Accidental Discoveries That Shaped Astronomy | Chris Lintott

Accidental Discoveries That Shaped Astronomywith Chris Lintott Transcript Brian Keating:Professor Chris Lintott. Chris Lintott:The simplest possible thing to point Hubble at the same patch of sky for a 100 hours, and the result of that was that this tiny patch of sky was transformed into a field of about 10,000 distant galaxies. Brian Keating:How come so many of the greatest cosmic discoveries came about by accident? Should we communicate speculative scientific ideas to the public? Will we ever rebuild the public’s trust in science? And is hype ruining astronomy? Chris Lintott:Your answer’s in the question. Right? Brian Keating:I had the pleasure of discussing these mind bending questions with my fellow astrophysicist, fellow professor, and fellow YouTube and science communicator, Chris Lintott. Chris is involved in a number of the most popular science projects aimed at bringing science to the public as well as communicating them on his BBC program, The Sky at Night. Chris Lintott:I think we need to keep space open for early career researchers who, let’s face it, do the work to try speculative things. Brian Keating:In this delightful conversation, we discussed everything ranging from the origin of life to aliens in the universe to the origin of the universe intelligence how these discoveries can be best communicated to you, the public. You guys pay our salary through your taxes after all. So sit back and enjoy this conversation through the cosmos as we explore accidental discoveries in astronomy. Let’s go. Chris, I wanna start off with a possibly provocative poser to you, and that’s the following. Half of the discoveries that are so amazing in this wonderful new book aren’t confirmed, will never be confirmed, have been disconfirmed. Isn’t there a danger in relying on speculation and hype in astronomy as has plagued many other science branches? Chris Lintott:I mean, your answer’s in the question. Right? Yes. Obviously, if we accept this hype and so on, then we have to be careful. I do think one of the problems with the way we talk about science inspired me to write the book, which is that we tend to give the headline result. Right? And there’s usually some clever person on stage accepting an award or, you know, announcing a result. And it can seem like that was a very linear process. Right? That my colleague, Bill Kiel at Alabama, talks about the Hollywood version of science. And the Hollywood version of science is that we all sit in a big and surprisingly plush conference room. Chris Lintott:No one says anything. And then some somebody suddenly goes, my god. I’ve got an idea. We go, well, we should test the idea. And then we test the idea, and it turns out they were right. And the thing is that’s not how it works. And actually, that’s not the fun bit. Being right is never the fun bit. Chris Lintott:So I think one of the things I want to do in the book, was show astronomy in action, show show how astronomy works as an everyday subject, particularly from perspective of an observational astronomy. Somebody who spends their life not, writing equations necessarily and not building simulations, but somebody who is interested trying to get the best out for telescopes that we have and to see what’s lurking and often the data that we’ve already collected. So I think that can help with the hype cycle. Because if people, see the sausage made, then they’re more likely to understand whether to eat the sausage or not at the end is a slightly convoluted, analogy. But I’m interested your your question, I know you’re trying to be provocative, but which are the ones you don’t think are true? Because I think I would stand by most of the things in the book. Brian Keating:Well, I know you for a fact, Chris, you don’t stand behind Oumuamua as an interstellar garbage barge or or a scout mission from extraterrestrial intelligence. Unlike past guest and friend, Avi Loeb, you say quite quite clearly in the book, let me get the quote here, something that it’s been debunked thoroughly. So that’s extreme hype. I mean, we love Avi, but he’s not afraid of of displaying a little bit of of over Chris Lintott:But but but in the book, Oumuamua is interesting regardless of the fact that it’s probably not an alien spaceship. So the the result, you know so so, yes, I, you know, I haven’t decided it would be fun if it was an alien spaceship. Like, this is the thing that I think sometimes when we get talking about Avi’s ideas with people they miss, like, the rest of us want it to be an alien spaceship too. It’s it’s not that we’re sitting here going, no, I don’t have time for that in my schedule. Though, there is a good story about Jocelyn’s bell by nails discovery of pulsars where she ends up pissed off annoyed that, aliens might have gotten away for theory, but we’re not all Jocelyn. Right? Aliens would be great. So look, Ome and Mu, it would be great for sales, but it’s not aliens. It’s a sample of another solar system. Chris Lintott:It’s the first of the things that we’ve ever found. It’s kick started this renaissance, this new set of ideas about what actually turned out to be the most common macroscopic objects in the galaxy. We think there are 10 to the 27. So 1,000,000,000,000,000 big these things floating through the cosmos. And we’ve seen 2 of them. And that’s exciting. So to me, Oumuamua, the story in the book is that it arrived from out of nowhere. It confound us. Chris Lintott:It was perfectly sensible to consider the alien hypothesis, especially if you’ve read your rendezvous with Rama and the rest of it. But it turns out to be consistent with being a population of objects that we’re now going to get to study. And so I was so excited by

