Is Be Smart coming back?
Be Smart (2013–present) on PBS
The answer: Currently airing — last episode August 18, 2026.
14seasons
429episodes
About Be Smart
Be Smart is currently airing on PBS; the next episode airs 2026-05-12.
The show is a science series that explores curiosity and the science behind everyday phenomena. It was first premiered on January 28, 2013, and has continued to produce episodes over the years, with its latest season starting in January 2026. Each episode delves into various scientific topics, aiming to illuminate how the world works through engaging explanations.
Joe Hanson stars as the host of the series. The show has a runtime of approximately 15 minutes per episode. It has not been rated on TVMaze.
Be Smart episode schedule
429 aired
Aired · 429
| Date | Ep. | Title |
|---|---|---|
| August 18, 2026 | S2026·E19 | The Very Weird Reason Hot Water Freezes Faster |
| July 30, 2026 | S2026·E18 | We've Seen the Sun's Inner Corona For the First Time |
| July 27, 2026 | S2026·E17 | Euclid Found an Entire Galaxy Made of Dark Matter |
| July 22, 2026 | S2026·E16 | What Titan Did to Saturn Shocked Me |
| July 16, 2026 | S2026·E15 | We Didn't Predict the Sun Would Do This |
| July 16, 2026 | S2026·E10 | How HIV Started a Century Before Anyone Noticed |
| July 8, 2026 | S2026·E14 | Why Scientists Think This Is Our Strongest Evidence of Aliens |
| July 2, 2026 | S2026·E13 | Hubble Spotted Something Huge Hurtling Through Space |
| July 2, 2026 | S2026·E9 | The New Kind of Heat Humans Can't Handle |
| June 29, 2026 | S2026·E12 | Something Is Happening on Pluto's Surface |
| June 24, 2026 | S2026·E11 | This Moon Collision Did Something Crazy on Earth |
| June 11, 2026 | S2026·E8 | Scientists Finally Figured Out What Love Is For |
| May 28, 2026 | S2026·E7 | We've never seen an atom. But we know what they look like. |
| May 14, 2026 | S2026·E6 | Infinity isn't a number. Its something much weirder. |
| April 21, 2026 | S2026·E5 | Something Strange Happens When You Flatten the Earth… |
| March 31, 2026 | S2026·E4 | You've Been Lied to About DNA Evidence |
| March 10, 2026 | S2026·E3 | The Color You Were Born to Obey |
| February 5, 2026 | S2026·E2 | The Intelligence Test Where Ants Beat Humans |
| January 15, 2026 | S2026·E1 | Why Everything You Taste Is a Trick |
| December 18, 2025 | S2025·E15 | What Everyone Gets Wrong About Alpha Males |
| December 4, 2025 | S2025·E14 | The Day That Ended the Dinosaurs (Moment by Moment) |
| November 13, 2025 | S2025·E13 | Did I Make This Video to Debunk Your Biology Class? |
| October 23, 2025 | S2025·E12 | Something Weird Is Going On With Mars' Sunsets |
| October 2, 2025 | S2025·E11 | Why Everyone Suddenly Has Autism (It's Not What You Think) |
| August 21, 2025 | S2025·E10 | Why Seedless Fruit Is a Disaster Waiting To Happen |
| July 31, 2025 | S2025·E9 | The Randomness Crisis Threatening the Internet |
| July 10, 2025 | S2025·E8 | Why Are Blood Types a Thing? |
| June 19, 2025 | S2025·E7 | The Dinosaur Dilemma That Darwin Couldn't Solve |
| May 27, 2025 | S2025·E6 | What could we see with a planet-sized telescope? |
| May 8, 2025 | S2025·E5 | I Talked to the Scientists Who (Maybe) Brought Back the Dire Wolf |
Show next 200 of 399 earlier episodes
| April 24, 2025 | S2025·E4 | Photosynthesis Has a Fatal Flaw (and We Can Fix It) |
| March 31, 2025 | S2025·E3 | What's inside the oldest rocks in the world? |
| March 21, 2025 | S2025·E2 | Why Your Grandma Is an Evolutionary Mystery |
| February 21, 2025 | S2025·E1 | The Weird Science That Lets Insects Fly in the Rain |
