An Astrobiologist Pieces Together How Life Started

Añadido: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Life is about survival and it is about how the biological systems find ways to make it. You know how we are told that in the face of conflict like find some corner maybe be quiet. Life doesn't do that. It's you punch it, it punches back. Biology needs to completely transform itself and really evaluate molecules and cells and organisms from the perspective of the planet. We need to understand the planetary boundaries that constrain life in order to understand and maybe create a better future for ourselves as well because we rely on these organisms.

[00:00:37]This is Star Talk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Got Chuck Nice with me.

[00:00:43]>> What's up, Neil?

[00:00:44]>> Chuck, it's about time we cover this subject.

[00:00:48]>> Okay.

[00:00:48]>> It's life on Earth and in the heavens.

[00:00:51]It is about time because, you know, it's been about four billion years. Like, when the hell are we going to get to?

[00:00:57]>> Might as well, might as well do it now.

[00:00:58]>> Might as well do it now.

[00:01:01]>> And there's an interesting diversity of expertise out there. Everybody taking the little bit of what their background enables them to study, okay, >> and contribute to our understanding, okay, of what life is and what makes it tick. Yeah.

[00:01:15]>> And what's the difference between life here and elsewhere?

[00:01:17]>> Oh, what do you mean elsewhere?

[00:01:20]Well, we're going to find out.

[00:01:21]>> Oh, okay.

[00:01:21]>> We have with us Betul Kashar.

[00:01:27]Bet >> kind of.

[00:01:29]>> Okay. We have with us Betul Kashar.

[00:01:32]>> Let's do one more time. Bet Kachar.

[00:01:34]>> We have with us Betul Kashar.

[00:01:37]>> No.

[00:01:38]>> No.

[00:01:38]>> Kachar is a check.

[00:01:39]>> Chacha. We have with us Betul Kachar.

[00:01:42]>> Hi.

[00:01:43]>> Hello.

[00:01:43]>> Hi. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:45]>> I guess welcome to Star Talk.

[00:01:47]>> Happy to be here.

[00:01:48]>> All right. So you got all the pedigree here that's necessary for this conversation.

[00:01:53]Director of the NASA funded Muse metal utilization and selection across eons.

[00:02:01]>> Oh wow.

[00:02:01]>> That we got to get into what what's that about?

[00:02:04]>> Yeah.

[00:02:04]>> Yeah. And there's the And there's a Kachchar lab. Did you found your own lab? Is that right?

[00:02:09]>> Yeah. Yeah. I I run my own lab.

[00:02:11]>> That's bad. People have their own labs.

[00:02:12]That's a badass. That's badass. It's pretty cool. That that's that's that's very mari of you.

[00:02:19]>> I hope my ending is the same.

[00:02:20]>> No.

[00:02:21]>> Well, the good part.

[00:02:22]>> Okay. That means if you create something in your lab, it comes after you first.

[00:02:26]>> Yeah.

[00:02:27]>> I I live with that fact every day. Thank you for guiding me.

[00:02:31]>> You are professor University of Wisconsin Madison.

[00:02:34]>> Nice.

[00:02:34]>> In the department of bacteriology.

[00:02:37]>> Wow.

[00:02:37]>> Ooh. So, if you have that on a business card and you hand that to someone, do they just walk away from you >> or do they use gloves to take your card?

[00:02:44]Well, let me tell you, I don't have a lot of friends because of this.

[00:02:47]>> That's what I'm wondering.

[00:02:48]>> Yeah. But if you don't like bacteria, we can't be friends. So, let's get that straight.

[00:02:53]>> Are we bacteria friendly here?

[00:02:54]>> Yeah, we are.

[00:02:55]>> Okay, good.

[00:02:56]>> Yeah. Very good. Very good.

[00:02:58]>> Without it, would we be would we even be would we even be we would not be without bacteria?

[00:03:03]>> We wouldn't be able to breathe.

[00:03:04]>> Yeah. We wouldn't be Go ahead.

[00:03:06]>> You would make an attempt, but there wouldn't be any oxygen to breathe >> or digest our food.

[00:03:09]>> Right.

[00:03:10]>> So many things.

[00:03:11]>> It does the digestion.

[00:03:12]>> Does all the digestion. Right.

[00:03:13]>> Right. Right. Okay. But see, we're friendly.

[00:03:18]We wanted to make sure.

[00:03:20]>> So, uh, you recently published a paper in Nature, which is the, uh, the preeminent European journal of science.

[00:03:28]You resurrected ancient enzymes. What does that even mean? It's kind of scary though to resurrect anything as a biologist.

[00:03:36]>> Yes.

[00:03:37]>> That that's that's got Jurassic Park all written all over it.

[00:03:40]>> Oh, I was going on I was going with Jesus, but Okay. Jurassic. I'll take the Jurassic Park.

[00:03:46]>> They both start with a J.

[00:03:48]>> Yeah. Exactly. So, so tell me what what with the significance of that paper.

[00:03:53]>> Well, we as you said in the beginning there are many ways in which a scientist can study life and we are I would say obsessed with understanding its origins and it is first steps and mind you it's a bit different than life's origin. We are interested in what happened once life emerged and what were the first steps and how did life survive over eons over billions of years and how did it make it through this far. We are also interested in understanding the marks that life leaves behind. So if I you know walk in the snow you can tell my footsteps at least for some time and then snow melts and my marks are gone.

[00:04:31]Right? If I leave that kind of mark on rocks like if I'm a dinosaur you're able to track my past as well using this. But if I'm a microbe, how does this work?

[00:04:39]And we know that this is a microbial planet. Our planet is run by microbes.

[00:04:43]If you don't like microbes, >> wrong place for you.

[00:04:46]>> So Beyonce was wrong. Who run the world?

[00:04:48]Not girls. Microbes >> and girls.

[00:04:51]>> See what happened. See what happened.

[00:04:53]>> She's all UP IN YOUR SITUATION.

[00:04:55]>> DON'T EVEN TRY. Next time, just give up.

[00:04:58]LOOK AT I SEE. I GOT YOUR NUMBER. I got your number. Okay. Okay. So in the end of the day, we are just vessels for microbes to do their work.

[00:05:09]>> Exactly. I mean our gut, the gut feeling, I always find it funny. It's really, you know, microbial gut, right?

[00:05:14]Microbes scramble inside of you and and and they they live there and they you are basically a hostage for a microbe as far as I can tell.

[00:05:21]>> I I checked the numbers on this. One centimeter slice of your lower >> intestine.

[00:05:26]>> Intestine, >> in there lives and works more microbes, >> okay, >> than the total number of humans who have ever been born.

[00:05:34]>> Nice.

[00:05:35]>> So to them, we are just an anorobic vessel of feal matter, >> right?

[00:05:41]>> Oh yes. Yes. That's you know an ugly bags of mostly water and anorobic vessels of mostly vehicle. Like I agree, we are very crappy.

[00:05:50]>> But it works. It works. But the the whole point of this paper though is that you know as I mentioned your marks can be erased and and life that what makes life so amazing on this planet that it is an evolving system. It's it's not like geology where you can find a rock and you're lucky to find one and you can analyze the fossils on them. But how do you replay the tape? How do you visit the past of something that constantly overwrites itself?

[00:06:12]>> Right. Cuz in geologists they have a rock >> and it can sit there for hundreds of millions of years and it's still the same rock. Right. Exactly. And then another layer that they have layers that they can go down and look at.