Science Education: What’s Wrong? | John Skrentny

The MASSIVE STEM Graduate ExodusWhat’s Going Wrong? | John Skrentny Transcript Brian Keating:You know that most STEM graduates don’t end up working in STEM fields? It’s true and it’s not due to a lack of demand. John Skrentny:We hear constantly about the burning hair on fire crisis level shortage of of of STEM grads. Brian Keating:Tech companies dominate our landscape, ranging from everything from artificial intelligence to smart phones, searching the web, blockchain and beyond. Despite the fact that these tech companies dominate the environment, the economy, and the looming global cries for scientific solutions from STEM fields, they’re not losing STEM graduates due to a lack of funding. We’ve in fact poured 1,000,000,000 into STEM programs. Yet despite this, up to 70% of STEM graduates choose not to pursue careers in their fields. John Skrentny:Some studies show about 50% of engineering grads leave before they’ve even gotten their first job. Brian Keating:So why is that? I had the incredible opportunity to communicate to share these ideas with my UCSD colleague who’s a world renowned sociologist, John Scrantney, who recently explored these issues in his wonderful new book, Wasted Education. I know it’s not going to be a waste for you to tune in, So let’s go. Into the Impossible, John Scranton. Brian Keating:Welcome to the Into the Impossible podcast where we feature for the very first time a a sociologist who is joining us all the way from the other side of campus. John Scranton. Did I pronounce it correctly, John? Close enough? John Skrentny:It’s good enough. It’s good enough. And that was a long walk. Brian Keating:It was. Yeah. And I’m I’m proud to introduce you to this building. We’ve never had we’ve had some socialists on. We’ve never had a sociologist on the podcast. And so I wanna start with a semi prerogative question, which is you make the case in the in in this wonderful book, Wasted Education. We’ll describe the the cover art in the book title and the subtitle in just a bit. But you make the convincing case that, you know, we kind of have this, very ambivalent, very ambiguous message that we send to STEM grad. Brian Keating:I’m a STEM graduate, and yet I claim Brian Keating:that, you know, graduate, and yet I claim that, you know, STEM is sort of our best hope. And I think you agree with it. Do we need more STEM graduates, or do we have enough and we need more sociologist graduates? I mean, where is the lacuna? Where is the gap in what America is churning out versus what we actually need? Is it in the soft sciences, humanities, or really in the step sciences? John Skrentny:That’s a great question. And I would say we need more educated people across the board. But I’m with you. We need more scientists and engineers. But the book is about how we need to treat them better. And too many are getting this great education and they’re leaving and they’re going to do other things. And so the book is really it’s kind of a mystery book, really. It starts with a puzzle. John Skrentny:Why is that the majority of STEM grads don’t work in STEM jobs when, we hear constantly about the burning hair on fire crisis level shortage of of STEM grads. So that’s the puzzle. More than 2 thirds leave. It depends on the data, but it’s always a majority leave. And I wanted to figure out why. And the big story is they are just not treated that well. And I do think, and I’m with you, even though I’m a sociologist, it’s the scientists and engineers who are going to save the world. Mhmm. John Skrentny:And it’s the policymakers who have to develop the right policies to allow them to do that. So that’s why I say across the board. Social scientists, humanities, anyone who can communicate well will help develop the policies to, you know, unchain the scientists and engineers or keep them using their skills so that they can save us. Brian Keating:Mhmm. How do you react to this statement? I’ve I’ve noticed and, actually, tonight, I’m going to see the world famous San Diego Padres play at the stadium, down at Petco Parkway and, watch them, you know, flail and struggle to beat the Milwaukee, Brewers. Odds are under 50%. John Skrentny:I can’t wait for this question because this was quite a segue. Okay. Brian Keating:I claim, we are doing the following. We in academia have set up a system Mhmm. Where to get, from graduate student to post doc Mhmm. Is easier than, you know, me getting on a peewee, you know, football team or a peewee baseball team. Mhmm. Continue the analogy. And it seems actually very easy to even get a postdoc. There’s such a dirt. Brian Keating:There’s such a hot market. And then immediately, it flips around to go from postdoc, which I’m gonna use in the analogy of this, into the baseball, of triple a baseball. So imagine, like, you could get into play triple a, which is almost literally it’s it’s almost a major league level caliber. In fact, a lot of major league players get bumped down to get rehabbed and work off their drug addict habits or whatever. I don’t know what they do. But but up in up in Escondido, they have a team up there. But to get from postdoc to faculty, we had a job search not long ago, 400 applicants, one position. Are we not doing a tremendous disservice just within academia by setting up this false narrative that you’re gonna it’s just gonna be the same as making a jump from triple a to the majors, when in fact, it’s more like making the jump from Pee wee to the majors. Brian Keating:It’s almost impossible. John Skrentny:Yeah. That’s a great question. So just to be clear, the book is mostly about the private sector. Brian Keating:Mhmm.

Pentagon’s Former UFO Chief Speaks Out on UAPs & Government Secrets | Sean Kirkpatrick

