Kind: captions
Language: en
you can study chemistry you can study
Physics you can study geology anywhere
in the universe but this is the only
place you can study biology this is the
only place to be a biologist that's it
yeah so so definitely something very
fundamental happened here and you cannot
take biology out of the equation if you
want to understand how that vast
chemistry space of that General
sequence space got narrowed down to what
was what is available or what is used by
life you need to understand the rules of
selection and that's when Evolution and
biology comes into play
the following is a conversation with
Batu kachar an astrobiologist at
University of Wisconsin studying the
essential biological attributes of life
this is the Lex Friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Batu kachar
what is the phylogenetic tree or The
evolutionary tree of life and what can
we learn by running it back and studying
ancient Gene sequences as you have I
think phytogenetic trees
could be one of the most uh romantic and
beautiful Notions that can come out of
biology it shows us a way to depict the
connectedness of life and all living
beings with one another
it itself is an Ever evolving notion
biologists like visualizations they like
these Graphics these diagrams and tree
of life is one of them so the tree
starts at a common ancestor
it's actually the other way around it
starts from at the end it starts from
the from the branches it starts from the
tip of the branch actually and then if
the further depending on how what you
collected uh to build the tree so
depending on the branches depending on
what's on the tip of the branch and I
will explain what I mean the root will
be determined by what is really sitting
on the tip of the branch of the tree so
we could study the leaves of the tree by
looking at what we have today and then
start to reverse engineer start to move
back in time to try to understand what
the rest of the tree what the roots of
the tree looks exactly so the tree
Itself by just taking a few steps back
and looking at the entire tree itself
can give you an idea about the
connectedness the relatedness of the
organisms or whatever again you use to
create your tree there are different
ways but in this case I'm imagining
entire diversity of Life Today is
sitting on the tips of the branches of
this tree and we
look at biologists look at the the tree
itself we like to think of it as the
topology of the tree to understand when
certain
organisms or their ancestry may have
merged over time
depending on the tools you use you might
use this tree to then reconstruct the
ancestors as well
and so what are the different ways to do
the Reconstruction so you can do that at
the gene level
or you could do it at the higher complex
biology level right so what what in
which way have you approached this this
fascinating problem we approached it in
every way we can so it's the gene could
be protein the product of the gene or
species
uh or could be even groups of species it
will depend it totally depends on what
you want to do with your tree if you
want to understand a certain past events
whether an organism exchanged a certain
DNA with another one along the course of
evolution you can build your tree
accordingly if you
um rather use the tree to reconstruct or
resurrect ancient DNA which is what we
do then in our case for instance we do
both Gene protein and species because we
want to compare the tree
that we create using these different
information
okay well let me ask you the ridiculous
question then so how realistic is
Jurassic Park
can we study the genes of ancient
organisms and can we bring the those
ancient organisms back so the reason I
asked that kind of ridiculous sounding
question is uh maybe gives us context of
what we can and can't do Yeah by looking
back in time yeah so uh dinosaurs or all
these mammals in in at least for us is
the exciting thing already happened by
the time we hit to the larger organisms
or to eukaryotes oh to you the fun stuff
is before we got to the memo the fun
stuff is what what thing is boring I
think that the the phase that's well at
least two different times in the
geologic history one is the first life
uh past origin of Life how did first
life look like
and the second is why do we think that
over certain periods of geologic time no
significant Innovation happened to the
degree of leaving no record behind
so what do we not have a record of which
which part is it you the fun stuff to
you is after the origin of Life which
we'll talk about after the original life
there's single cell organisms the the
whole thing with the photosynthesis the
whole thing with the eukaryotes and uh
multi-cell organisms and uh what else is
the fun stuff the whole oxygen thing
which mixes in with the origin of Life
uh there's a bunch of different
inventions all that have to do with this
primitive kind of looking organisms that
we don't have a good record of so I will
tell you the more interesting things for
us one is the origin of life or what
happened uh right following the
emergence of Life how did the first
cells look like
and then pretty much anything that we
think shaped the environments and were
was shaped by the environments in a way
that impacted the entire planet that
enabled you and I to have this
conversation
we have very little understanding of the
biological innovations that took place
in the past of this planet
we work with a very limited set of
um I don't want to even say data because
they're fossil records so let's say
imprints either that comes from the Rock
and The Rock record itself
or what I just described these trees
that we create and whatever we can infer
about the past so we have two distinct
ways that comes from geology and biology