[00:06:21]>> Exactly. And if it's not covered by forest, which mostly our planet is, so we're not going to be able to find these rocks. And we have a very few rocks that we can rely on in order to tell the story of the first two billion years of this planet. And that's >> of well, you know what? Life and the planet because the first two billion years about a year and a billion and a half of that life was present here, right? Life happened to this planet really rapidly. So I don't think you can separate planet earth from life. It's a pretty it's been a pretty >> nice what is the timeline when you talk about whatever molten state cooling life what's that timeline >> if you for geologist it's like a second it's pretty fast we're talking about 500 million years for us for us that's you know long time ago but for a geologist it's pretty rapid so it happens fairly rapidly and we rely on what life left behind. So you can imagine that probably it already took over the planet if we are able to find these remnants of life.

[00:07:18]The problem however is that we only work with a very few samples because I if you even call them samples they're fossils.

[00:07:24]And so what do we do right now? So I'm a biologist. I like making things in the lab. I like touching organisms. I like playing with them. And I like genomes. I like genes. I love proteins. I love all of that. So our approach was to use the language of life which is DNA and resurrect the ancient language that is now extinct. Okay. And bring it back to life by cloning that extinct DNA inside the microbial organism. Basically forcing the microbe to speak an ancient ancient dialect.

[00:07:54]>> Well, if DNA barely survives a crime scene.

[00:07:57]>> Yes.

[00:07:57]>> Then how >> how do you know that?

[00:08:00]>> How do you cuz he uses bleach whenever he murders someone. That's how >> so let me see if I understand this.

[00:08:09]You're using computer modeling based on the DNA we know extrapolating back extrapolating to a time where we don't have DNA available to us >> to get some handle on what that life might have been like and in this case >> and it's not life that you created but an enzyme that would be important for life at the time. Do I understand that correctly?

[00:08:34]>> Exactly.

[00:08:35]>> And in order to do this, you you use the the DNA manipulating tools. What? One of a crisper I get >> the gene editing. That's what you you've done.

[00:08:46]>> And is this the beginning of what will be a Jurassic Park of enzymes in your lab? Um we've been doing this for like some time now with other systems but it's it's definitely the beginning in the sense of linking this to bio signatures and connecting them to our understanding of life anywhere.

[00:09:03]>> So you'll be triangulating using these these measurements triangulating on what life at that time might have been doing.

[00:09:11]>> Exactly. So this >> that's very powerful.

[00:09:13]>> It is like bringing some ancient organism back to life and and having a conversation with them and you know most of the time you don't understand each other >> right? So, and they now are awake in an environment that is very different, but we want them to tell us, so to speak, have a little conversation with them.

[00:09:29]Okay, we we use the breadcrumbs that you left behind in order to track you. And now we now know where you come from.

[00:09:34]>> We know where you came from.

[00:09:36]>> We know where you live and we know where you came from. That's that's mafia right there.

[00:09:39]>> That is very much. Uh yeah. So, now when do they escape and uh come together and create a life that kills us all? Love it.

[00:09:47]>> When does that happen? Well, I'm really glad you asked that question, Chuck, because it gives me a chance to explain.

[00:09:52]>> No. Where is she? We haven't seen her in weeks. We She's tied to the back wall and the microbes are just in charge.

[00:10:01]>> They become your overlord.

[00:10:02]>> Yeah. They're just like, "How do you feel about being studied?"

[00:10:04]>> Well, you're describing my worst nightmares. Now, >> I have a question. If you know what the sample is going to be that you create, why do you have to create it? Well, we need to understand in what conditions it can trick us. We want to know if I give it a different gas, if I recapitulate an ancient earth, will it start tricking me? If I analyze, >> look around at the thing you created.

[00:10:27]>> Oh, yeah. We create it and then we wanted to see its limits >> and you poke it. Oh, >> I want to see what it will look like if I create a Martian condition for example. So, that's the next step we're going for for sure. I mean, this is a big problem for astrobiology because we always talk about equals one. There's only one planet. There's only one life.

[00:10:42]But if you think about it, our life has gone through many many many many many different versions. Yes. Of itself. It reinvents. Like over 99.99% of everything that ever lived on this planet has gone extinct.

[00:10:53]>> It's gone.

[00:10:53]>> Yeah.

[00:10:54]>> And that includes likely microbes. Yet we don't have an understanding of what kind of signatures they left behind and what alien life, which is our own past, may have looked like. However, >> if if life is so good at creating new species in opportunistically as an environment is changed, >> okay, >> why hasn't there been more than one genesis of life on Earth?

[00:11:17]>> Why does all life have DNA in common?

[00:11:20]Why isn't there a whole other branch if it's so quick? It was so easy to make life on Earth. Why didn't it just happen 10 times? Not just branches within one tree, 10 different trees. An orchard of life.

[00:11:32]>> Orchard. I like that.

[00:11:34]>> First of all, life may not be as good as you think, right? It may really need a planet to be at the right time, at the right place with it. Life is not just a thing that's by itself. Biology needs its container. And here it's the planet Earth. So, you cannot take the planet outside of life. They're together.

[00:11:49]That's the number one thing.

[00:11:51]>> Are we clear on this? Number two is that life is we don't know to what degree it's a fluke accident or to what degree it was determined to be the way it is now right we don't have much understanding of the chance and necessity of one exactly I mean we can play in the lab we can create some conditions and and replay and reverse and try to do these evolution experiments like we do but fundamentally we lack that understanding of to what degree life is able to recapitulate itself >> and three again we don't know maybe there will be other planets and that's our hope right that that where we look and study what life can do >> and you'll find a different tree >> and I will tell you this and this may actually blow your mind because it is true that as far as we know origin of life has happened once and it's not the only thing though that transformed our planet that happened once I like to think of these as singularities these are evolutionary singularities that happened only once and and they completely transformed our planet and I can only count you a very few of them one is origin of life to to what we of one genesis. The second one is the production of oxygen. There is only one way that biology invented creating oxygen.

[00:12:58]>> It is crazy that that's even a thing.

[00:13:00]Only one way that this planet has done its way to create oxygen. And look how much everything we relate to as a living thing relies on this.

[00:13:09]>> It's a photosynthesis basically, right?

[00:13:12]Either in the oceans or in the plant life that would come later.

[00:13:14]>> And plants are b I mean plants are late, right? So we are >> Yeah. They're much later than the oceans gave us oxygen. Animals one origins, right? Plants one origins. So these are like singularities that only happen.

[00:13:25]Nitrogen fixation one origins. So there are multiple things. Is >> as good as life is, it only happened once.

[00:13:32]>> I've heard the term nitrogen fixation.

[00:13:35]Explain that to me, please.

[00:13:37]>> Maybe I missed that day in chemistry class, >> but I have no idea what nitrogen fixation is.

[00:13:43]>> Ironically, I missed that day, too. Yet I study it, so it's NOT AN EXCUSE.

[00:13:47]>> OH. Call me out. Oh, okay. I I ch gauntlet thrown challenge accepted. I will on my own go learn nitrogen fixation.

[00:13:58]>> We rely on nitrogen, right? ATP needs nitrogen. Our DNA needs nitrogen. So, it's essential to life as we know it.

[00:14:04]>> And we think that it is as old as about 3 billion years. So, the first billion years of life didn't have biological fixation of nitrogen. So, what do we mean by that? Luckily, there's a lot of nitrogen in the atmosphere, lots, >> but it is not readily available to our cells. It cannot enter our cells as easily. It needs to be transformed. It's a triple bond. It's very, very strong.

[00:14:24]So, life invented a way to break this bond and turn nitrogen into a form that is ammonia that is available for life.

[00:14:33]And that's been doing that for three billion years, relying on a single enzyme. So if that enzyme is ruined the whole show collapses or so we thought.

[00:14:43]So we created an artificial way of fixing nitrogen. That's the harbor bash process which is insane amount of energy. About 2% of world's entire energy consumption goes through the production of artificial ammonia through artificial nitrogen fixation process using harbor bush. Think about that. And all fertilizer agriculture industry depends on this. You need to get nitrogen unbound to itself because in the atmosphere it's N2.