Pentagon’s Former UFO Chief Speaks Out on UAPs & Government Secrets | Sean Kirkpatrick Transcript Brian Keating: Is the government hiding evidence of extraterrestrial craft? Were aliens present during a Department of Defense technology test? Does Tom DeLonge have alien artifacts? And where did he get them from?   Sean Kirkpatrick: We’re doing peer reviews, and we’re getting people out and involved across multiple communities to try to to get this evidence on the table so people can look at it and understand what the conclusions are.   Brian Keating: Today on Into the Impossible, we have the first director of the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office or ARO at the US Department of Defense. Sean is a physicist and ex intelligence officer. His work has brought him into the public eye, especially given the increased government transparency and interest in UAP and UFO related topics. Sean quit his position as director of the ARO due to constant threats and harassment. However, even after he quit, the criticism and harassment only worsened. He actually had more harassment from US citizens than the Chinese and Russian adversaries that he used to work against.   Sean Kirkpatrick: The way you combat conspiracy theories and the associated misunderstandings that fuel them is fact and science and truth.   Brian Keating: So after 18 months on the job, Sean called it quits last December and Aro published its first part of a report that he and others had worked on. Today we discuss the world of ufology, the study of UFOs, the scientific secrets they may reveal, the personal and professional motivations for so many people that are interested in this topic. Today, we’ll discuss the evidence for extraterrestrial technology, UFO threats, Skinwalker Ranch, and skepticism in science and ufology in general. Let’s go into the impossible. So, Sean, we normally on this podcast do a deep dive into the cover and the and the subtitle of a book, and we ask what’s the artwork for. You don’t have a book yet, although I’m sure people are reaching out to you, with many offers. Maybe I’ll introduce you to my agent. But I wanna instead, go over an article that you wrote as, the so called US government’s UFO Hunter.   Brian Keating: And that was the title of the article. And the quote I wanna get your reaction to is this one, that you write, the conspiracist story goes something like this. The UFO has been hiding and attempting to reverse engineer as many as 12 UFOs from as early as the 19 sixties and probably earlier. The gray cover up failed to produce any salient results and consequently the work was abandoned to some private sector defense contractors. Apparently, the CIA stopped the supposed transfer back to the US government. All of this is without substantiating evidence but alas belief in a statement is directly proportional to the volume at which it’s transmitted. Sean, what do you say to those people that say that’s exactly how conspiracies work and we’re in the midst of many, many conspiracies? How do you react to the criticisms of, well, that’s just normal and and that’s how conspiracies go?   Sean Kirkpatrick: Then why are we fooling around with conspiracies? This is not the dark ages. This is, you know, back in the land of reason and science and thought. And the way you combat conspiracy theories and and the associated misunderstandings that fuel them is fact and science and truth. So if you’ve got evidence for a conspiracy, then then that helps to investigate what the underlying truth is. There has been none that has been substantiated for this. And everything that has been brought to our attention and everything that was brought to my attention when I was in that position as the director, we investigated and discovered that it did not come from where they thought it came from. Most everything was explainable through other documentation, other programs, other people that had talked to other people.   Brian Keating: You’ve, of course, done a lot of research as part of ARO, but also you’re a physicist, and I thought it would be very interesting to describe, some of the interest that, as I’ve made the case for, why physicists should be interested. How did you get involved in in this project? It it doesn’t seem to be a likely segue from somebody who was a, laser and materials physicist in the University of Georgia. What how did you get interested in this? Why should a physicist have any anything to say about this, this subject matter?   Sean Kirkpatrick: Well, so understand that as a as a career government official, as an intelligence officer, most of my last assignments, I was told to go do, not necessarily applied for. This being one of them. I did not apply for this job. So why did they ask me to do it? And the answer actually goes to, I think, where you’re trying to hit, especially for for the students that are gonna be paying attention to this. The difference between scientific investigation and intelligence tradecraft is actually very thin. There’s there’s a lot of overlap between them. And in fact, we have a field in the intelligence community called scientific and technical intelligence. And it is exactly what it sounds like.   Sean Kirkpatrick: It’s trying to understand what what an adversary, what another country, what anybody else is investigating through their science and technology programs. And you do that by studying them, studying what they are putting out in the in the publication, studying what actions they’re doing, trying to discern what are they actually researching? Why are they doing? This is not very different from that. You have an unknown observation or phenomena, and you’re trying to understand what is that. And is it a threat? And do I really need to be worried about it? Or is it something else?

Jim Simons: Life Lessons from the ‘World’s Smartest Billionaire’

Jim Simons: Life Lessons from the‘World’s Smartest Billionaire’ Transcript Arthur C. Clarke:Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Brian Keating:Welcome everybody to this episode of the Into the Impossible podcast, a production of the Arthur C Clarke Center For Human Imagination at UC San Diego. I am your fearful host, Brian Keating, codirector of the Arthur Clarke Center For Human Imagination, a professor of physics at UC San Diego. And, today’s a very special day because, I don’t often get to interview people that have known me since before I was born and, people who have played such a huge role in my life in particular, but in literally, you know, millions of people around the world’s lives, and that’s, none other than Jim Simons, doctor Jim Simons, who’s joining us from New York, where he has, been sheltering, I presume, for quite some time. Jim, welcome to the Into the Impossible podcast. Jim Simons:Well, thanks. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. Brian Keating:So this podcast is really a discussion of ideas with great intellectuals and thinkers, and I always like to get to know people a little bit better. Usually, I I ask questions about their books or or so forth. But what I wanted to start off with you is to kind of ask you if, you know, somebody, an alien abducted you and could speak English to you, and asked you, who are you? How would you answer that question? What defines Jim Simons Jim Simons:to you? Who am I, and what how do I define myself? Brian Keating:Yeah. Science, philanthropist, mhmm. Jim Simons:Well, I’ve been theory things. I’ve been a mathematician. I have, run, an investment fund and, now a, a foundation, a foundation that focuses on basic science of all strikes. So I’ve done 3 theory things in my life aside from, you know, having a couple of children, etcetera. And, well, that’s that’s been my life. Someone wrote a book about me, this past theory, and I didn’t want him to do it, but it didn’t come out too badly. So, you know, you can learn about me somewhat in that book. Brian Keating:Yeah. We had Greg, Greg Zuckerman. He was a guest on the podcast, a few months back. So, yes, we we we did talk about that book And, you know but I’ve always encouraged you to write a book, and, theory interested to to know what’s One Jim Simons:of these one of these days, I’ll do it. One of these days, I’ll do it. My daughter keeps urging me to to do so. I’m gonna retire soon from the foundation and then have more time to, write my memoirs or something like that. But, I don’t know what else I can tell you to describe myself. I think I, I’m imaginative. I think I have a lot of imagination. And, I’ve had my share of good ideas, some bad ones sometimes, of course. Jim Simons:In fact, when you’re doing science, you’ll be able to probably have 5 bad ideas for every good one. But, my friend, Lenny Baum, said, he said, bad ideas is good. Good ideas is better. No ideas is terrible. And, when you’re doing science, you have a lot of bad ideas. Ideas. But, you know, but you get some good ones if you’re a good scientist, and now those carry the day. Brian Keating:Oh, that’s great. And I I like to think about you, yes, as a as a ponderer, as an intellectual. And I I, you know, I guess, I I foremost think of you as a scientist because even in philanthropy, and even in, your role as a department chair and and your roles throughout, throughout the, you know, the the financial world, you have always adopted, it seems to me, a scientist mentality where you approach theory. Just as you said, I could replace what you said ideas with experiments. And you do many, many experiments, thought experiments, and some C succeed, and some are actual experiments in real life. I’m not just talking about the Simons Observatory, but I’m talking about, running, you know, running projects. And part of what I want to talk to you about today is this notion of of leadership in these different communities and these different hats that you’ve worn. And whether or not you think there’s some translation or some, skill set that you had uniquely, that made you a good leader of these industries or or professions, because people are lucky enough to have one career, let alone 3. Brian Keating:And I wonder, you know, were you just born with it? Was there something that was instilled to in you by your parents or your upbringing, your relatively modest upbringing in outside of Boston? Is there anything that instilled that, or is it just your nature that you were kinda born this way? Jim Simons:Well, we’re talking about leadership. Well, I have a lot of imagination, so I’ve come up with some ideas, that have, that have worked. But my idea of leadership of an organization is to hire the very best people you possibly can. And I have a good taste in people. Mhmm. And then let them carry the ball. And Mhmm. When I became chair of, the Stony Brook math department, I reached out for the best person I could possibly find, and he was your father. Jim Simons:Mhmm. And, I knew if your dad would come on board, it would open up the floodgates of, people saying, oh, well, this department, can really go somewhere. So, I spent a lot of time courting your father. And, finally, he said yes. And then I was able to quickly hire 3 or 4 other outstanding people. And, and we did that over the next couple of years. I hired 10 people the 1st year, 10 the second, and I think maybe 10 people the 3rd year. And by then, we’ve

