HowStuffWorks_Science

It's no yoke. Molecular chemists dare to do what no one has done before them: unboil an egg. Find out how they did it and why (a deep disdain for deviled eggs?).

We tend to think of ant colonies as a finely tuned eusocial system, but a new study from the University of Arizona explores the essential role that laziness seems to play in the kingdom of the ants.

09/23/2015: What's the Volkswagen scandal all about and what are the consequences?

A placebo is a phoney drug used to test the efficacy of real drugs in clinical trials… but here’s the weird part. Sometimes, placebos can make patients better. How? Why?

A placebo is a phony drug used to test the efficacy of real drugs in clinical trials… but here’s the weird part. Sometimes, placebos can make patients better. How? Why?

Birds can travels thousands of miles between their summer and winter homes. Why don’t they get lost? Their secret is a sixth sense: magnetoreception.

Do animals have a sixth sense that can detect earthquakes and tsunamis? Or do they just make better use of their other senses than humans?

You’ve heard of fracking, and you’re pretty sure lots of people don’t like it, but do you know how it actually works?

It's true: US currency has a smell. Join Jonathan as he explores the science behind the dollar's unique aroma (and why you might want to wash your hands after handling cash).

Even though 80% of trash starts on land, tons of it ends up in the ocean, swirling around in a massive patch of plastic debris.

When Arthur Arnot moved to Australia, drills had already been around for quite a while. Yet they were still hand-operated, slow and unwieldy. Tune in to learn how Arthur stumbled on his Stuff of Genius in this episode.

Today, Vegemite is an iconic Australian condiment and a piece of the country's national identity. Yet this wasn't always the case. Tune in and meet Cyril Callister, the genius behind Vegemite.

Nathaniel Baldwin was the inventor of headphones -- an invention that changed the way society approaches music. Learn about headphones in this video from Stuff of Genius.

Drugs, sex, gambling, work – lots of substances and activities can hijack our brains through the process of addiction. Is love one of them?

The short answer is “no.” Tune in to learn how long it really takes, plus how nuclear weapons led scientists to the solution.

How much does your name actually matter? Are some names going to make you rich, while others make you poor?

In one form or another, pens have been around for centuries. Unfortunately, they've also been messy, inconvenient and unreliable. Learn how Laszlo Biro's Stuff of Genius brought pens into the modern age in this episode.

Where did softball come from? Learn about the inventor of softball in this video from Stuff of Genius.

Centuries before the European Renaissance, Zhang Heng had all the makings of a Renaissance man. Learn how this statesman, scholar and inventor invented the first seismometer in this episode.

With patents on everything from fountain pens to rifles, Walter Hunt has sometimes been called "America's forgotten inventor." However, his most successful invention is incredibly commonplace -- tune in and learn more about the safety pin.

Before the advent of the modern blood bank, blood could only be stored for about two days. Luckily, when Charles Drew began researching ways to prolong the usefulness of stored blood, his Stuff of Genius struck. Tune in and learn more.

Perhaps you've caught wind of corpse-sucking tree roots in Ireland. Explore the science of what's going on here and why some folks long for the post-mortem embrace of mother tree root.

NASA plans to send a Microsoft HoloLens headset up to the International Space Station. Are astronauts getting ready to play Minecraft?

09/10/2015: French scientists discovered a 30,000 year old virus frozen in the Siberian wastelands. It's big, complex and we're quite keen to resurrect it in the lab.

09/09/2015: What happens when you attempt to age whisky in microgravity? Who would even think to ask? We have answers for both questions!