[00:15:11]>> So now you have a nitrogen atom available to >> work its way into the processes of life.

[00:15:18]>> Exactly.

[00:15:18]>> And that's nitrogen fixation.

[00:15:19]>> That's nitrogen fixation. That's the biological nitrogen fixation.

[00:15:23]>> It happens abiotically true. Like lightning fixes some nitrogen. So many people think >> because it's got it's got a lot of energy. You can break apart anything.

[00:15:31]>> Oh yeah. But it we think that wasn't sufficient enough. After a while, there was such demand for more nitrogen as organisms grew and the more species diverged early on that likely triggered biological production, biological production of nitrogen.

[00:15:44]>> These days, we're used to getting things delivered on demand. Groceries, a new gadget, or the latest book, expanding your view of the universe. And now you can add T-Mobile 5G home internet to that list. Just order from T-Mobile and enjoy same day delivery with Door Dash and you can set it up yourself in about 15 minutes. No advanced engineering degree required. That means more time doing the things you actually enjoy like streaming a space documentary or going down a rabbit hole about exoplanets, asteroids, or whatever's pulling your curiosity. And those online explorations are a lot easier with the fastest 5G home internet. So, if you're moving into a new place or just ready to upgrade your connection to something a little more advanced, visit t-mobile.com/home internet to check availability and get your home internet delivered today. Same day delivery for most internet eligible customers. See if it's an option during checkout. fastest according to UCLA speed test intelligence data second half 2025.

[00:16:57]All rights reserved.

[00:16:59]>> So what's the value of you fixing nitrogen artificially if it's not what nature does?

[00:17:05]>> I'm so glad you asked this question. So this goes back to survival of life, right?

[00:17:09]>> Okay, >> Chuck.

[00:17:11]>> Yeah, but that that's not what we we had an argument before this whole show started. It wasn't really an argument.

[00:17:16]>> Don't bring your arguments from outside the show into the show. No, no, >> keep the arguments in the street.

[00:17:21]>> I listen, I left my argument in the street. She just bought it into this movie.

[00:17:25]>> Okay. Okay. What was the argument?

[00:17:27]>> Well, no. The argument I said she made a very biologist statement.

[00:17:32]>> What was that?

[00:17:33]>> Life is about survival. And I made a very philosophical statement >> which was >> that is wrong.

[00:17:39]>> Okay, let's get to the bottom of it. Go.

[00:17:40]Mhm.

[00:17:40]>> Life is about survival and it is about how the biological systems find ways to make it basically through through the good and the bad. And I think there's a big inspiration out of this. It's not a it's not something that I'm afraid of facing Chuck >> that that life finds a way >> and it is through most of the time overcoming these insane challenges by coming up with very insane responses. So it doesn't you know how we are told that in the face of conflict like find some corner maybe be quiet be political life doesn't do that it's you punch it it punches back right so now there's oxygen in the planet we are two billion years in and nitrogen fixation has evolved but guess what this enzyme this whole biological system hates oxygen uh all right how what do I do now there's all this oxygen in the environment and I don't like oxygen so how do I survive it finds ways we don't know exactly how and what to protect itself from the dangers of nitrogen. It protected animals that thrive on oxygen.

[00:18:40]>> Oh, that is way >> that's way down.

[00:18:41]>> Yeah, way down. Like there's another like two billion years until we get there.

[00:18:45]>> Yeah, there's another billion fukicarots. There's another if some biologists are listening to me, they may be like how about all the heterosyes and all the systems that protect nitrogen organels that blah blah blah that they were also later. All right. So, we want to understand how nitrogen fixation survived oxidation. How did such dangerous thing manage to not kill this biological system?

[00:19:06]>> Because oxygen is highly costic to so many things. Right.

[00:19:10]>> Right. So when you created an ancient enzyme was that a nitrogen fixing enzyme?

[00:19:15]>> This in this particular case it is a nitrogen fixing enzyme. We did this for carbon. We did this for informatics for genetic more replication system as well.

[00:19:23]But in this particular case it isn't a nitrogen system. So going back to your original question, if this is so costly and we need all these fertilizers, what we are trying to do is not to reinvent a new agriculture but maybe decrease our dependence on this energetically globally very demanding uh productions.

[00:19:42]We need better biological solutions fertilizer >> for plants.

[00:19:46]>> Well, it wouldn't be for fertilizer but to create more efficient nitrogen fixation. It would be the opposite thing to maybe lessen our dependence on fertilizers.

[00:19:53]>> Got it. Got it. So this is a beautiful example in my very biased opinion of how astrobiology and studying life in the universe by starting from here our own place and our own past can actually help our future if we understand that how these essential systems made it thus far.

[00:20:12]>> We may be able to re-engineer them and repurpose them for better efficiency because our planet has gone through a lot. It's gone through many ups and downs. And we should not treat past as some useless waste because of our understanding maybe limited understanding of evolution. We think that if something didn't make it, it was failure. But there are many reasons for an organism to just to not thrive any long for no fault of nothing to their own. Exactly.

[00:20:38]>> Like T-Rex just got unlucky.

[00:20:41]>> I mean also they were not that bright. I think I'm sorry about if any T-Rex is watching this, don't hate me. If the asteroid didn't take him out, there's no reason why T-Rex wouldn't still be outside.

[00:20:50]>> They didn't have a planetary protection program.

[00:20:52]>> I know.

[00:20:52]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:54]>> Well, if if if uh if intelligence is a prerequisite for survival, I got news for you people. We're all screwed.

[00:21:02]>> Okay.

[00:21:02]>> I don't want to put words in your mouth.

[00:21:04]You're exploring all the ways life has attempted to survive >> on the possibility or the likelihood that learning what those are could help us today.

[00:21:15]>> Exactly. This is very not not where it started. I'll be very honest. We just had this very basic curiosity about very basic processes of how and why >> and how did things evolve. We don't have any understanding of any protein or any metabolism. How did they evolve at the first place? I mean think about that.

[00:21:32]Tell me any protein you love and I'll tell you we have no idea how it originated on this planet. And that's a huge knowledge gap. M >> but these questions inevitably led us to understand create a new paradigm between the planet and microbiology which I like to refer to as planetary microbiology.

[00:21:46]How does the micro and bacteria and ukarots they how do they dance with the planet? Biology needs to completely transform itself >> and really evaluate molecules and cells and organisms from the perspective of the planet. We need to understand the planetary boundaries that constrain life in order to understand and maybe create a better future for ourselves as well because we rely on these organisms.

[00:22:08]>> And remind us what a ukareote is. You said that very quickly in a sentence.

[00:22:12]>> How do I begin to explain myself?

[00:22:16]>> Well, I would in my very biased opinion it's it's a bacteria that escaped the metabolic trap and bacteria that got very very lazy. It's basically the I would say the next point in evolution.

[00:22:29]Um they are about 1.8 billion years old.

[00:22:31]They have more organels, more complexity. Exactly. They are our ancestor. Um and so our ancestors are 1.8 billion years. We are ukarotes.

[00:22:39]Plants are ukarotes.

[00:22:40]>> So they they have a a cell nucleus. Is that >> they have they have a nucleus. They have more complex going on.

[00:22:46]>> More going on. Exactly. There's a lot more going on. And they are more they're more lazy. I mean in general life is lazy. It will always choose the laziest option. Take a look at cats and dogs at home.

[00:22:56]>> Mhm.

[00:22:57]>> Dog I think dogs sleeps 20 hours a day.

[00:22:59]>> That's called smart.

[00:23:02]>> That's all they're looking at us like >> happy when you should get home but they sleep the whole rest of the day.

[00:23:06]>> Oh that's why that's why they jump up and down and they're just like all right I'm tired that seeing you just really exhausted in the eye. I got to go eat and then go back to sleep.