and they each have their limitations
okay so right so there's an interplay
the geology gives you that little bit of
data
and then the biology gives you that
little bit of kind of constraints in the
materials you get to work with to infer
how does this result in the kind of data
that we're seeing and now we can have
this through the fog we can see we can
look back hundreds of millions of years
a couple of billion years and try to
infer even further and and I like that
you said fuck it is pretty foggy but
weird and it gets foggier and foggier
the more you the further you try to see
into the past
um biology is you you basically study
with study the survivors
broadly speaking yeah and you're trying
to pitch the sort of put together their
history based on whatever you can
recover today what makes biology
fascinating also let it
erased its own history in a way right so
you work with this four billion year
product that's genome that's the DNA
it's great it's a very Dynamic ever
evolving chemical thing and so you will
get some information but you're not
gonna get
much unless you know where to look
um because it is responding to the
environment
yeah so what we have it's fascinating
what we have is the survivors the
successful
the successful organisms even the
Primitive ones even though the bacteria
you have today so bacteria is not
uh sorry sorry to offend the bacteria
it's we should be very grateful to
bacteria and first of all they are our
great great ancestors I like this quote
by Douglas Adams humans don't like their
ancestors they rarely invite them over
for dinner yeah right that bacteria is
in your dinner bacteria is in your gut
but today is helping you for dinner we
might well they get themselves invited
in a way yes and so we and they're
definitely older
um and and definitely very sophisticated
very resilient than anything
um else is someone working at the as a
bacteriologist I feel like I need to
defend them in this case because they
don't get much shout out when we think
about life so you do study bacteria so
which organisms gives you hints that are
alive today that give you
um hints about what ancient organisms
were like is it bacterias and viruses
what do you study in the lab we study a
variety of different bacteria depending
on the questions that we are
engineer bacteria so ideally we want to
work with bacteria that we can engineer
seldom we developed the tools to
engineer them and it depends on the
question that we are interested in if we
are interested in connecting the biology
and geology to understand the early life
and and fundamental Innovations across
billions of years there are really good
candidates like cyanobacteria so we we
use cyanobacteria very frequently in the
lab we can engineer its genome we can
perdurp its function by poking its own
DNA with the foreign DNA that we
engineer in the lab we work with E coli
it's the most simple in in terms of
models systems go goes organism that one
can study well-established sort of a pet
lab pet that we use it a lot for cloning
and for understanding uh or basic
functions of the cell given that it's
really well studied so and what you do
with that E coli you said that you
injectable foreign DNA we inject as much
all the bacteria that we work with with
foreign DNA we also work with
diazotrophs these are azodobacteria
they're one of the Prime nitrogen fixers
nitrogen fixing bacteria can you explain
what that is nitrogen fixing is that is
the source of its energy so nitrogen is
a triple bond gas
gets pretty abundant in the atmosphere
but nitrogen itself cannot be directly
utilized by cells given it as triple
bond
it needs to be converted to ammonia that
is then used for the Downstream
cellular functions and that's what
causes nitrogen fixing yes needs to be
fixed before our cells can make use of
it and and it's no offense to nitrogen
either well uh it's actually a very
important element it's one of the most
abundant elements on on our planets that
is used by biology it's in ATP it's in
chlorophyll um that's uh uses that
relies on nitrogen so it's a very
important enzyme for a lot of cell
functions and there's just one mechanism
that Evolution invented to convert it is
so far we know there's there's only one
nitrogen fixation pathway as opposed to
say carbon you can find up to seven or
eight different carbon based microbes
invented to fix carbon that's not the
case for nitrogen it's a it's a
singularity across geologic time we
think it evolved around 2.7 maybe
um roughly three probably less than
three billion billion years ago and
that's the only way that nature invented
to fix the nitrogen in the atmosphere
for the subsequent use would we still
have Life as we know today if we didn't
invent that nitrogen fixing step I
cannot think of it no it's it's it's
essential to Life as we know you you and
I are having this conversation because
life found a way to fix nitrogen is that
one of the tougher ones if you put it
sort of uh oxygen
nitrogen carbon what are in terms of
being able to work with these uh
elements
what is the hardest thing what is the
most essential for life just to give
context well we think of this as the
cocktail you may hear what's in the
cocktail it's the schnapps right carbon
hydrogen oxygen nitrogen sulfur so there
are five elements that life relies on
we don't quite know whether that's the
only out of many options that life
necessarily needs to operate on but
that's just how it have it happen on our
own planet and um there are many abiotic
ways to fix nitrogen uh and like
lightning right lightning can accumulate
ammonia
humans found a way about a hundred years
ago I think around World War One the
Haber bash process that we can
abiotically convert nitrogen into
ammonia actually 50 percent of the