Searching for Alien Earths with Lisa Kaltenegger

Searching for Alien Earths with Lisa Kaltenegger Transcript Brian Keating: Carl Sagan died over 25 years ago, but his legacy lives on, and so does the mystery that haunted him all of his life. What if Earth isn’t the only home for life in the universe? Imagine the vast expanse of space filled with planets teeming with life. As Karl said, if there’s no life, it’s an awful waste of space. But what does space look like? Could we even detect life on other planets? These aren’t just sci fi questions. They’re the heart of humanity’s oldest and most profound curiosities. And now, thanks to cutting edge technology and theoretical progress from today’s guest, we’re closer than ever to finding the answers. Lisa Kaltenegger: This is our first step. A biosphere that changes a planet and lets us spot life in the light that we collect with our Brian Keating: Under her leadership, a multidisciplinary team of scientists is developing innovative tools to detect signs of alien life. What exactly do we need for life to begin somewhere else? This is one of Lisa’s key driving questions, and her work propels us into these mysteries and beyond. She’s here today to take us on an extraordinary journey across the cosmology, seeking habitable planets and perhaps the next Earth, the alien Earth. Lisa Kaltenegger: But one of the things we don’t know is what condition do you need for life to get started. Brian Keating: Stay tuned as we embark on this cosmic voyage. You never know who or what we might meet out there. Welcome to an alien episode of the Into the Impossible podcast with a fan favorite, a personal favorite, and to my knowledge, the person who has done the most for spectroscopy since her countryman, Doppler. So Christian Doppler did a lot, and I think he would love to meet you, a fellow, Austrian. How are you doing today? I just talked about Christian Doppler this week, and I told my class, a cosmologist, I’m talking to you. So excited. Lisa, how are you? Lisa Kaltenegger: I am good. Thank you so much, and thanks for having me back on the show. I would love to be Doppler and especially, as you said, Austrian countrymen. Right? One of the things we would sit down with a great Austrian theory, like civilized people discussing science. Brian Keating: I always make, note that he was from the same town as another person who knew quite a bit about, frequency and pitch and melody, and that was, of course, Wolfgang Mozart. They were from the same town. So when I visited Austria for the first and only time, I made sure to pay equal attention and regard to Christian Doppler. So I should give your your your bio. You’ve been a a guest on the Into the Impossible podcast before, but you now have a book, and we’re so excited to talk about it. You are the founding director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University where I was almost born and almost got into, except I was rejected twice. Lisa Kaltenegger: But I said, the offer is open. Come and work for me, you know, any time. Yes. Brian Keating: I wanna do another post doc. The new science of finding toolkits to find life on faraway worlds, and this new book is about exactly that. And I think the thing that most is is just so delightful about you is you’re so authentic, Lisa. You don’t shy away from talking about challenges. You also don’t dwell on them. There’s there’s some aspects of the book where you talk about challenges of, you know, women and minorities and so forth, but you Arthur not by any means, you know, beholden to a class or a status and and you’re just your honesty is is so delightful. As a professional to another professional, I just I wanna congratulate you on that aspect, but the book is is a triumph. It’s one of my favorite new books. Brian Keating: Talk to me as we do. Help me judge the book by its cover. What’s the meaning of the title, the subtitle, and the beautiful artwork, which I only have, you know, half of the artwork, because you have another copy over there. Show me Lisa Kaltenegger: This is what I was was about to say, you know, you can actually take your pick. So you can have the British copy. And you’ve just shown the American copy. And the really interesting thing about this let me just bring it up here. I wrote a book. And then the publishers so Macmillan here at the US, that’s theory, and Penguin Press in the u in the UK. And I had no idea that you get 2 publishers for the same language, but you do. They made up their mind what this book is about, you know, and how they wanted to represent it. And so we’re going with the American first. So the title, I wanted the title to be Alien Earth because it has so much in it. It’s us searching for planets like ours around other stars, so alien Arthur. But it’s also I bring you into the history of our own planet because you need to understand the history of our own planet to be able to not miss signs of life if the planet’s just younger than ours or maybe older than ours. And yesterday was pretty funny. I talked to my husband, and he was like, oh, alien earth, because you’re an alien in science sometimes as the only woman. I was like, oh, that’s a third aspect I hadn’t even considered that he took from that. And so I love the title. Brian Keating: superhero manic. Lisa Kaltenegger: Alien Earth. And then the new science of planet had to get the cosmos. Can I just tell you? It’s so funny because it’s alien Arthur. Right?

Craig Venter: Did He Make Life In The Lab?