[00:23:15]>> Um let's pivot to what we now think of as extreophiles. Mhm.

[00:23:21]>> This has arisen in astrobiology as if life on Earth can thrive in exotic environments that might otherwise kill us. Let's look in the universe at the exotic environments, it might help us think about ways of being alive >> that are not otherwise the 72°ree tide pool. Yeah.

[00:23:42]>> Where you know, as someone had said, >> you know, in generations past. So tell me about how this plays into thinking about extremifiles.

[00:23:52]>> Well, I don't think there's any corner on this planet that was not taken over or occupied by life at any point.

[00:23:57]There's no such thing as unliving non-living on this planet.

[00:24:01]>> Okay. Everywhere. Everywhere.

[00:24:02]>> Everywhere. And thanks to NASA and astrobi program and their vision, I think decades ago, the understanding that we need to drill, we need to go to caves, we need to look into ice, we need to go all these crazy places where we think is completely barren of life because guess what? Under every rock we find life. And now we call them extreopiles. But if you think about it, it's a bit of an outdated term, I think.

[00:24:22]Because what is extreme? I mean, it's very relative, >> right? It's not extreme for them, right?

[00:24:27]>> Yeah. Exactly. I mean, this is extreme.

[00:24:28]You know, >> what is it that they found underwater eruptions of volcanoes, >> the undersea vents? Yeah.

[00:24:34]>> Yeah. Highly toxic. Water is extremely hot. And I forget the mic microorganisms that they found living there. And they're doing just fine.

[00:24:43]>> They're doing just fine. Someone's waste is someone's food, right? Nothing. This planet wastes nothing. Nothing goes to waste. And that's the beauty of all these organisms that sort of depend on each other. They cheat, they compete, they cooperate, but they find a way to survive. They find a way to find a way.

[00:25:02]>> Is loving every time she can say survive to me.

[00:25:06]>> So, I like the idea that the word extreophile might be >> outdated. I love that >> because >> it's just life.

[00:25:14]>> This is life.

[00:25:14]>> It's just life. It's not extreme life.

[00:25:16]It's it's not the X games. It's it's just life >> extreme to us, you know, but it's it's all again coming from our >> They would call us extreophiles, right?

[00:25:25]>> Absolutely. There's no life does many many weird things and it will not waste anything. It will eat the sunlight. It will eat >> acid. It will eat you know whatever it will find a way and that's thanks to metabolism and all the you know what is the that nice saying life is an electron looking for a place to rest. Wait, wait.

[00:25:43]How much of a saying is that?

[00:25:46]>> It is. I >> Everybody in the street, all the kids are saying that.

[00:25:49]>> You know, >> they should be saying that. I'm just an electron looking for a place for a place to rest.

[00:25:56]>> Wow. No, I'm just I'm just a a neutron trying to buy a drink.

[00:26:02]>> And the bartender says, "For you, no charge."

[00:26:04]>> No charge.

[00:26:08]>> Boys were doing particle physics jokes.

[00:26:10]Was that too much biology for YOU ALREADY? I'M SORRY.

[00:26:14]>> EXCUSE ME.

[00:26:17]>> Have to escape escape hatch just for a second and come back in.

[00:26:20]>> So remind us what precisely an enzyme does in a chemical reaction.

[00:26:26]>> Well, it does lower the thermodynamic barrier to speed up reactions.

[00:26:30]>> Oh. So, so you have reactions that might eventually happen by but you put in another chemical that brings them together.

[00:26:41]>> Exactly.

[00:26:41]>> So, these are these are the biologist's best friend and the chemist's best friend >> or worst enemy depending on what you study. Right. So, and they're all protein. They're micro molecules. I love that you call them chemicals. It's true.

[00:26:54]Their life is chemistry. Memory is chemical. My best friend is made of chemicals.

[00:26:59]>> Exactly. That's so funny. It's like when people say on a package, they're like, "And it's chemical free." And I'm like, "You're an idiot. THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS CHEMICAL FREE."

[00:27:10]>> OKAY.

[00:27:10]>> You're chemical. They're also chemical, right? An ugly bag of mostly chemistry.

[00:27:16]>> Really?

[00:27:17]>> I have to square a circle here from what you've said.

[00:27:21]We talk about life as thriving on Earth, but so much of it was highly contingent >> on singularities of geologic, biologic, chemical phenomena >> in the history.

[00:27:41]>> So you could just remove one of those singularities and life is gone.

[00:27:45]>> Yeah. Yes. It's true. So the so the contingency of life feels almost pre-ordained.

[00:27:55]>> Yes. So, >> or could it be based on what you just said >> that we don't know how many other attempts have been made that just did not work >> and this is where we are or how many other singular moments could have happened could have happened that did not happen >> or happened but were erased and we can't access stuff >> right there. Okay.

[00:28:19]>> There are three three possibilities.

[00:28:20]>> Can you just reflect on the statistics of that? Well, I want to tell you first that but what you said is very fundamental because we think about past as some sort of foundation to our existence. We imagine like everything build on top of each other and we stand on these solid grounds. News flash no okay >> you know you can imagine it's more like columns right and you remove one column the building collapses. That's our past.

[00:28:43]So we got to be very careful about how much we rely on these biological phenomenon thinking that we are in good hands. I mean, Earth, it took a really long time for what we depend on to evolve and to find its place. And it is not a foundation whatsoever. These are very delicate systems. You change the pH of a soil, you threaten biological nitrogen fixation.

[00:29:03]>> So, here's where I would push back. Yes, it's delicate for what it is, but you take away that pivot point. You take away this singularity and a whole other system might have come up where we might be 10 times smarter than we are as humans.

[00:29:21]>> No, >> this won't happen. I mean, if if you remove carbon fixation, we won't even have time to come up with a better solution. I mean, if you're thinking about human perspective, we're vanished first, right? We are the first ones.

[00:29:33]>> Okay. So, there's some other species. So some other species rises up >> microbes they will be okay obviously they're going to find they will find I mean there won't be any humans to study them >> right >> but but they will be doing fantastic >> thank god they're gone >> are you suggesting because we went so long without oxygen and all these life forms thriving in the carbon dioxide atmosphere or whatever microbial systems >> microbial systems you're saying without oxygen that could be a five billionyear planet of just microbes >> yeah it will be most likely and and you curios complex life >> it depends on how you define complexity I don't know if consciousness would still evolve but I mean the the chances of a human evolving again I don't know that's a very good question some other life form that everything has evolved extremely fragile isn't that true everything has evolved to where we are right now everything so it doesn't make a difference >> I wish I could see the future it would make my life much easier especially because I study evolution but there's no way to predict these things what we can do by Again, statistics calculate to what degree we know the greenhouse gases will be messed up with the rapid changes that we are introducing and to what degree life can keep up with this or not.

[00:30:42]>> If you if you use models to back predict, >> can't you use it for future?

[00:30:47]>> Why can't you use it to forward predict?

[00:30:49]That's how they do climate.

[00:30:51]>> Well, they do to some degree. We know we always talk about we need better models, but you know, it's it's a model at the end of today. And life will trick you.

[00:30:59]Life will do things that you're not expecting. It's it's a complex system.

[00:31:02]Got you.

[00:31:02]>> Now going back to the singularities again. I think you remove one you remove nitrogen fixation half the world population starves. That's a big number biological nitrogen fixation. If we solely dependent on artificial generation of nitrogen that's the number half the population. Wow.

[00:31:18]>> of the world. So these are you know big numbers and our sustenance rely on these innovations are the oxygen we breathe the food we eat right everything depends on these things. Now going back to the singularities, I do believe and I want to believe that there's more out there about our past that we simply cannot track. I mean we can think of it as similar to resurrecting an ancient language, right? Like Egyptian language.

