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]

Smokehouse - Thaw Project | Life Below Zero

Action and reaction forces | Movement and forces | Middle school physics | Khan Academy

View All

Cathie Wood's fund is collapsing | Here's what stocks she owns

Kathy Wood became a household name in 2020 and 2021 by making her investors billions of dollars. She was even able to outperform legendary investor Warren Buffett. Her flagship Arc Innovation fund returned a staggering 152% in 2020. Compare that to Warren…

Courage | The Art of Facing Fear

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. Seneca. Is kicking your enemy into a large well after screaming “This is Sparta” the Hellenistic embodiment of courage? Well, it could be, looking at the Greek mythological heroes like Achilles and Hector, and …

Feeling Tired, Irritable, Stressed Out? Try Nature | Short Film Showcase

Do you find yourself longing for the apocalypse? I did. I was looking for a reason to live. Hi! Are you feeling tired, irritable, stressed out? Well, you might consider nature. From the people that brought you “Getting Outside” comes prescription-strengt…

The President as Commander-in-Chief | American civics | US government and civics | Khan Academy

So I’m here with Jeffrey Rosen, head of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and we’re continuing to talk about Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, which talks about the powers of the president. Now we’re going to focus a little bit on the …

Beginning of the Greco Persian Wars | World History | Khan Academy

This right here is a map of the Persian Empire in 490 BCE before the Common Era, and you see that it is an extensive empire. It was established by Cyrus the Great and then his successors. We talked about it in previous videos, how they were able to conque…

Giant Underwater Cave Was Hiding Oldest Human Skeleton in the Americas | Expedition Raw

ALBERTO NAVA: I mean, you’re always looking for something new to discover, but we didn’t know what we were going to find when we started on that day. Most of our dives are pretty routine, you know, you just keep finding more tunnels and more tunnels. But …

Our Fight Against Death | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

More Articles