Craig Venter: Did He Make Life In The Lab? Transcript Speaker: The only junk DNA is in my colleagues’ brains.   Brian Keating: Today, we’re featuring Craig Venter, a world renowned biotechnologist known for his groundbreaking contributions to genomics. He had a pivotal role in leading the 1st draft sequence of the human genome and assembling the pioneering team that achieved the transfection of a cell with a synthetic chromosome.   Speaker: The cells are very dynamic, changing second to second. But one thing is fundamental to all life, And that’s the genetic code.   Brian Keating: Later in life, he and his research team created the world’s 1st synthetic organism from scratch, demonstrating the potential of synthetic biology to engineer life at the molecular level.   Speaker: Taking those gene pathways, putting them in The synthetic organisms will be able to create whole new chemical libraries.   Brian Keating: Craig’s a leading figure. He’s hilarious, unfettered, unshackled, and unafraid. You’ll hear all of that in this episode and find out why he was among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, not once but twice, maybe on another planet where life already exists. So without further ado, we welcome a lively episode of the Into the Impossible podcast, my friend Craig Venter, live recorded at UCSD this past fall.   Brian Keating: Welcome everybody to what promises to be an exciting and lively, emphasis on lively, Episode of the Into the Impossible podcast with none other than Craig Venter of many different theory, but we’re gonna talk about a couple of them in particular, including Mapping the human genome. Craig is local here in La Jolla. He has his institute named after him down the down the road from our campus, And he’s graciously agreed to spend some time with me. I’m gonna run out of time before I run out of questions, Craig. Thank you so much for visiting.   Speaker: My pleasure to be here.   Brian Keating: And you’re a proud alumni, Son of San Diego, UCSD. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about how the campus has changed a little bit. But sitting in that chair a couple months back bang, Kim Stanley Robinson, And who also goes by his middle name only as Stan. I don’t know what it is with you, famed super famous, brilliant, creative types. So today, we’re gonna talk about a variety of subjects, including your recent book, The Voyage of Sorcerer 2. We’re gonna talk about what happened to you on Sorcerer 1, Which is foreshadowing. But first, we’re gonna start with a very simple, easy question, Craig, and that is the one posed by Erwin Schrodinger in theory in a monograph, a very slim monograph. And that question was, what is life?   Speaker: That’s a book I recommend that every scientist read at least Once. I’ve read it a few times. A few years back, I was asked to give, the only time someone was asked to give the Schrodinger lecture other than Schrodinger Sure. In the same, hall, under the same circumstance. It was it was really an amazing experience. And because we’ve designed the first Living cell, that didn’t happen in nature. People assume that I can answer that question. But, he tried I did define it in physical terms and, you know, thought about things about the genetic code bang before Watson and Crick.   Speaker: And while everybody was sure that it was proteins, you know, he said it could be as simple as, Morse code.   Brian Keating: Crystal And   Speaker: I was talking to, Francis Crick about that. He goes, well, that was obvious to everybody. He was very dismissive of you know? That that was hardly a unique notion other than from protein chemists who, still refused to give Avery the Nobel Prize for proving that DNA was It’s the genetic material. The cells are very dynamic, changing second to second. But one thing is fundamental to all life, And that’s the genetic code. If you take the genetic code out of any cell, any species, the cell dies very rapidly. The Species dies. That’s why we’re so susceptible to radiation poisoning.   Speaker: It basically blows apart Structure and you can’t continue to produce proteins and live. So some proteins have a half life of seconds, some minutes, some hours, But they’re not permanent structures. So every cell on our body is second to second constantly being rebuilt. Built. So the genetic code is being read, translated in proteins produced on a constant to bases. It’s even coded in the protein how long they’ll live and their degradation rate. So it’s a constant Synthesis degradation, taking out the garbage, and so without the fundamental information molecule, there is No life. That’s a good fundamental start.   Speaker: Mhmm. Cells, you know, have to defy entropy. They have to keep existing by creating energy. They take things from the environment. We have, you know, hundreds of ways that different cells make energy and the forms of life vary from things that live at a 135 degrees centigrade down to subzero temperatures. History of biology is it got defined in a human centric point of view. So, you know, we were the Standard, so nothing could live out of 37 degrees, and we were the center of the universe. We’re not the center of biology.   Speaker: We may Be the center of trying to understand and interpret biology, but we’re the minor species on the planet. So key proteins in the membrane pump nutrients and pump waste molecules out, but it’s a dynamic system that, In my view, kind of spontaneously happens. Mhmm.   Brian Keating: Mhmm.   Speaker: And we’re trying to see right now if we can get it to happen spontaneously. Usually, when we made the synthetic cell, we made a we wrote the genetic code and we Developed a transplantation system