| December 30, 2024 | S2024·E19 | What Synesthesia Feels Like |
| December 19, 2024 | S2024·E18 | Why Useless Knowledge Can Be So Useful |
| November 21, 2024 | S2024·E17 | How To Turn Dead People Into Diamonds |
| October 31, 2024 | S2024·E16 | Camouflage Isn't What It Appears To Be |
| October 10, 2024 | S2024·E15 | Why Don't Humans Hibernate? |
| September 26, 2024 | S2024·E14 | Why Do We Vote? It's Not For the Reasons You Think… |
| September 4, 2024 | S2024·E13 | Why Do We HATE Certain Sounds? |
| August 15, 2024 | S2024·E12 | The Sun is NOT the Center of the Solar System |
| August 1, 2024 | S2024·E11 | Why Do We See Faces In Everything? |
| July 18, 2024 | S2024·E10 | Why trees look like rivers and also blood vessels and also lightning… |
| June 20, 2024 | S2024·E9 | The Real (Weird) Way We See Numbers |
| May 23, 2024 | S2024·E8 | The Surprising Power of Sex in Evolution |
| May 9, 2024 | S2024·E7 | Computers Can Predict When You're Going to Die… Here's How |
| April 21, 2024 | S2024·E6 | Can Humans Talk to Whales? This Might Let Us... |
| April 10, 2024 | S2024·E5 | How the Heck Do you Measure an Entire UNIVERSE? |
| March 7, 2024 | S2024·E4 | Why Solar Eclipses Are Such a Big Deal |
| February 15, 2024 | S2024·E3 | This Is How We'll Clean Up Space Junk |
| January 25, 2024 | S2024·E2 | Why NASA Punched an Asteroid |
| January 15, 2024 | S2024·E1 | Maybe We've Already Made First Contact… |
| December 21, 2023 | S2023·E22 | I Don't Know How to Feel About 2023 |
| December 14, 2023 | S2023·E21 | How Scientists Made the Hottest Thing Ever |
| November 30, 2023 | S2023·E20 | Can a Billion Oysters Save New York City? |
| October 19, 2023 | S2023·E19 | CRASH TEST Science! (Hacking Physics To Save Lives) |
| October 5, 2023 | S2023·E18 | The Strange Psychology of Superfans |
| September 21, 2023 | S2023·E17 | Why Are We So Obsessed With X? |
| September 7, 2023 | S2023·E16 | What Is the Most Average Thing? |
| August 22, 2023 | S2023·E15 | The Biggest Myth About Innovation |
| August 10, 2023 | S2023·E14 | Why ROYGBIV is Wrong |
| July 25, 2023 | S2023·E13 | The Truth About Butterfly Metamorphosis (It's VERY WEIRD) |
| July 11, 2023 | S2023·E12 | How Scorpions Became Earth's Ultimate Survivors |
| June 27, 2023 | S2023·E11 | From Lab to Table: I Tasted the World's First Cultivated Meat! |
| June 15, 2023 | S2023·E10 | The Deadly Chemistry That Made Life Interesting |
| June 1, 2023 | S2023·E9 | How the CIA Secretly Spied On Climate Change |
| May 16, 2023 | S2023·E8 | Why Y Is a Vowel (and so is W) According to Physics |
| May 4, 2023 | S2023·E7 | How To Go Faster Than Light Speed |
| April 19, 2023 | S2023·E6 | The Mystery Behind Earth's Most Epic Migration |
| March 28, 2023 | S2023·E5 | Why Does Every Animal Look Like This? |
| March 14, 2023 | S2023·E4 | Can We Solve the Air Conditioning Paradox? |
| February 28, 2023 | S2023·E3 | The Beautiful Science of Iridescence |
| February 14, 2023 | S2023·E2 | The Dark Room Where Science Was Invented |
| January 31, 2023 | S2023·E1 | The Evolutionary Purpose of Fun |
| December 20, 2022 | S2022·E22 | Why Embarrassment Is Actually GOOD For You |
| December 6, 2022 | S2022·E21 | In Search of the Blackest Thing on Earth |
| November 22, 2022 | S2022·E20 | The Unexpected Measure that Makes the Modern World Tick |
| November 8, 2022 | S2022·E19 | How We Solved the Greatest Riddle In Navigation |
| October 25, 2022 | S2022·E18 | Why 8 Eyes Are Better Than 2 (...If You're a Spider) |
| October 11, 2022 | S2022·E17 | The Unbelievable Story of Earth's Most Epic Flood |
| September 15, 2022 | S2022·E16 | The Biggest Myth About Climate Change |
