When eating pizza, New Yorkers will recommend that you fold the slice in half longways to reduce mess. Now find out about the math and physics working behind the scenes of that tradition in TED Ed’s Pizza physics (New York-style) by Colm Kelleher, animation by Joel Trussell.

We wish that all of our foods explained related math and physics ideas to us… and more about shapes, too.

via SciAm’s Video of the Week.

In this beautifully illustrated lesson from TED Ed, science writer and educator Carl Zimmer explains some answers to the question, How did feathers evolve? 

From his article in National Geographic: 

Most of us will never get to see nature’s greatest marvels in person. We won’t get a glimpse of a colossal squid’s eye, as big as a basketball. The closest we’ll get to a narwhal’s unicornlike tusk is a photograph. But there is one natural wonder that just about all of us can see, simply by stepping outside: dinosaurs using their feathers to fly.

With animation by Armella Leung, see how today’s birds are related to the dinosaurs of the past, and how fossils with feathers have helped us understand that connection.

Related viewing: evolution, dinosaurs, birds, flying, and a robot that flies like a bird.

Today, TEDxCERN and TED-Ed have unveiled the first of 5 animated lessons specially developed by CERN scientists for TEDxCERN and brought to life by the talented animators at TED-Ed: “The beginning of the universe, for beginners.”

The lesson, which you can watch above(!) and at ed.ted.com, was conceived by CERN physicist Tom Whyntie and explains how cosmologists and particle physicists explore questions like, “How did the universe begin? How is it expanding?” by replicating the heat, energy, and activity of the first few seconds of our universe, right after the Big Bang.

via SaganSense.

How Mendel’s pea plants helped us understand genetics. Also explained in a single vintage illustration. Complement with why we are all related.

From TED-Ed.

via explore-blog.

With the proliferation of digital photography, kids know about posing for photos, taking photos, and browsing photos on phones. But how much do they know about the history of photo technologies? This TED Ed video, Illuminating photography: From camera obscura to camera phone by Eva Timothy and Andy London, is a great primer.