[00:31:43]How do we do this? We're lucky because we found Rosetta Stone. We could cross compare some notes and we can infer in ancient language and suddenly everything made sense and culturally we understand.

[00:31:52]So whatever we can recover, we attribute the entire world history to that. It's the same thing as what we do when it comes to biology. Whatever we recover, we can attribute the past to that. And I think that's overwhelming to think about, but also extremely motivational and inspirational that that we may be completely wrong about our own past in terms of life and its history. And this is extremely important that we understand where we came from. I mean, don't you want to know your ancestors?

[00:32:18]You do, right? Where like >> it's the ultimate.

[00:32:21]>> If you're anything like me, then no.

[00:32:23]>> It's the ultimate. I had a friend who said, "I want to I I want to explore my roots and all I dug up was dirt."

[00:32:30]>> Everybody, right, it's going to Greece and, you know, not reading about the Greek history, but just, you know, like skipping the museum and hitting the beach right away and not being curious about anything that made that culture possible.

[00:32:41]>> So, I I I want to take on your your point. There are people who like to think and some of this just flows through your work that there's this process there's this this stable phenomenon then something happens and then something else happens and there these checkpoints right and then at the end we exist as conscious entities all right and if you change any one of these points then we don't exist I don't have a problem with that however where is your latitude to ask if something else happened then something else would exist making a life form vastly smarter than humans or or some other thing. What is what is the range of possibilities rather than focus on the one that worked?

[00:33:30]>> How about all the others that could have worked but just didn't have the occasion to do so and could have had a way more advanced civilization than we have today?

[00:33:38]>> That's that's always a possible. There's always worse. There's always better, right? Like so like we we don't know. I think I so I you you need to clarify this for me because I I don't know what you mean by I guess what but what bothers me is this understanding that life finds a way can be dangerous a little bit because we assume that everything's going to be fine because evolution has been doing its thing for billions of years and even if we mess up >> finds a way to produce some kind of life. That's how that's really what I'm saying. Nothing's going to make us. No, we're we're No, you know, any break in the branch in our ancestral tree, we don't exist.

[00:34:14]>> All right. But whole other vertebrates will exist and other, you know, and dinosaurs dinosaurs are around for hundreds of millions of years, far longer than homo sapiens have been around.

[00:34:24]>> So, as far as they're concerned, they're quite successful. Yes.

[00:34:27]>> They didn't have a space program.

[00:34:29]>> If they had, they would have deflected that asteroid, you know.

[00:34:31]>> Oh, yes. Without a doubt. I want to keep open the possibility. We need not be the pinnacle of this evolutionary path.

[00:34:40]>> I agree with that.

[00:34:41]>> That other evolutionary path might have been differently fertile but had a different kind of earth with different life forms.

[00:34:49]>> That's very true. And I think this whole earlier depiction of evolution like from monkeys to humans like maybe draw that picture in our minds that we think there's some direction to evolution when there is no there's no direct at all. So we we think A became B, B became C, C became D. And now boop V appeared.

[00:35:04]>> And like I said, everything has evolved.

[00:35:08]Everything that's here now evolved. And we still have, but based on what you just said, we still do have dinosaurs.

[00:35:15]They're called birds. So >> dinosaur descendants.

[00:35:18]>> That's what I'm saying. That's that's their evolution.

[00:35:20]>> Yeah. And I want to add something to something you said earlier.

[00:35:24]>> Earlier on, we mentioned, well, how long did it take life to show up on Earth?

[00:35:27]because Earth formed in the in the void and it's a hot thing >> and it's got >> So, so life came around even faster than that >> because we have a period in the early Earth what we call the period of heavy bombardment >> where the solar system is vacuuming up and the remain the remnants.

[00:35:48]>> I know where this is going.

[00:35:49]>> Okay. So, so we are being pummeled pummeled but >> because there's still a lot of trash out there floating around.

[00:35:54]>> Correct. Correct. We're being pummeled.

[00:35:56]So the official word would be we're still accreting leftovers from the early early solar system. My point is you can take a thermometric measure of earth and earth is way hotter than what would sustain complex molecules. So you wait for that to cool down then you start the clock. If you do that then life started here within one or 200 million years not 500 million years faster than even you don't start it when earth began. You started when Earth could have possibly sustained a complex life.

[00:36:29]>> Does it help you out?

[00:36:31]>> I mean, sure. Like I I I think I was referring to the what we can track in the rock record, right? Using the isotopes and that. So, we're really referring to some cell that already was doing its thing. I am not sure to what degree like based on our understanding of chemistry. Yes, we do need some optimum temperature for certain complexity to emerge. But but there's no reason for again early chemistry to also evolve from simplicity to chemistry.

[00:36:57]Chemistry can give rise to more complexity gives rise to more complexity. Mahina x mahina, right? Like you can you can have that original messiness and out of that messy chemistry there's more messy things that came out. So you're saying that the noise that is in the very beginning is part of the process itself or could be >> I think so. I think what what Neil's pointing out is that what we think as life is different than life circa 100 million years past earth's formation right but we think in biology at least or at least when we think about the last universal common ancestor that's already a fullyfledged can eat can poop has all the genetics and doing its thing organism organism but origin of life is different than that right so origin of life could be a complete chemical system that can maintain itself and do its thing so there's likely some I'm just saying that when you start the clock, you don't have to start it at the formation of the earth. That's all I'm saying.

[00:37:50]>> You're saying start it at the place where it could happen.

[00:37:52]>> It could where it could have where it could where it could be sustained.

[00:37:54]>> You want to be when the when Yes.

[00:37:56]>> where it could be sustained. Exactly.

[00:37:58]That's that's really all I'm saying.

[00:37:59]>> So, what was the thing that you guys found in your field that is the earliest form of an organism?

[00:38:07]>> Well, in in bi biological terms, it is four billion years. That's the latest um time for this ancestor. That's the last universal common ancestor, Luca. So that first organism. But keep in mind, we use what we refer to as phoggenetics is trees, tree of lives. Obviously, there's no tree of life. It's our romanticized view of life that we collect everything.

[00:38:28]We drove trees and we imagine everyone to be.

[00:38:31]>> You tell me there's no tree of life.

[00:38:32]>> It's a it's a hypo It's a thing. I sorry, but but it helps. Biologist like metaphors.

[00:38:38]>> Take that from me.

[00:38:39]I will take it and I study.

[00:38:43]>> She don't play.

[00:38:44]>> I will leave this room with the tree.

[00:38:46]>> Right. You are cold blooded, man. You are cold blooded.

[00:38:49]>> I'll take it.

[00:38:52]Where does I would like you to read me a bedtime story? Where does the tree of life analogy fail?

[00:39:00]>> Because it doesn't really factor into the genetic exchange between organisms.

[00:39:05]And I think it creates this understanding. flies a certain purity of >> Exactly. Yes. It gives this direction again time time arrow time zero >> then it is likely more web a network rather than past tomorrow and Wednesday.

[00:39:20]>> I'll give you that. Okay. So it's more of a web than a tree.

[00:39:22]>> Absolutely. But it helps us of course because we understand time. We need to >> but it is important that you know we we acknowledge that it is we made that up like we just use that as a way to make sense of make itense make it simple even easier to understand.

[00:39:37]>> Exactly.

[00:39:37]>> That's all.

[00:39:38]>> So um I want to bring some physics into this if I may. So uh >> oh uh you made him uncomfortable. You were just like this too much damn biology. WE GOT TO GET back to something I'm Let's bring some physics into this.

[00:39:52]I mean, if you made a pie chart of this show, it's probably like what what's the biology percentage?

[00:39:56]>> No, we try to get some good biology on here. No, we don't mind. We can have some physics, Neil.

[00:40:00]>> Okay, let me just go for it. Let me let me stir some physics into this.

[00:40:03]>> Okay, go ahead.