| August 23, 2022 | S2022·E15 | The Crime Wave We Can Blame on… Neutron Stars? |
| August 4, 2022 | S2022·E14 | Why is Puberty so Weird? |
| July 22, 2022 | S2022·E13 | Why No One Can Agree What's REALLY the Tallest Mountain |
| July 6, 2022 | S2022·E12 | Trying to Land a Plane (to Prove a Point) |
| June 21, 2022 | S2022·E11 | Why You Can't Smell Yourself (and Other Ways Your Senses Lie to You) |
| June 2, 2022 | S2022·E10 | This Machine Makes 300+ km/h Winds (INDOOR HURRICANE!) |
| May 19, 2022 | S2022·E9 | Are Humans Still Evolving? |
| April 26, 2022 | S2022·E8 | Can Illusions Teach Us How the Mind Works? |
| April 8, 2022 | S2022·E7 | Can Life Really Be Explained By Physics? |
| March 22, 2022 | S2022·E6 | How Evolution Beat Cancer (…for Whales at Least) |
| March 3, 2022 | S2022·E5 | What's Actually on the Other Side of a Mirror? |
| February 15, 2022 | S2022·E4 | How Do We Read? It's Magic (Almost) |
| February 1, 2022 | S2022·E3 | The Weird Brain Illusion That Makes Movies Work |
| January 25, 2022 | S2022·E2 | Here's What I Learned From Getting COVID |
| January 6, 2022 | S2022·E1 | Can We Actually Clean Up the Plastic Pollution Problem? |
| December 22, 2021 | S2021·E18 | Why Do We Dream? |
| November 23, 2021 | S2021·E17 | What Is Nothing? |
| November 6, 2021 | S2021·E16 | Inside the Largest Living Thing On Earth! |
| October 20, 2021 | S2021·E15 | Sand Dunes Shouldn't Exist (Here's Why They Do) |
| October 8, 2021 | S2021·E14 | I Can't Believe We're Making Another COVID Video |
| September 22, 2021 | S2021·E13 | This Simple Code Is Behind Nature's Most Complex Patterns |
| September 7, 2021 | S2021·E12 | How Much Of You Is Alive? |
| July 30, 2021 | S2021·E11 | Why Is Sex a Thing? |
| June 30, 2021 | S2021·E10 | A Brief (Scientific) History of Butts |
| June 2, 2021 | S2021·E9 | The Shocking Way Your Body Makes Electricity |
| May 4, 2021 | S2021·E8 | Why Are We Warm-Blooded? |
| April 19, 2021 | S2021·E7 | How Ocean Currents Work (and How We Are Breaking Them) |
| April 1, 2021 | S2021·E6 | The Transcontinental Burrito Hypertunnel |
| March 17, 2021 | S2021·E5 | What is Impossible in Evolution? |
| March 10, 2021 | S2021·E4 | The Golden Ratio: Is It Myth or Math? |
| February 15, 2021 | S2021·E3 | When Is Now? |
| February 4, 2021 | S2021·E2 | Visualizing Herd Immunity (with 500 Mousetraps!) |
| January 11, 2021 | S2021·E1 | Why Do We Lie? |
| December 23, 2020 | S2020·E25 | Why the Heck Is Glass Transparent? |
| December 8, 2020 | S2020·E24 | Inside the Lab That Invented the COVID-19 Vaccine |
| November 18, 2020 | S2020·E23 | The SHOCKING Truth About Ben Franklin and the Kite |
| November 9, 2020 | S2020·E22 | Why Are There 7 Days In a Week? |
| October 31, 2020 | S2020·E21 | The Secret Behind a Gecko's Gravity-Defying Grip |
| October 13, 2020 | S2020·E20 | 4 Ways to End the Universe |
| September 13, 2020 | S2020·E19 | The Fastest Animals Are Way Faster Than You Think |
| September 1, 2020 | S2020·E18 | Why a Tuesday Can Feel Like July and Sometimes Never (How We Perceive Time) |
| July 28, 2020 | S2020·E17 | Why Is Our Skeleton On the Inside? |
| July 23, 2020 | S2020·E16 | COVID-19 & Mask Myths DEBUNKED! |
| July 4, 2020 | S2020·E15 | How Well Do Masks Work? (Schlieren Imaging In Slow Motion!) |
| June 23, 2020 | S2020·E14 | What Is A Dinosaur And What Isn't? |
| June 9, 2020 | S2020·E13 | How Did Giant Pterosaurs Fly? |
| June 3, 2020 | S2020·E12 | Why Do Other Animals Keep Giving Us Viruses? |
| May 19, 2020 | S2020·E11 | Counting the Species in my Backyard… for SCIENCE! |
