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Underneath the surface of fearsome monsters we can see that Godzilla is closely linked to the fears of atomic radiation and mecha robots emerged from the extremely rapid industrialization of Japan during the 1960’s and 1970’s.

While the short answer is the Korean war, the reality is that seeds for the separate Republic of Korea and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea goes back much further and has to do with the late 19th century Chinese imperialism and the formation of different resistance factions to the early 20th century Japanese annexation of Korea.

Is Poisoned Halloween Candy a Myth? Every year around Halloween, we hear the same concern: you gotta check the candy for poison because strangers put laxatives in Tootsie Rolls, Razor Blades in Apples and heroine in Snickers. But is this trick or treat dilemma an actual reality or just a clever way for your parents to steal your candy?

Will you get a B+, C, an A-, a D+ or the dreaded F? We’ve all had that moment of sheer panic while waiting for your report card. But when you step back, it’s worth asking why do we get letter grades at all? And whatever happened to E? Find out in this week's episode!

Rubber is an extremely important part of modern living, from tires to clothes to building materials to adhesives. And though we don’t often think of it in the same league as oil or cotton, industrialization drove the demand for rubber which drove into intense competition between world powers hell bent on imperial expansion. How did it happen? Watch the episode to find out.

Jesus’ name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua. So how did we get the name “Jesus”? And is “Christ” a last name? Watch the episode to find out!

For nearly 100 years it was illegal to be “ugly” in America. Of course, “ugly” wasn’t actually about physical attractiveness, it was a way to criminalize disability and disfigurement and it lead to the rise of the freak show. So how did we put an end to these ridiculous laws? Watch the episode to find out.

The word Oriental is hundred of years old, so why do Americans no longer use the word “Oriental”? And how did the word “Asian American” take its place? Watch this week’s Origin of Everything to find out.

More than 4 billion years ago, the crust of the Earth was still cooling and the oceans were only beginning to form. But in recent years, we’ve started to discover that, even in this hellish environment, life found a way.

Over the past 20 years, dinosaurs of all types and sizes have been found with some sort of fluff or even full-on plumage. These fuzzy discoveries have raised a whole batch of new questions so we're here to tell you everything we know about dinosaurs and feathers.

Imagine an enormous, lush rainforest teeming with life...in the Arctic. Well there was a time -- and not too long ago -- when the world warmed more than any human has ever seen. (So far)

Probably twice the size of a modern gorilla, Gigantopithecus is the greatest great-ape that ever was. And for us fellow primates, there are some lessons to be learned in how it lived, and why it disappeared.

420 million years ago, a giant feasted on the dead, growing slowly into the largest living thing on land. It belonged to an unlikely group of pioneers that ultimately made life on land possible -- the fungi.

What if I told you that, more than two billion years ago, some tiny living thing started to live inside another living thing … and never left? And now, the descendants of both of those things are in you?

About 5 million years ago, a new predator made its way from the south and onto the coastal plains of North America. It was a giant, flightless, carnivorous bird and came to be known by one of the coolest and most richly earned nicknames in all of paleontology: the terror bird.

In the late 1800s, paleontologists in Nebraska found huge coils of hardened sand stuck deep in the earth. Local ranchers called them Devil's Corkscrews and scientists called them Daemonelix. It was clear these corkscrews were created by some form of life, but what?

90 million years ago, an ancient snake known as Najash had...legs. It is by no means the only snake to have limbs either. But what’s even stranger: we’re not at all sure where it came from.

The study of natural history is the study of how the world has changed but Earth itself is in a constant state of flux -- because the ground beneath your feet is always moving. So if we want to know how we got here, we have to understand how "here" got here.

The first era of our current eon, the Paleozoic Era, is probably the most deceptively fascinating time in Earth’s history. With near constant revolutions in life, punctuated by catastrophic extinctions, it is also one of the most chaotic.

How do you defeat a creature that grows two heads for every one head you chop off? You do the math.

Peano arithmetic proves many theories in mathematics but does have its limits. In order to prove certain things you have to step beyond these axioms. Sometimes you need infinity.

What is the math behind quantum computers? And why are quantum computers so amazing? Find out on this episode of Infinite Series.

You can find out how to fairly divide rent between three different people even when you don’t know the third person’s preferences! Find out how with Sperner’s Lemma.

How long will it take to win a game of chess on an infinite chessboard?

What is Pick's Theorem and how can we prove it?