Our Fight Against Death | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

Humanity's struggle against death has been our most enduring fight. History has given us one weapon in this existential battle: we fight back with medicine. Tens of thousands of years ago, our ancestors scavenged the natural world for remedies. Imagine the incredible leaps of faith we had to take in an effort to ease the pain, mend the broken, and revive the sick.

Medicine was a dark art, full of false starts and false gods. But when we struck upon some form of relief, it swept like wildfire through humankind. We built on every success until medicine became a form of science. That's when we discovered the real killers within us: microscopic armies hidden within our bodies, waging war on our species for thousands of years.

Medicine is our great weapon to fight back against invisible, unthinkable death. [Applause] From superstition to science, medicine has become one of humanity's most powerful tools. And with each new challenge, we may stumble, but we find a way to get stronger and smarter to beat back fatal diseases and extend our lifespans. We even crack open our genetic code.

This is the story of how our fight against death has determined our fate, how it became the driving force of our evolution, how our tireless pursuit of medicine has made us modern, and even made us superhuman. This is origins. [Music]

15 Tools Smart People Use (in 2024)

Presenting: Greeking Out by National Geographic Kids | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic

View All

Discretionary and rulemaking authority of the federal bureaucracy | Khan Academy

In many videos, we have talked about how a bill can become a law. It first gets introduced into the legislative branch, which in the United States is the U.S. Congress at the federal level. If it passes both houses of Congress, then the bill will go to th…

The Upcoming Stock Market Collapse | Round 2

What’s up? Grandma’s guys here. So, as usual, the market makes absolutely no sense and continues proving time and time again that anything can happen. For example, even though the NASDAQ just narrowly avoided its worst January ever in history, when asked …

Khan Academy Live: SAT Writing

Hello and welcome back to Khan Academy live SAT. I’m Eric, I’m an SAT tutor and one of the SAT experts here at Khan Academy. Today is our third and final class as a part of this series. We’ve covered SAT Math two weeks ago, last week we covered SAT Readin…

The Stilwell Brain

“I think, therefore, I am.” But am I? I think. Ha. A single microscopic brain cell cannot think, is not conscious, but if you bring in a few more brain cells, and a few more, and connect them all, at a certain point, the group itself will be able to think…

Khan Academy Live! In Khanversation with Barbara Oakley

So Sal here at Khan Academy worldwide headquarters, and I’m excited to be here with Barbara Oakley, who’s an expert on learning and learning how to learn. So Barbara, let me just start with a question that I’m sure many of Khan Academy users or young peop…

15 Things to STOP EXPECTING from Other People

Your life picks up once you realize you’re in the driver’s seat, not the passenger seat. Everyone else might hop on and off the you bus, but they’re not the ones holding the steering wheel. This doesn’t mean you should become a lone wolf, no, but there’s …

Our Fight Against Death | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

More Articles