| May 6, 2020 | S2020·E10 | How Evolution Made COVID-19 Our Perfect Enemy (and Why We'll Beat It) |
| April 25, 2020 | S2020·E9 | Fly Through a Nebula 163,000 Light Years Away (30 Years of the Hubble Space Telescope) |
| April 14, 2020 | S2020·E8 | Why the Heck Are We Ticklish? |
| March 25, 2020 | S2020·E7 | Why Soap Is Still Our Best Weapon Against the Coronavirus |
| March 17, 2020 | S2020·E6 | What This Chart Actually Means for COVID-19 |
| March 10, 2020 | S2020·E5 | Fixing Daylight Saving Time Is THIS Easy |
| March 3, 2020 | S2020·E4 | Sunlight Is Way Older Than You Think. Here's Why… |
| February 25, 2020 | S2020·E3 | Humans Are Smart. Why Are Babies So Unsmart? |
| February 19, 2020 | S2020·E2 | Can Supercrops Feed 10 BILLION People? |
| February 11, 2020 | S2020·E1 | 3 Ways Trees Can Save the Climate (With Our Help) |
| December 30, 2019 | S2019·E33 | Why We Should Put Rockets On the Moon |
| December 17, 2019 | S2019·E32 | The Strange (Unexpected) Reason Ice is Slippery |
| December 10, 2019 | S2019·E31 | Recycling Is Broken. Here's How We Can Fix It. |
| November 23, 2019 | S2019·E30 | I Ate Worms! Trying a Thanksgiving Feast Made from Bugs |
| November 19, 2019 | S2019·E29 | Evolution FAILS in the Human Body |
| November 9, 2019 | S2019·E28 | What Color Is A Banana? |
| November 2, 2019 | S2019·E27 | IN YOUR FACE EXPLOSIVE CHEMISTRY!! (VR180) |
| October 25, 2019 | S2019·E26 | What Would Trees Look Like On Other Planets? |
| October 21, 2019 | S2019·E25 | This Face Changes the Human Story |
| October 7, 2019 | S2019·E24 | What's In a 20,000 Year-Old Cube of Ice? |
| September 29, 2019 | S2019·E23 | Money Is A Technological Fiction (The Invention of $$$) |
| September 6, 2019 | S2019·E22 | 7 Scientific Urban Legends Debunked! |
| August 19, 2019 | S2019·E21 | Why Don't Birds Lay Square Eggs? |
| August 10, 2019 | S2019·E20 | How Blind People See With Sound… |
| July 27, 2019 | S2019·E19 | Do Trees Talk? |
| July 22, 2019 | S2019·E18 | Is This Why We Haven't Found Alien Civilizations? - STELLAR |
| July 14, 2019 | S2019·E17 | Why We Are Losing the Night Sky |
| July 9, 2019 | S2019·E16 | Apollo's Most Important Discovery (Inside NASA's Moon Rock Vault!) |
| July 3, 2019 | S2019·E15 | Seeing a Black Hole with a Planet-Sized Telescope - STELLAR |
| June 21, 2019 | S2019·E14 | Could You Be a Chimera? |
| June 18, 2019 | S2019·E13 | See INSIDE a Chrysalis! - Painting Wings with CRISPR |
| May 24, 2019 | S2019·E12 | How To Make One Million Species Disappear |
| May 18, 2019 | S2019·E11 | Where Your Eye Color Comes From… SurprEYESing Science! |
| May 3, 2019 | S2019·E10 | How To Drink Coffee In Space |
| April 26, 2019 | S2019·E9 | Why We Get Dizzy (…and Astronauts Don't) |
| April 9, 2019 | S2019·E8 | Mexico's Monarch Butterfly Migration in VR180 |
| April 9, 2019 | S2019·E7 | Decoding the Great Monarch Butterfly Migration |
| April 2, 2019 | S2019·E6 | How to be Crushed by the Atmosphere! |
| March 20, 2019 | S2019·E5 | Why Are So Many People Allergic To Food? |
| March 5, 2019 | S2019·E4 | Where Do You Weigh The Most? |
| February 27, 2019 | S2019·E3 | Are You Afraid of Holes? |
| February 12, 2019 | S2019·E2 | The Impossible Hugeness of Deep Time |
| February 7, 2019 | S2019·E1 | Is There Life on Earth? |
| December 27, 2018 | S2018·E37 | Do Fish Pee? |
| December 14, 2018 | S2018·E36 | Does Someone Else Have Your Face? |
| November 30, 2018 | S2018·E35 | The Raisin Bran Effect |
| November 21, 2018 | S2018·E34 | Can We Get Older Without Aging? |
| November 15, 2018 | S2018·E33 | The Dinosaur On Your Thanksgiving Table |
| November 6, 2018 | S2018·E32 | What is Farthest Away? |
