Life from scratch
About this episode
Scientists explore the essential genes that define life in the first episode of a new series.
Scientists stripped a cell down to its most essential genes in order to find out what makes life...alive. What they found was more bizarre than they could have imagined. This is the first episode of our new three-part series, Life from Scratch. Guests: Kate Adamala, associate professor at the University of Minnesota; John Glass, leader of the JCVI Synthetic Biology Group. For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable (and get ad-free episodes) by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
People in this episode
Guests: Kate Adamala, John Glass
Topics covered
- synthetic biology
- life origins
- genetics
- cell biology
- scientific research
Keywords
- life
- genes
- synthetic biology
- cell
- research
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Minnesota, JCVI Synthetic Biology Group, Vox, vox.com, vox.com/members, podcastchoices.com
More episodes of Unexplainable
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- A breakthrough in synthetic life
- The idea of a song
- Why can’t I remember being a baby?
- Can these corals take the heat?
- Why Hank Green takes pseudoscience seriously
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