control over biology. On the one hand solving the deadliest diseases while also creating viruses more dangerous than nuclear bombs, able to devastate humanity. What is going on?
Few of the monsters that evolution created have been so successful at hurting us as the variola virus, responsible for smallpox. The carnage it caused was so terrible and merciless that it compelled humankind, for the first time, to act truly globally. It was one of the greatest wins of our species over the ancient powers of nature, all made possible by… cows.
Black holes can destroy everything – but can they be destroyed? What happens if we push physics to the absolute limits, maybe even break it and the universe in the process? Let’s create a tiny black hole, about the mass of our moon, in the Kurzgesagt Labs and try to rip it apart.
Mr. President! Nuclear missiles will strike our country in 14 minutes. I know it’s your first day in office so I’m going to walk you through it, but you’re the only one who can authorize our nuclear retaliation in response and you’ve only got a few minutes to make a decision!
Absolutely everything you think about yourself and the universe could be an illusion. As far as you know, you are real and exist in a universe that was born 14 billion years ago and that gave rise to galaxies, stars, the Earth, and finally you. Except, maybe not.
Every two years one million Japanese disappear, China’s population will halve by the end of the century, the median age in Italy has reached 48. All around the world birth rates are crashing – Is humanity dying out? What is going on and how bad is it?
Life has existed on one planet for about 4 billion years, for all we know. But it might have started right after the Big Bang, when the universe was much stranger and more fantastic than today. A universe that might have allowed life to develop absolutely anywhere. The cosmos might be full of the seeds of life, sleeping in a dead desert, waiting for a few drops of rain to explosively bloom and grow. Tiny and not so tiny aliens might be everywhere.
Earth is 4.5 billion years old - which is approximately the same amount of time it took us to create this video. We’ve scaled the complete timeline of our Earth’s life into our first animated movie! Every second shows about a million years of the planet’s evolution. Hop on a musical train ride and experience how long a billion years really is. It’s the perfect background for your next party, a great way to take a break from studying, or a fascinating companion while you’re on the go … and our celebration of 10 years of kurzgesagt.
Could aliens destroy us from light years away? Another day at Kurzgesagt Labs, where we answer the most important questions with science. Today: how might civilizations wage war across light years? What kind of devastating weapons could they use and what would they look like?
The universe today is happy and healthy, with exciting things going on – but at some point the night will turn dark. Everything that once was, will peacefully sleep forever. But what is the last thing that will ever happen? Let's travel to the end of the universe…
In 2022 nearly half of Americans expected a civil war in the next few years, one in five now believes political violence is justified. And it is not just the US but around the world. People increasingly see themselves as part of opposing teams. There are many different reasons for this, but one gets blamed a lot: social media. Social media divides us, makes us more extreme and less empathetic, it riles us up or sucks us into doom scrolling, making us stressed and depressed. It feels like we need to touch grass and escape to the real world. New research shows that we might have largely misinterpreted why this is the case. It turns out that the social media internet may uniquely undermine the way our brains work but not in the way you think.
The universe is going to die one day, and a fight between two titans will decide our cosmic fate. On one side of this galactic battlefield, we have all the matter in the universe; on the other side, empty space infused with dark energy. Whoever wins will kill the universe in fun ways. But who will that be? We're looking at three possible ways to destroy the universe in our newest video.
Your tattoos are inside your immune system, literally. With each very tasteful piece of art, you kick start a drama with millions of deaths, grand sacrifices and your immune system stepping in to protect you from yourself. Let us get under your skin with our newest video.
You are in the middle of everything in the Universe. Let us go on a fantastical journey together - to the impossibly small and the incomprehensibly large!
Is your future already written? Do your past, present, and future all exist right now? Surprisingly, the answer could be yes. Let's take a look at what time is and how it works – in our first video of the year!
A nuclear bomb is the most devastating explosion ever created. One bomb can end tens of thousands of lives immediately and hundreds of thousands through the radioactive aftermath. However, the worst part comes afterward: a nuclear winter that might kill billions, potentially leading to the complete collapse of our civilization. In a nuclear winter, there are no winners – only starving losers. How exactly does it work and what would it look like?
What is outside of the universe? We know that the universe had a beginning 14 billion years ago and that it has been expanding ever since. But something that is expanding should also have an edge, right? What would you see if you went there?
