Podcast Episodes
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What We Learn From Running ‘Life’ in Reverse
Season 1 Episode 30
Imagine a set of simple building blocks that can self-assemble into any shape you want. The possibilities for such a technology could be boundless. I…
11 months ago
The Math of Catastrophe
Season 1 Episode 29
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to dry out, becoming the desert that we know today. T…
11 months, 1 week ago
Audio Edition: Quantum Speedup Found for Huge Class of Hard Problems
Season 1 Episode 28
It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster than classical machines, but a new algorithm appears to do i…
11 months, 2 weeks ago
What Can a Cell Remember?
Season 1 Episode 27
“Memory” means many things to many people, and in many fields. We tend to understand memory to be a phenomenon that happens primarily in the brain, b…
11 months, 2 weeks ago
Climate Modeling Is at a Crossroads
Season 1 Episode 26
The climate is changing. So is the way we understand the climate. On this week's episode, contributing writer Zack Savitsky joins host Samir Patel to…
11 months, 3 weeks ago
Audio Edition: A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems
Season 1 Episode 26
Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species.
The story A New, Chemical View of E…
11 months, 4 weeks ago
AI's Dark Side Is Only a Nudge Away
Season 1 Episode 25
In order to trust machines with important jobs, we need a high level of confidence that they share our values and goals. Recent work shows that this …
1 year ago
How We Came To Know Earth
Season 1 Episode 24
For most of us, the word “climate” immediately generates thoughts of melting ice, rising seas, wildfires and gathering storms. However, in the course…
1 year ago
Audio Edition: ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture
Season 1 Episode 24
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in three dimensions illuminates a w…
1 year ago
How a 17-Year-Old Solved a Major Math Mystery
Season 1 Episode 23
In the field of harmonic analysis, there’s a constellation of questions about how the energy of a wave concentrates.
Earlier this year, a 17-year-old …
1 year ago