EXCLUSIVE Craig Venter Q&A

EXCLUSIVE Craig Venter Q&A Transcript Brian Keating: Today, we’re featuring Craig Venter, a world renowned biotechnologist known for his groundbreaking contributions to genomics. He had a pivotal role in leading the 1st draft sequence of the human genome and assembling the pioneering team that achieved the transfection of a cell with a synthetic chromosome.   Speaker: The cells are very dynamic, changing 2nd to 2nd. But one thing is fundamental to all life, and that’s the genetic code.   Brian Keating: Later in life, He and his research team created the world’s 1st synthetic organism from scratch, demonstrating the potential of synthetic biology to engineer life at the molecular level.   Speaker: Taking those gene pathways, putting them in synthetic organisms, we’ll Be able to create whole new chemical libraries.   Brian Keating: Craig’s a leading figure. He’s hilarious, unfettered, unshackled, and unafraid. You’ll hear all of that in this episode and find out why he was among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, not once but twice, maybe on another planet where life already exists. So without further ado, we welcome a lively episode of the Into the Impossible podcast, my friend Craig Venter, live recorded at UCSD this past fall.   Brian Keating: Welcome back to our extended session with none other than doctor Craig Venter, whose incredible intellect and influence on so many of us. And I wanted to solicit questions, and so I did take them on Twitter, x, and also on Instagram, and on my YouTube channel. Doctor Brian Keating is the handle for all those. So we’re gonna get some some wild and interesting stuff ranging from panspermia to UAPs to Life at other planets, but we’re gonna begin with a more, you know, close to home. Okay. So the first question. Hi, Brian. It may be and this is from doctor Thomas Dheeraj.   Brian Keating: It may be interesting to talk about cancer and the somatic mutation theory. Any ideas where there has been so little to no advance in survival for most advanced Solid tumors despite our understanding of the human genome. Do you believe, Craig, that cancer is purely a genetic disease?   Speaker: Well, it’s definitely a genetic disease, but that doesn’t mean its ultimate cause Radiation causes cancer by mutating, the genome. Mhmm. So it’s the radiation that causes the cancer. Same things Happened with chemical exposure, UV light. I’ve on my, I think, 12th for 14th round of Mohs surgery, the surgeon said, you know, have you been exposed to sunlight? And I said, for 77 years, You know? And and, you know, I was supposed to sunlight long before there was sunscreen, so I I have more than my share of skin cancer from UV light Exposure. My   Brian Keating: father-in-law had acne treated using, X rays in   Speaker: the back half in the sixties. Yeah. Yeah. And X rays are Definitely a a a carcinogen on their own. So but these things change the genetic code. So, Human longevity, we would sequence the individual’s genome and sequence the tumor’s genome, and you find All the genes that are mutated, and it turns out these can be very useful and a lot of therapies Clarke being developed on. The term we use is neoantigens because it’s a mutated protein. It actually changes the structure of the protein, and the immune system can recognize it.   Speaker: And there’s been attempts to take these out and And see which T cells recognize them Mhmm. And then make more of that peptide to give it as a vaccine against The individual tumor. So it’s it’s a personalized vaccine approach, and it, has seen Some success. I think Steve Rosenberg was the 1st to do it with melanoma. It hasn’t been universal. You know, we haven’t worked out all the rules on it yet, but, yes, cancer is a, it’s based on changes in genetics.   Brian Keating: Another question regarding genetics and modification comes from user x n n four w no. I’m not gonna read Although that was my choice for my, 2nd child’s name, x user x okay. He or she is asking, do GMOs, genetically modified organisms affect our DNA? If so, to what extent?   Speaker: Only through the plasticity of your brain be infected by That notion that they do anything negative.   Brian Keating: Okay. This is a a possibly contentious one. This comes from a man whose name is an aptronym, Gene, like, your friend who came with the algorithm that you mentioned, a suitable name for his job or her job, he or she is asking, why weren’t you able to create life? What’s the missing spark? The reason this is a good question is that I don’t know if he’d argue that he did or didn’t. So did you create life? If so, what was the missing Bark or if you did not, what what is the necessary lacunae that is missing?   Speaker: So right now, all A life that we know comes from preexisting life. And even the synthetic cell we made, we Made a totally new species that never existed before, but we use an existing cell to transplant the genome into, and that genome Converted that cell into totally a new species.   Brian Keating: Mhmm. So that’s a it’s prokaryotic. It was a cell wall. You used these existing theory. Yep.   Speaker: And, micro Plasma, so there’s no cell wall. On the same day of our announcement, I got comments from president Obama and from the pope.   Brian Keating: In 2010.   Speaker: President Obama announced that he was forming his new bioethics commission, to review the ethics So Ron making synthetic life, the pope said doctor Venter did not create life. He just Change one of life’s motors. Mhmm. So there there are groups with the notion of trying to make it from a cell

Michael Turner Explains the Origins & Mysteries ofDark Energy!