| October 31, 2018 | S2018·E31 | The Deadliest Flu Season in History? |
| October 23, 2018 | S2018·E30 | The Largest River On Earth Is In The Sky |
| October 9, 2018 | S2018·E29 | Where Do Teeth Come From? |
| September 25, 2018 | S2018·E28 | What Do Raindrops Really Look Like? |
| September 18, 2018 | S2018·E27 | Is Height All In Our Genes? |
| September 11, 2018 | S2018·E26 | Will You Still Eat Raw Fish After Watching This Video? |
| August 28, 2018 | S2018·E25 | How Habits are Formed |
| August 14, 2018 | S2018·E24 | How Some Words Get Forgetted |
| August 7, 2018 | S2018·E23 | Why Do Disney Princesses All Look Like Babies? |
| July 24, 2018 | S2018·E22 | 3 Incredible Examples of Evolution Hidden In Your Body |
| July 17, 2018 | S2018·E21 | The Only Animal That Weeps |
| July 10, 2018 | S2018·E20 | The Surprising Reason We Eat Spicy Food |
| June 26, 2018 | S2018·E19 | It's Okay to Fart |
| June 20, 2018 | S2018·E18 | Which Life Form REALLY Dominates Earth? |
| June 12, 2018 | S2018·E17 | What's The Hottest Hot and Coldest Cold? |
| June 5, 2018 | S2018·E16 | Why Does This Wolf Have A Pouch? |
| May 22, 2018 | S2018·E15 | The Cosmic Origins of Earth's Water |
| May 15, 2018 | S2018·E14 | The Deadpool Salamander |
| May 8, 2018 | S2018·E13 | Why Do We Itch? |
| May 1, 2018 | S2018·E12 | What If You Never Forgot Anything? |
| April 19, 2018 | S2018·E11 | 97% of Climate Scientists Really Do Agree |
| April 11, 2018 | S2018·E10 | Where Did Life Come From? |
| April 3, 2018 | S2018·E9 | Can You Bend Light Like This? |
| March 7, 2018 | S2018·E8 | Could You Be Immune To Everything? |
| February 22, 2018 | S2018·E7 | Why Are There As Many Males As Females? |
| February 13, 2018 | S2018·E6 | Defusing the Population Bomb |
| February 7, 2018 | S2018·E5 | Tuatara All The Way Down – Face To Face With A Living Fossil! |
| January 30, 2018 | S2018·E4 | The Most Extreme Life Forms On Earth… And Beyond? |
| January 16, 2018 | S2018·E3 | How to Figure Out the Day of the Week For Any Day Ever |
| January 9, 2018 | S2018·E2 | Why Is Blue So Rare In Nature? |
| January 2, 2018 | S2018·E1 | How Atom Bombs Can Uncover Forged Art |
| December 20, 2017 | S2017·E43 | Why Do You Love Your Family? |
| December 12, 2017 | S2017·E42 | 20 MILLION Year Old Spider!! Unweaving the Science of Spider Silk |
| November 28, 2017 | S2017·E41 | Inside an ICE CAVE! - Nature's Most Beautiful Blue |
| November 15, 2017 | S2017·E40 | The Romantic Lure of Moonlight |
| November 7, 2017 | S2017·E39 | Asteroid Mining: Our Ticket To Living Off Earth? |
| November 1, 2017 | S2017·E38 | Should You Eat Every Day? |
| October 25, 2017 | S2017·E37 | The Cheerios Effect |
| October 17, 2017 | S2017·E36 | Why It Is What Time It Is (The History of Time) |
| October 3, 2017 | S2017·E35 | Doomsday Machines |
| September 26, 2017 | S2017·E34 | Why Is The Universe So Empty? |
| September 19, 2017 | S2017·E33 | Do You Really Have Two Brains? |
| September 15, 2017 | S2017·E32 | Putting Hurricane Harvey In Perspective |
| September 5, 2017 | S2017·E31 | DNA Doesn't Look Like You Think! |
| August 29, 2017 | S2017·E30 | How Poop Shapes the World |
| August 25, 2017 | S2017·E29 | When Is It Winter On Uranus? |
| August 8, 2017 | S2017·E28 | Your Climate Conscience |
| August 3, 2017 | S2017·E27 | Why Nature Loves Hexagons (featuring Infinite Series!) |
| July 25, 2017 | S2017·E26 | How Do Glaciers Move? |
| July 19, 2017 | S2017·E25 | Beavers: The Smartest Thing in Fur Pants |
| July 11, 2017 | S2017·E24 | Orchid Mantis: Looks That Kill |
…and 199 earlier episodes not shown. Long-running show.