[00:40:04]>> Uh, if we were to define life in some way that might also apply on another planet.

[00:40:09]>> One of the concepts is metabolism. Mhm.

[00:40:13]>> that the life absorbs by whatever means energy from its environment and uses that for its own survival and possibly reproduction. So, how much do you guys think about metabolism when you think about life?

[00:40:26]>> Oh, all the time, right? It's it's the engine. Like we take metabolism, I mean, it's just >> Okay, here's something else we think about. M >> if an entire system is exactly at the same temperature >> then you can't have a process take place because a process takes energy over here and puts it over there.

[00:40:47]>> Mhm.

[00:40:47]>> And in order for that to be the case it's got to be like hotter over here than over there or things have to be moving over here more than they're moving over here. So when biologists explore the world and think about life, do you also think about a energy gradient >> from one section of an environment to another?

[00:41:08]>> Mhm. For sure. So we we first of all I mean I'm a weird biologist because I'm interested in astrobiology.

[00:41:14]>> No, that's the best kind of biologist.

[00:41:15]Go on.

[00:41:16]>> But that still makes it weird. That doesn't get in the way. But so I think about the planet all the time. But for sure biologists think about the the latter in which a donor and an acceptor and how they relate to one another. What what gives what takes and and what kind of voltage can be generated in exchange of electrons or materials in terms of like electrons I guess between the the the two ends of the optimum. So absolutely because as I said life is an electron looking for a place to rest and it is all about precise channelization of these electrons >> right because all electrons are already resting nothing happens. Exactly. So you need a receiver, you need that push and pull and you need that tension and you need that fight between these systems so that you create energy and you channel that and you basically channelize that energy across enzymes or whatever is in the cell so they bounce and push and pull and do their thing.

[00:42:07]>> Okay? Because we're looking now we have a mission going to Europa.

[00:42:11]>> Uh it's a it's a a ice penetrating radar >> uh mission that will orbit. So Europa has this ice sheet on top and we are quite certain that there's a highly confident there's an ocean of liquid water.

[00:42:25]>> It's kept liquid from the tidal stresses of Jupiter itself. If it's just an ocean underneath ice >> I guess it's kept warm because of the tidal stress and maybe that's the source of energy source of energy.

[00:42:37]>> That's the source of energy for it because without it you would have no energy source. I mean even if if it is dormant we will still be able to find it if it is there you know because we have like fermenttors on this planet that are also quite lazy like what the the voltage between the giver and receiver is pretty minimum they're really weird >> fermenttors >> no I mean it is basically if you're thinking about the ladder between the like the donor and the acceptor fermenttors we want the ladder to be the if we draw a line between the donor and receiver we want that line to be as steep as possible but when it comes to fermenttors you're getting almost a flat line it's they're equal footing but It still works.

[00:43:13]>> So, so even though thermodynamically at all hardly any thought about even though you know it is not but by looking at it it's not energetically favorable like a maybe a carbon fixture might be or you know photosynthesis might be doing it is still doing its thing. So what I'm saying is that dormcancy or this kind of slow process will not get in the way. We will take what we got when we get to Europe.

[00:43:33]>> Whatever the slope is it's a money slope but we're taking it right.

[00:43:37]>> Oh but yes metabolism absolutely important. It's the energy it's the it's the engine. And it's it's all about the battery, right? When it comes to life on this planet. So you have to think about that.

[00:43:45]>> Those two I'm happy as being the only criterion for life. But you speak to a pure biologist, not an astrobiologist.

[00:43:52]They start adding other things. Has to be susceptible to evolution. Has to be able to reproduce. Has to and I'm thinking, really? You think so? And how do you feel about these other criteria?

[00:44:04]>> Absolutely. I mean, you cannot just have a battery that's just sitting there, right? The battery needs to produce another battery somehow. Why?

[00:44:11]>> Well, then it's not life. It's just sort of a battery.

[00:44:13]>> Why can't it just be a battery that lives a billion years?

[00:44:15]>> But then it's not life, though. How What do you mean? How is it going to live?

[00:44:18]>> He's Well, it lives slowly. I was going to say it lives until it runs out of juice.

[00:44:23]>> Can it likely can assemble, but in order for at least our understanding of life, that memory of the information that assembled that metabolism per sees, it has to continue.

[00:44:34]>> So, you're saying a bunch of logs laying in a pile is not a house. You got to actually have a house in order for it to be >> not a house I want to live in.

[00:44:42]>> Yeah. Where's the bricks?

[00:44:44]Yeah. But but I guess what I observe in the field also I think there was some division between metabolism or is it information is it informatics or you know do we need to replicate or do we need to eat right and I think we are more merging right now that we need both like it's a problem that needs both ends not only you need metabolism but also you need a way to uh transform that information of the presence of the metabolism to your offspring. All right.

[00:45:11]Cap this this between you two for everybody listening including me.

[00:45:15]>> Can you give me in a very succinct statement what is life?

[00:45:20]>> Life is a is a form of chemistry that maintained a memory over really long time periods. That's only that's all I can say about life at this point.

[00:45:31]>> Okay. That was very romantic.

[00:45:35]>> Memory like a corner with some bad.

[00:45:39]>> It's It retained it, right?

[00:45:40]>> I got you.

[00:45:41]>> Yeah. Okay. If a space alien landed on Earth, walked up to you and demanded that you take it to your leader. What would you do? Do you take the alien to the White House, the Vatican, to the UN?

[00:45:54]Where do you go? If it's got some appendage sticking out, do you reach out and grab it and shake it? I wouldn't.

[00:45:59]You don't know what part of the anatomy that is of the alien. It's all there.

[00:46:04]Take me to your leader perspectives on your first alien encounter.

[00:46:10]>> We like thinking that intelligence is important cuz humans are intelligent.

[00:46:15]But then I say, who said humans are intelligent?

[00:46:17]>> It certainly ain't me.

[00:46:19]>> We define ourselves as yet. coexist in this world with cockroaches and highly highly viable life forms coexist with us and don't have anything of what we would call intelligence. So intelligence can't be all that important for survival otherwise I think it would have shown up more in the tree of life than it has.

[00:46:43]>> So but I've heard this term chemical intelligence what is that and how does that fit to what I just said if at all?

[00:46:49]Yeah, I think I mean intelligence is an interesting term especially these days because like what does that even mean, right? So we we attribute it to artificial intelligence like what is that what makes the artificial system intelligent?

[00:47:01]>> I guess we wanted to confront that with a new term. It's chemical intelligence.

[00:47:04]It's not artificial. It's not biological but there's an underlying intelligence to life at the heart of life and its emergence. We think that these reactions that we talked about that complex systems we they're probably coupled to one another, right? You're not looking at a complex carbon fixation metabolism, right? These are very big. There's so it's like a huge it's a crowded place in the cell. Everyone is reacting with one another. But early on we think that there cycles coupled to one another. So they produce the waste that's a chemical and another cycle takes it, rotates it, spits out. There's input and output constantly >> and that is really the probably the most fundamental form of metabolism.

[00:47:42]>> So it's a chemical factory in a way in a sense.

[00:47:45]>> True. I mean life is in a way too but but you can also simplify it in the basic form that we we like to refer to them as autocatalytic. So they able to catalyze their own presence.

[00:47:55]>> Octo catalytic.

[00:47:56]>> Yes. Yes. That's you said it better than my autocatalytic. I got to do a lot of like >> now we even because I couldn't pronounce your name.

[00:48:04]>> Okay. Not fair. I should be saying >> and I like the way you say it like you're from Brooklyn. Autocatalytic.

[00:48:11]>> Yeah. The hand was in that the hand gesture. So I have I have a fast story that happened to me 30 years ago. Okay.