A ruthless murder was committed! Someone killed the dinosaurs and we have the murderer! Witnesses say that an Everest-sized asteroid hit Earth, devastated the planet and caused a mass extinction. A simple, fascinating and convincing explanation. Or… is it?
We often assume that advanced technology will make it easy for aliens to colonize space. But what if space exploration is always difficult, no matter how advanced you are? Let’s travel back in human history, to the colonization of Oceania over 5000 years ago, to find parallels between ancient explorers and extraterrestrial civilizations.
We started a crowd funding to make it possible to make more than one video every four weeks.
It's the most wonderful time of the year: The 12,019 Human Era Calendar is here! Get the new limited edition now or regret it forever. We updated the design of the calendar, so each illustration is now featured on a full page, with much more space to take notes below.
Can you trust our videos? How do we research them nowadays? And what about our older videos?
This year’s calendar focuses on the future of humanity and how we will explore space in the next 10,000 years.
Be a part of our first Limited Drop, which honors our Cosmic Pioneers and their noble expeditions
Earth's magnetic field is going to flip. So we're better off knowing what that means for us as well, when it plays the UNO reverse card on us.
There is perfect way to cut a three ingredient sandwich. ANY three ingredient sandwich. And there's also a perfect way to cut a four ingredient sandwich, you just need four dimensions. Thanks, Maths! ????
Walking around the Minecraft server might be fun, but sadly, the same couldn't be said about the Minecraft Earth...
Have you ever wondered how lasers work? Well, we did!
In chronically online language, humans might have joined the cosmic chat much later then the universe was born, but in reality, the cosmic chatroom was a very chaotic place for such a long time, that the server wasn't even available until recently.
Good thing Earth is not twice as large, because if an apple would fall on a person's head it would give them serious head injuries instead of ground breaking ideas. ????
Remember, while playing with numbers is fun, the real value of your friendships lies within the quality of the friendships you have, and not the number of friends you have. Quality is more important than the quantity in many areas in life, and friendships are no exception to that. ????
A breathtaking scientific revolution is taking place – biotechnology has been progressing at incredible speed, giving us the tools to gain control over biology eventually. On the one hand, solving the deadliest diseases while also creating viruses more dangerous than nuclear bombs, able to devastate humanity. What is going on?
So far only 17% of all species estimated to live on Earth have been categorized, out of the estimated 8.7 million!
You don't even realize how fast Earth rotates, unless you pause its rotation... ????
How horrible of a scenario do you want to be? Being in Space without a spacesuit: yes. ????
A beautiful night sky, but it comes with wild tides. Do you accept? And how many moons would you choose?
Hundreds of generations may live and die knowing only a spaceship as their home. You might be okay with leaving Earth, never to return. But that means you are making the same decision for your children and grandchildren. Is that ethical?
The 12,024 Human Era Calendar has landed!
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Who needs an oven when you can just use a particle accelerator?
We swallowed a tapeworm so you don't have to. Let's see what happens.
What happens when we decide to shrink Earth to half its size? And does anyone have a planet sized shrinking machine? We're asking for a friend...
How do map projections work? And why are there different maps and projections?
Don't worry, if the Sun disappears, nothing bad happens to us... for the first 8 minutes and 20 seconds. No promises about everything after that.
Well, CAN YOU? Let's look at some of the options.
There is a mysterious source of antimatter in your kitchen! One can only wonder what that source is...
Looking at Earth from the Moon must feel amazing! That is...as long as you don't try to breathe without the space suit in order to figure out what it smells like. But that's what we made this video for!
In the early 16th century, European explorers noticed something strange. Sailing down the east coast of Florida was almost impossible. Even with good winds they ended up sailing backwards. Today we know that the reason for this one-way-sailing route is the same thing that keeps the water levels around the east coast low and the weather in Europe mild. It’s the Gulf Stream! But can climate change stop it? And what happens then? Sit back and enjoy the show, because we're going to look into it now!
You also own Venus, Jupiter, and Uranus. In this Short, we're looking at law in space and the Outer Space Treaty.
Polydactyly is a genetic condition leading to extra fingers and toes. While several genes determine your hair color, the amount of fingers or toes you have is only determined by one!
LET US COOK... a galaxy. Thank you for tuning in to kurzgesagt cooking classes! In today's episode we're cooking a galaxy. This simple to follow recipe includes all ingredients and easy to follow steps for you to create your own galaxy at home. Only one question remains unanswered: why is there a Gomu Gomu no Mi?