Michael Turner Explains the Origins & Mysteries of Dark Energy! Transcript Brian Keating: Michael Turner is a theoretical cosmologist, emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, and former director of the Kavli Institute For Cosmological Physics. He’s a pioneer in exploring what he called the dark side of the universe. He actually coined the term dark energy, and his revolutionary ideas led to the cold dark matter theory of structure formation. Mike’s contributions to modern physics are truly invaluable, and I’m beyond thrilled to have him as a guest on my show. Join us in a deep dive into the dark side of our twisted universe. Welcome everybody to a very important, meaningful, and delightful episode of The Into the Impossible podcast with an impossibly brilliant guest who I’ve been, really, you know, in love with his mind since I was a wee lad, a graduate student, he’s a legend in the field, and it’s, professor Michael Turner, University Of Chicago, theoretical cosmologist who among many things is rumored to have coined the term dark energy. Michael, is that correct? Did you coin the term dark matter? Speaker: Guilt guilty as charged. Brian Keating: Who claimed that, I guess, Wiki coined the term dark matter in German. Correct? Speaker: That’s right. I can’t pronounce the German Dunkelmater or something like that. Brian Keating: Yeah. I think you’re you’re closer than I’ll ever get to it. Michael, where are you joining us from today? Speaker: I’m joining, from my office in Venice, California. Brian Keating: I really appreciate your time and whatever you’ll spare in person or online. But, Mike, we have a lot to talk about. We’ll run out of time before I run out of questions. Beg your forbearance as we go into the very first question I ask all my guests who honor me with, their presence on my humble podcast, And that is to judge a book by its cover. And in your case, your book with Rocky Kolb, your, colleague at the University of Chicago, has, really influenced generations of of cosmologists, of of theoretical particle physicists, astrophysicists, experimentalist like myself. And I want to do the following, if you will. To judge the book by its cover, I would like you to describe the cover art, The cover title and the subtitle. How did you and Rocky Kolb come up with it? Speaker: The original hardback version had a very boring cover. It was just white And the words early universe. And if my memory serves me correct, there was no subtitle. And, The paperback version which you may be referring to, has a wonderful story with it. The cover is a beautiful image of a galaxy, Actually, for its time. I mean, today, we get much better images from, JWST and and the Hubble. So the title, that was exceedingly easy. Rocky and I, were pioneers of studying the 1st microsecond. Speaker: And, I like to tell the joke by the time we got to cosmology, you know, everybody specializes. All that was left was the 1st microsecond. And that is the early universe, but we got there at a very good time because the early universe had just opened up. Shortly before we got there, you couldn’t talk about the early universe because it was just a mess. It was nuclei and protons and neutrons sitting on top of one another. And we were there when the doors opened when people realized that it was cork soup. And early universe, it you know, a good title’s gotta be simple. It’s gotta have cosmology, and, early Where it was at? Do you wanna hear the paperback version? Brian Keating: Yeah. Because we’re gonna springboard from the paperback to a discussion of these peculiar properties of galaxies, which in my mind, Michael, I’m not gonna teach I’m not gonna let the student teach the master, but a galaxy is not exactly, at least when I was a kid, An early universe phenomenon of the 1st microsecond. So, yes, how did that come to be? The Whirlpool Galaxy. Speaker: So that’s perfect. Our our our book did really, really well, And it was going into paperback, and I was in Aspen, Colorado, and they sent the artwork to me for the new cover. And it was this beautiful picture of a galaxy, and, I called up Rocky, And he said, well, you got the cover artwork. What do you think? And I said, it’s beautiful, but it has nothing to do with our book. And he said, we’ll take it. So our book is about the 1st microsecond, but that’s where the blueprint for the universe got laid out And that’s where galaxies can trace their origins to. So it’s not quite fair to say that, it was a bait and switch, that it’s not really about the Pretty Galaxies You See in the Sky, but the cover was chosen because oh my god. Well, the, I wish I had could easily get copies here. Speaker: It’s so funny. Rocky and I pioneered a lot of ground there. I think we were at book number 69, And David we we asked David to make some changes because he had a standard preface that talked about, You know, these are not to be designed to be polished, and, they’re typically from mimeograph notes. Yeah. And we said to David, David, what is a mimeograph machine? And, so we changed some of his, forward, but they had a standard. You know, that’s important when you have a brand. Frontiers in Physics was a brand, and it was very simple. It was white and blue. Speaker: But then when some other publishing company took it over and did the paperback, they made it really fancy. Brian Keating: It’s still in the top 200 of books in astrophysics even, you know, it’s, coming up on its 30th 30th anniversary, incredible, of the of the 2nd edition, I think. Speaker:

Cumrun Vafa: Is String Theory Actually Science?

Cumrum Vafa: Is String Theory Actually Science? Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLe5_h4ZUEI Cumrun Vafa: There’s one thing to have a constructive critiscism of a theory, but to say, “Oh no, this is bad, this is bad” and so forth without any given alternative, I think is just disservice to Science. And to be frankly, frankly to get publicity for the sake of publicity to try to say something. And to me, controversial statement just to attract attention, I think, is unfortunate. Brian Keating: Welcome everybody to this edition of the Into the Impossible podcast, I am your fearful host, Brian Keating. And today, it is a great pleasure, a treat in fact, for me to welcome none other than Cumrun Vafa of Harvard University. How are you, Cumrun? Cumrun Vafa: Thank you very much, Brian, for having me your program. It’s a Great pleasure. I’m fine and, looking forward to our discussions. Brian Keating: Yes. I’ve been, just devouring your book, which we’re gonna Talk a lot about today, puzzles to unravel the universe. And I’ve been fascinated with puzzles my whole life, mostly my inability to solve them, but you are noted for having made tremendous contributions to the world of theoretical physics, and this is your1st popular science book as I understand it. And I always like to say there’s a piece of advice that you never should judge a book by its cover. But on this on this book, not only do you have a very mysterious and and puzzling imagery, but you also have endorsements in from none other than Edward Witten, Well, I’ve tried to get on the show unsuccessfully, but I’ll I’ll talk to you about that later. And also, Brian Green, another Brian. Actually, my kid’s Favorite Brianin astrophysics. But I wanna ask you, how did you come up with the name of the book, Puzzles to Unravel the Universe? And how did you come up with the artwork that so beautifully graces the cover of this book? Cumrun Vafa: The title, I think, was motivated by a course I’m Teaching, for Harvard’s freshman called physics, math, and puzzles. It’s a freshman seminar. And, so the book was Basically, the was drawn out of its course. And, so I decided I was thinking about what title to choose if I had Chosen physics, math, and puzzle sounded a little bit, maybe boring, so I thought maybe I should use some elements of it without Sounding too academic and a bit more kind of exciting in terms ofapplications to the real world and so on. So I thought that, which which involves actually the motivation behind the whole course, which is theconnections with the real world. So I thought unraveling, the universe through Puzzles, puzzles to unravel the universe does justice to what I wanted to convey, and, that’s why I chose that. As far as the cover, I got some help from some some people online, but, this whole design and all that happened duringthe pandemic. So I decided, during the pandemic, one thing I could do, is to finish this series of notes into a book, which I decided doing and the sub publisher just to go over, get it quickly out and get it done, so that it’s people who may wanna be looking at it could could have a chance to do it during the pandemic as well. Cumrun Vafa: So it was done in a bit of a speedy way at the end, but, so that’s that’s what it is. But I’m very happy with the with the the cover of the book as well as the way the book came out. Brian Keating: Yes. It’s very, intriguing, and it matches the subject matter as well. I wanna make a distinction between mysteries and puzzles, and wonder if you do that as well. To me, there’s a difference between a mystery and a puzzle, And I and I once discussed this with, Freeman Dyson, who I know you knew, the late great Freeman Dyson. And it was that, you know, a puzzle is something that could be solved. Maybe I can’t solve it because I’m not as smart as you, but, a mystery might not be solvable. And I wonder, do you make a distinction between mysteries versus puzzles? Cumrun Vafa: Well, in a sense, puzzles aspire to be mysteries. That’s a good puzzle. Aspire to be like mysteries. That’s not quite solvable, but gives you an creation to new ideas. So I view puzzles always like that. But I I I think for example, in the book I talk about the enigma of quantum mechanics, I still view it as a mysterious features that we encounter even though we think we understand quantum mechanics. You know, the features of experimentation within quantum mechanicsare serious still to me. And so with that in that sense, I agree we we haven’t solved it or it’s it’s not solvable at this point. Cumrun Vafa: It might continue to be mysterious or maybe it gets resolved in a different form. Some other things happen like black holes. We have similar enigmas about black hole and mysteries about black Cool. Puzzles are pieces which kind of, as I say, try to get some features of these mysteries In some little nuggets of truth, and you can kind of wrap your mind around it and kind of understand it at least. So there’s kind of There’s a distinction, but there’s this also this relation.They wanna reinforce each other that is you’re hoping that the mysteries become like puzzles that you can solve. That’s the way I look at it. Brian Keating: Yeah. I looked at, puzzles. I remember the most famous one perhaps is, Rubik’s cube as a puzzle that I became infatuated with as a kid And then early 19 eighties, I think it’s just about 40 years old and maybe a little bit older made by, I believe, a Hungarian named Rubik and became