[00:48:18]Okay. I'm we had just we the astronomical community had discovered this this possible signs of life on a meteorite that is from Mars. Okay. The famous Allen Hills meteorite >> back in in in 1996. It was I think it was. I'm on a TV show with a biologist.

[00:48:38]Okay. discussing this result and they had this this this scanning electron microscope photo of something that looked like a little worm thing very small like onetenth the size of the smallest cells on Earth. Okay. Okay.

[00:48:53]Really small. And it need an electron microscope to see it. Okay. We're exploring what is this evidence on this rock. There's like organic molecules.

[00:49:02]There's a and it's it's tantalizing evidence. The biologist upon seeing this little wormy thing said that can't possibly be life.

[00:49:11]And I thought, "Wow, he's really certain about this."

[00:49:17]>> There's nothing I'm certain about in the universe that I would utter with that level of confidence. Okay, but he's certain about this. And I said, "Why?"

[00:49:26]And then he said, "Because that's a fraction the size of the smallest life on Earth." And I said, "Last I checked, >> THE ROCK IS FROM MARS." OKAY. SO, so why why are you a biologist that's stuck with only one kind of life passing that kind of judgment on what could be life on another planet?

[00:49:45]>> The first Well, it's amazing that you were in that room. First of all, that's pretty cool. Second though is that we know now that the size is not necessarily a determinant of life forms.

[00:49:55]They're they're base like ribosome itself. The presence of a ribosome I will argue would be life, right? Like it has to come together through biology. So size itself is not what I would go after if I were to you first criticize that sort of finding. Um so no size alone isn't. We know this and that's the beauty I think about space exploration is that we learn so much about what what are the limits of life and what life is.

[00:50:20]Is it something that I know when I see or or you know is it something that I can attribute to size? Is it just some chemicals? Is it is it some sort of movement? Like what is it exactly? cuz that affected the let me just call it a bias. When we first landed on Mars, we performed tests with the Viking miss lander. You you >> we have our own bias. Life life as we know it. What? Yeah. And if something's there that you're not looking for, right?

[00:50:47]>> Will you find it?

[00:50:48]>> Right. Especially if you have a preconceived notion of what you >> preconceived of what it should be.

[00:50:52]>> I'm just happy that the universe has confirmed that size does not matter.

[00:50:56]>> Exactly.

[00:50:58]Not only that study of course led to a realization that we need experts that can combine or look into some biological process on a rock and and in interpret it right we didn't have that kind of understanding so we got to be a little bit gentle I think with what we know now far more suppresses than what we thought life can how it can express itself >> an informed biologist and certainly not you would have reacted that way in that conversation >> I wouldn't go after you know whether there could be smaller life forms than what they're saying but I uh nevertheless there are obvious now we can do more we can look at isotopes we can we can understand to what degree it is actually so crazy I mean think about the sugar molecule or caffeine some people have mugs with the caffeine molecule in it >> right we can understand each atom and the the discrimination of each atom um their discriminative properties of the atmospheric isotopes like we can like atomically explore each atom Yeah, >> in a complex >> like through the clumps isotope methodology and we can attribute whether that value is coming from a biological system or none. That is so insane to me.

[00:52:09]I mean there are very few people on you know on the world that can do this really well. It's very easy to mess this up. So I respect to them but we can identify if it is just a amino acid on an asteroid versus a microbe that once or once living microbe. So we can do these sophisticated studies and we are getting there now with the sample return right with the with the benu like it's just so much happening and in fact it was today a paper came out I was reading it on the way here that took um diner caucus this really like resistant crazy bug that can you know survive under really harsh conditions and radiated and it and it you put this insane amount of pressure on it to understand whether this bug can survive planetary travel and they found that it can at least numerically it can handle really really high pressure.

[00:52:56]>> So that's kind of amazing hypothesis.

[00:52:59]>> Exactly. I mean they're kind of linking it to that as well very carefully because that one line of data doesn't make an entire >> right >> concept you know doesn't prove the whole thing of course >> but it is fun to think about it.

[00:53:10]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:11]>> Well to dream about all the ways of being alive. And so what about these science fiction writers best friend is thinking about silicon based life swapping silicon in for carbon every place you find it because they have the same outer electron configurations so you can make all the same molecules.

[00:53:28]>> Well protein engineers showed this about seven years ago a paper came out that showed that in an enzyme they could replace the carbon with silicon. So at least engineering wise, we demonstrated that you can to some degree push an enzyme to use silicon instead of carbon >> and still have the same function it did before.

[00:53:46]>> Yes, albeit with some variations in the sense of it's not maybe as efficient, but it's fine.

[00:53:51]>> Sure.

[00:53:51]>> So, but and whole organism. Look, nobody wants weird strange life forms more than me. Okay.

[00:53:57]>> But I also want to be able to study something and not hallucinate, right?

[00:54:00]There's a part like imagination is great but then you got to be I think a little careful then not go a little can be a little too much >> go too far.

[00:54:09]>> Exactly. So we got to start with what we know. Um and and and especially understand that we know very little. We know less than we think we do.

[00:54:16]>> That that's always true at all times.

[00:54:18]>> All times >> for everyone >> except me. I'm sorry.

[00:54:22]>> You want to know about life? My my rebuttal to the silicon based life versus carbon based life just as an astrophysicist is that there's at least five times as much carbon in the universe as silicon.

[00:54:35]>> Well, that kind of goes back to the beginning of our >> So, you don't need to appeal to it.

[00:54:40]>> Carbon is too available.

[00:54:41]>> It's too available. It's very fertile in the in the in the in the chemistry lab.

[00:54:46]>> And it's like you say, whatever the easiest way, life is lazy. But if you think about it, life also relies on all these rare elements and metals on this planet that is like is nothing for the universe. Looks like just a waste, right? Like something that you would not even consider as fat of the sake, you know what I mean? It's just like sure take it and and then look what life did.

[00:55:08]>> Yeah. So that's being opportunistic perhaps. That's inspirational that you know again it will assemble this insane look at us look at you know look at the world it will come out of like almost out of nothing for the planet for the universe >> right right >> and that's what we study with the NASA center muse the medical utilization center >> yeah tell me tell me about that >> we're trying to understand how the um oceanic content across billions of years have inspired organisms to do their thing we want to know how they competed against a certain metal life is metal right relies on metal Enzymes do their thing. They are able to do all these crazy thermodynamic barrier breakings because they eat a lot of metal. They depend on this. And metal has to come from somewhere.

[00:55:48]>> When you say metal, you mean iron. If you're interested in all of the >> Well, calcium, I mean, astrophysically, everything that's not hydrogen or helium, we call metals.

[00:55:58]>> Oh, >> it's it's it's stupid, but it's leftover from the old days.

[00:56:02]>> Forget it. After that, you're done.

[00:56:04]>> Forget this feast life created with all the leftovers.

[00:56:07]>> With the leftovers, right? Think about it. 98% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, >> right?

[00:56:12]>> Everything of interest to us is with with the 2% that's left over.

[00:56:17]>> Exactly. And and we know it's a very iron rich planet, right? Early on.

[00:56:20]>> And and then with oxygen, what happens?

[00:56:23]>> What happens with oxygen?

[00:56:25]>> And iron you get rust.

[00:56:26]>> Exactly. So you're fried. And and we see that in the rock records that we can that's how also we understand that our planet has gone through such revolution.

[00:56:35]>> These are these layers of iron deposits here.

[00:56:37]>> Iron deposits. Yeah, exactly. So >> there's life life generated. Yes. It's not sorry. It's not an iron ore coming through.

[00:56:45]>> It's the iron left over.

[00:56:46]>> And it is. And by the way, that knowledge is also only like 30 40 years old, right? Like we did not know that microbes are able to leave a mark behind.

[00:56:55]>> In fact, when we opened the Rose Center, that was new information. And we made a very big deal of that in our exhibits to date back the earliest possible life. It comes back to a study from University of Wisconsin Madison. Excuse me.

