When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

Over the course of human history, thousands of languages have developed from what was once a much smaller number. How did we end up with so many? And how do we keep track of them all? Alex Gendler explains how linguists group languages into language families, demonstrating how these linguistic trees give us crucial insights into the past.

Romantic chemistry is all about warm, gooey feelings that gush from the deepest depths of the heart... right? Not quite. Actually, the real boss behind attraction is your brain, which runs through a very quick, very complex series of calculations when assessing a potential partner. Dawn Maslar explores how our five senses contribute to this mating game, citing some pretty wild studies along the way.

In the first of a new TED-Ed series designed to catalyze curiosity, TED Curator Chris Anderson shares his boyhood obsession with quirky questions that seem to have no answers.

Physicists, philosophers, and UFO enthusiasts all have ideas on how many universes there may be or if there is extraterrestrial life. Chris Anderson summarizes the theories and expects that in the coming years physicists will arrive at more answers.

Who knows when we'll discover whether we are alone in the universe or not? Whatever the answer, the quest for more knowledge will never cease, nor grow dull.

"You're a fishmonger!" By taking a closer look at Shakespeare's words, and particularly his insults, we can see why he is known as a master playwright whose works appeal to audiences all over the world.

When we look at insults used in Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet," we get a new insight into dynamics between the characters and how they relate to the development of the story.

Michael Jordan’s legendary slam dunk from the free throw line has been calculated at 0.92 seconds of pure hang time. But how many seconds could Jordan have gotten if he did the same jump on Mars? Or Jupiter?

A look at the communications of Humpback Whales and other baleen whales, which includes how they sing, why they sing, and why we might consider their vocalizations actual songs.

Dolphins are one of the smartest animal species on Earth. In fact, their encephalization quotient (their brain size compared to the average for their body size) is second only to humans. But exactly how smart are they? This video shares some incredible facts about dolphins.

Judging by the 26 billion views on over 2 million YouTube videos of them, one thing is certain: cats are very entertaining. But their strange feline behaviors, both amusing and baffling, leave many of us asking: Why do cats do that? Tony Buffington explains the evolutionary history behind some of your cat’s strangest behaviors.