David Chalmers:The Matrix is REAL!

David Chalmer: The Matrix is REAL! Transcript Speaker: The human brain is a big complex machine. It’s an amazing machine. It’s a creative machine, but it’s still made up of these neurons which are appear to be computational units hooked up in amazing ways. The imagination, as far as we can tell, is itself a kind of simulation when we imagine things. When Einstein was imagining things in free fall, he was running a kind of simulation himself running on this incredible computer, which is far more sophisticated than any computer that we ourselves have developed to date. But, you know, AI is moving fast. I can’t believe where it is now compared to where it was 10 years ago. I am   Brian Keating: your fearful host, professor Brian Keating of the Arthur c Clark Center For Human Imagination, talking with a renowned Intellect. And this is a rear, a real treat. When I found out that his new book was coming out, I just had to get them. And it is none other than professor David Chalmers, who first formulated the problem of the hard problem of consciousness, which we’re gonna get to in a paper facing up to the problem Consciousness in way back in 1995, expanded upon it in his, wonderful book, the conscious mind 96, his works are provocative, influential And and, some of the greatest luminaries of all time, including past guest Steven Pinker have, called it, so praiseworthy and his acclaim and renown no no bounds. And so first, I wanna welcome you today, Dave. How are you doing today all the way in New York?   Speaker: Thanks, Brian. Yeah. Great to great to be here. It’s kinda kinda rainy out here, but, I hope it’s hope it’s sunnier where you are.   Brian Keating: Yeah. La Jolla, that’s a fair game. You know? I I usually say, you know, the hardest job in the world is being a San Diego sportscaster because we’ve never won a championship in any sport. But the easiest job is being San Diego’s meteorologist because 72 and sunny, 71a half and sun. You know, it’s it’s, it makes up for, its lack of of variance by its, a consistency of beauty. So, yes, it is quite lovely. But I am a native New Yorker. I’m a a born and bred in New York, so sometimes the accent will come out.   Brian Keating: And, Dave, as I told you right before we started, my audience loves it when I play the game, which we call judging books by their covers and titles and subtitles. So this book has a butterfly, very provocative and beautiful butterfly, which is kind of the only character that makes its way through dream sequences throughout the book. The title’s reality plus. The subtitle’s virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy. Dave, explain to us what is the title, the meaning of the title, and that mischievous butterfly doing on it.   Speaker: The title is, is reality plus. Actually, I started I had a working title for a long time that was reality 2.0 because this is about you know, the book is in large part about virtual an artificial realities. These could be the, the, the 2nd class of realities. 1st reality, physical reality. But then we start creating our own artificial realities. That’s reality 2 point o. Another idea is it could turn out that we ourselves might be in simulated artificial reality, so that our reality is reality 2.0. Now the only trouble is there’s a fatal flaw with this title, which has probably occurred to all of your listeners already, which is, you know, reality 2.0 suggests to people AOL 19 nineties, You’ve Got Mail.   Brian Keating: Dial up.   Speaker: Yeah. It’s it’s so retro that it sounds like it’s a step the step backwards rather than a step forwards. Was it yeah. Even our colleague Max Tegmark went to life 3.0 to avoid this problem. I thought reality 4.0, maybe not. But someone had the great idea of, yeah, well, reality plus. Mhmm. Because although putting a plus, on the, on the end of a title may be becoming a ubiquitous cliche too, at least in, at least in streaming services, you know, Disney plus Right.   Speaker: Hulu. Apple TV plus, Paramount plus, and so on. At least, it’s a 20 twenties cliche and not a, and not a 19 nineties cliche. And it kinda suggests this idea. There’s more to reality than you think. There’s physical reality, there’s virtual reality, there’s simulated realities. And, yeah, if in the future somebody comes up with a reality streaming service, where you’re able to choose between the virtual realities and you wanna live in, then reality plus might be a, might be an appropriate name for it. So in the end, I thought, okay.   Speaker: Gotta go with reality plus, gotta go with the plus sign.   Brian Keating: And that gives a hint that the enhancement that we’re going to be, experiencing in the Maybe augmentation and supplementation, but maybe even full scale replacement of our notions of reality. And I’ve had on, as I said, Don Hoffman So it believes reality does not exist and that’s sort of a, an avatarish, scenario, desktop scenario, which is which is provocative, and you refer to him towards the end of the book, when we may get a chance to get into that. I neglected to mention that you are the codirector of NYU Center For mind and brain consciousness. So oh, no. Brain consciousness. You know, my mom named me, you know, Brian so that people would make that mistake, and it happens about 2 times a day. And you were elected a fellow of both the American Academy of arts and sciences, but in your native land down under of Australia, you were elected The Australian Academy of Humanities as well. And