Skip to main content

Up Next

Where Did Life Come From?

Where Did Life Come From?

Season 6 Episode 9
12:46
How Your Memory Works

How Your Memory Works

Season 6 Episode 11
8:19
Why Do We Itch?

Why Do We Itch?

Season 6 Episode 12
4:59
Where Did Earth's Water Come From?

Where Did Earth's Water Come From?

Season 6 Episode 14
4:13
The Science of Farts

The Science of Farts

Season 6 Episode 18
5:07
Back to Show
It's Okay to Be Smart

Why Are There As Many Males As Females?

Season 6 Episode 5

In almost every animal species on Earth, equal numbers of males and females are conceived. Why is that? Especially in populations like lions or elephant seals, where most males don’t get to mate? That’s survival of the laziest, not survival of the fittest. It turns out that in most cases, an equal balance of the sexes is the evolutionary stable strategy.

Support Provided By
Season
What Synesthesia Feels Like
12:28
Why do some people taste music or hear colors? Let’s talk about synesthesia.
Why Useless Knowledge Can Be So Useful
14:35
How a chemical in lizard spit inspired one of the most important medical advancements.
How Scientists Cracked the Secret To Making Diamonds
12:15
These diamond makers create one of the most amazing materials on Earth — from dead people.
Camouflage Isn't What It Appears To Be
11:20
Learn nature’s ultimate game of hide-and-seek, and the way to win this game is all in the brain.
Why Don’t Humans Hibernate?
11:17
Nature has had to come up with some crazy ways to survive winter. None are weirder than hibernation.
The Paradox of Voting
12:40
Political scientist Don Green joins Joe to figure out the complex psychological and social factors t
Why Do We Hate Certain Sounds
16:27
Why do certain sounds make some of us so upset?!
The Sun is NOT the Center of the Solar System
11:43
Despite what you may have heard or learned in school, the sun is NOT the center of the solar system.
Why You See Faces in Things
10:23
People see faces everywhere thanks to a quirk of the brain called visual pareidolia.
Why trees look like rivers and also blood vessels and also lightning…
10:00
Why do the same, self-repeating patterns appear in trees, rivers, lightning, and even our bodies?
The Real (Weird) Way We See Numbers
15:25
Our animal brains deal with quantities in very specific, and fascinating, ways.
Computers Can Predict When You're Going to Die… Here's How
12:54
Can new technologies make death prediction even more accurate?
Active loading indicator