[00:57:10]>> Somebody's tooting their own horn. I see >> gota give the credit action too.

[00:57:17]>> Stanley Tyler as he was doing, you know, what the good geologist does, you know, FA and FO. And he was just hiking around and he he came across with these iron deposits some rock formations that are different than the others near Gunfield Church, which is in the Canadian border.

[00:57:33]um and and he wanted to understand this and he collaborates with a scientist at MIT and they are able to do all kinds of electro you know basically relying on the radiation technology not only date the rock but understand that there's a microbe here it which completely transforms our understanding because if you think about it I'm going back to Darvin even he contemplated with about origin of life in the past just maybe once or twice some warm little punt whatever but his biggest dilemma was that if everything comes from an ancestor. Where is the ancestor of the ancestor?

[00:58:05]>> You fall off a cliff once you pass Cambrian like there's all these you know m things and footsteps and you know like bones and whatever bones are late but you know >> that that's postcambrian explosion.

[00:58:16]>> Exactly. So >> and before it you got nothing.

[00:58:18]>> You got nothing. So so a lot of people were also at that time there's all these intense letters to Darin saying how do you explain like what happens because there's there's a gap right? There's this huge gap and through these studies that are only 30 40 years old, we now know that that entire 4 billion period was microbial and now we are able to go to a rock and atomically process it and understand that those colors are generated from due to once living microbe.

[00:58:42]>> Mhm.

[00:58:42]>> Insane. And it is red because there was oxygen on the planet and they liked iron but boohoo so bad. It's a catastrophe because now there's oxygen on the planet and you're gone.

[00:58:51]>> Yes. So we what we are interested in understanding is that how that shift the presence of oxygen transformed organisms and entire life on this planet.

[00:59:01]>> I'm just glad I am on the side of the biology fence where I can metabolize oxygen rather than have it kill me.

[00:59:09]>> Yes. Exactly.

[00:59:10]>> Have me be like melting like the wicked witch of the west. You know >> oxygen I'm melting. So something I' I' I'd missed.

[00:59:21]What is it that we do today to create the nitrogen necessary to infuse into our our agriculture?

[00:59:28]>> The problem there are two ways. One is coming from biology and that's biological nitrogen fixation and we also have the hover bash process.

[00:59:35]>> And how does that work?

[00:59:36]>> It's a very energetically expensive process. It not only obviously uses nitrogen but also hydrogen and in the presence of a catalyst and really high pressure produces ammonia.

[00:59:46]>> Nitrogen is just in the air.

[00:59:48]>> Yeah, nitrogen is always in the air but it's not readily available. So we do >> for free nitrogen is not available for you >> in the form that is avail that is useful for biology. So it needs to be converted into ammonia.

[00:59:59]>> Okay. So now you got ammonia now what >> you got clean floors. So what do you >> Well, we need it for fertilizers. So that's that's where they go primarily.

[01:00:07]And uh but say for example oil cereal or corns they use biological nitrogen fixation primarily >> because when you farm that's what comes out of the soil. It's the nitrogen that's comes out of the soil. So this allows you to re right to re-energize or or replenish the nitrogen in the soil. I think what's what is really interesting here is that as we read more about our past as as I understood more what our planet has gone through and when you connect biology and molecules to the planets which is something we have to do if we are serious about finding life right >> because even though we are making our observations at these large scales ultimately we looking at an expression of something really really really tiny and that's the molecule so we need to be able to connect molecules to a planet ultimately >> yeah otherwise what you know >> exactly but that bridge was missing so I think our research fills that gap up through the planetary biology concept.

[01:00:56]And what we are understanding is that just because something isn't around doesn't mean it was useless and that our planet has gone through things that that actually could teach us a lot about the future because they resemble our future >> and resurrecting tools of the past.

[01:01:12]>> Exactly.

[01:01:13]>> To shape our future.

[01:01:14]>> Nice.

[01:01:15]>> Lovely. So, uh, is your lab funded by, uh, NSF or >> we we definitely had support from NSF, NASA for >> not for long.

[01:01:25]>> If it's up to me, I'm just saying >> quite frankly, I need the money to start more wars.

[01:01:32]>> So, >> uh, John Templeton Foundation was very generous with us as well as Yes. as well as the, uh, kek foundation.

[01:01:39]>> Um, and also the hypothesis fund that they've been really >> That's new to me. Hypothesis fund.

[01:01:44]>> Yeah. They they sort of nimble funding for nimble minds I think that so I got a cold call one day saying if we give you this much money what would you do with it and I'm glad you asked because I have all these ideas and this is the whole idea of uh they said okay great but no respect to elders if what can this do for me give give me like what is your sort of you know moonshot experiment and I said well I think there's a lot we can learn from the past for our future and so they invested in this work and then later um kek foundation supported it and that's our primary funding right now so >> and kek of course funded our twin telescopes in Hawaii. Wow.

[01:02:16]>> The KEK Observatory. So I I'm delighted to learn of this. I'm I'm more delighted to learn that your work is visible enough to attract cold calls from funders. That's that's >> that's serious.

[01:02:29]>> That's serious stuff.

[01:02:30]>> Ain't nobody ever called me to offer me some money.

[01:02:33]>> Just letting you know. That's when you know you're doing something right. When they call you, I'm like, "Do you need some money? Like to give you some money." Like that's when you know you are kicking ass. I thought it was a joke because it was my birthday.

[01:02:46]>> So I thought, who's this and that's not funny, but then it was real.

[01:02:50]>> That's great. Wow.

[01:02:51]>> I had to write a proposal, of course, but it was was an invitation to >> Congratulations on this. And it sounds like it's very fast moving. Be delighted to catch up with you again when you know you got more enzymes and uh we'll find out just how different our future's going to be.

[01:03:07]>> Just make some enzymes and we'll talk about those.

[01:03:10]>> Oh, that'll be great. You're working on it. You bet. B bets. You're on it.

[01:03:14]>> Yeah. I want to find out in what way your professional work will influence the future of civilization.

[01:03:20]>> And if you want to give the number to the lab, maybe there's somebody out there that might want to give some money.

[01:03:26]>> How do we find you on social? Are you active on social media?

[01:03:28]>> I am on Instagram. Yeah, I I I used to be on Twitter. Now it's X. I'm still there. I have the account. Okay.

[01:03:34]>> Yeah, they can for sure find me.

[01:03:35]>> Instagram. And what what are you called on Instagram? Uh my really hard to uh say first and last name.astro.

[01:03:44]>> Betachar.aststro.

[01:03:46]>> There you go.

[01:03:47]>> Betachar.aststro.

[01:03:50]>> Did I get I finally got it right?

[01:03:52]>> Excellent. Very exc Well, thank you for joining us.

[01:03:54]>> Thanks for having me. This was great >> on Star Talk. uh it clarified some confusions I had and brings a whole field of study into the attention of our highly scientifically curious audience.

[01:04:07]>> Yes, >> thank you. Thank you for having me and I hope we realize that past is not something to be feared only to be understood as Mary Cury said.

[01:04:14]>> You don't know my past.

[01:04:17]I'm just letting you know.

[01:04:20]>> Hey, you don't know mine either. Okay, >> this has been another installment of Star Talk. Well, thanking my guest Betul Kachar from University of Wisconsin Madison for sharing her expertise, her wisdom and insight on life yesterday, today and tomorrow.

[01:04:38]>> Oo, look at that.

[01:04:39]>> Here and there.

[01:04:41]>> Got both dimensions going.

[01:04:42]>> Sounds like a soap opera.

[01:04:45]>> Chuck, always good to have you, man.

[01:04:46]>> Always a pleasure.

[01:04:47]>> Until next time, as always, keep looking up.