nitrogen in our bodies comes from the
human
conversion of nitrogen ceremonia it's
helped it's the fertilizer that we use
urea comes from that process it's it's
not food so we helped we found a way to
fix our own nitrogen for ourselves yeah
but that you know that's way after the
original invention oh absolutely
absolutely and without that we wouldn't
have
we wouldn't have all the steps of
evolution along the way oh absolutely
it's very we tried to replicate in the
most simplest way what Nature has come
up with
right we do this by taking nitrogen
using a lot of pressure and then
generating ammonia life does this in a
more sophisticated way relying on one
single enzyme called nitrogenase it's
the nitrogen that is used together with
eight electron donor and ATP together
with a lot of hydrogen life pushes this
metabolism down to create fixed nitrogen
it's quite remarkable so the lab pet E
coli inject them with DNA those are the
so you call it as nitrogen fixing in
part or is that what's that a different
one so some biological Engineers
Engineers E coli to fix nitrogen I
believe not not us we use the Nature's
nitrogen nitrogen fixing bug and
engineer it with the nitrogen fixing
metabolism that we resurrected using our
computational and phylogenetic tools how
complicated are these little organisms
what talking about it depends on how you
Define complication
okay so I I could tell that you uh
appreciate and respect the full
complexity of even the most seemingly uh
primitive organisms because none of them
are primitive okay that said what what
kind of what what are we talking about
how how
um
what kind of machineries do they have
that you're working with when you're
injecting them with DNA so I will start
with one of the most fascinating
machineries that we target which is the
translation machinery
it is on a very unique
subsystem of cellular life in comparison
to I would say metabolism
and we used to
um you know when we are thinking about
cellular life we think of cell as the
basic units or the building block but
from a key perspective that's uh not the
case that one may argue that everything
that happens inside the cell serves the
translation and the translation
Machinery there is a nice paper that
called this that entire cell is
hopelessly addicted to this main
informatic
Computing biological chemical system
that it is operating at the heart of the
cell which is the translation it is the
translation translation from what to
what so RNA to enzymes it converts a
linear sequence of mRNA into a folded
later folded protein that's that's when
the uh that's the core processing center
for information for life
it's uh has multiple steps it initiates
it elongates its
um terminates and it recycles
it operates uh
discrete bits of information it's itself
is like a chemical decoding device and
that is incredibly unique for
translation that I don't think you will
find anywhere else in the cell that does
this so even though it's called
translation it's really like a factory
that reads the schematic
and builds a three-dimensional object
it's like a printer I would divide it
into actually even four more additional
steps or disciplines than what would it
take to study it by the way you
described it it's a chemical system it's
the compounds that make it up are
chemicals it's physical it's uh tracks
the energy to make its job to do its job
its own informatic what is processed are
the bits it's computational the discrete
states that the system is placed when
the information is being processed
that's itself is computational and it's
biological it's a there's variability
and inheritance that come from imperfect
replication even and infer imperfect
computation so you're and that's so good
so from the biology comes the like when
you mess up
the bugs of the features that's the
biology informatics is obvious in the
RNA that's a set of information there
the different steps along the way is
actually kind of what the computer does
with with bits its own computation
physical there's a uh I guess the the
like almost like a mechanical process to
the whole thing that requires energy and
actually you know it's manipulating
actual physical objects
and uh chemicals because you're
have to ultimately it's all chemistry
yeah and track system for me information
so it is almost a mini computer device
inside ourselves yeah and that's the
oldest uh computational device of life
it's it's uh likely the key uh operation
system that had to evolve for life to
emerge it's uh more interesting
or it's more complicated in interesting
ways than the computers we have today I
mean everything you said which is really
really nice I mean I guess our computers
have the informatic and they have the
computational but they don't have the
chemical the physical or the biology
exactly and and the computers don't have
don't link information to function
right they are not tightly coupled
nowhere close to what translation
or the way translation does it so that's
the number one I think difference
between the two
and um yes it's it's informatic and we
can um uh discuss this further too 100
let's please discuss this further which
part are we discussing for each one of
those are fascinating worlds each each
of the five yeah so about we can start
with the more I guess the the ones that
are more established which is the the
chemical aspect of the translation
Machinery it's uh the specific compounds
make up the Assembly of RNA chemists
showed this in many different ways we
can rip apart the entire Machinery we
know that at the core of it there's an
RNA that's
um
that operates not only as an information
information system itself or information
itself but also as an enzyme and and
origin of Life chemists make these
molecules easily now we know we can
manipulate RNA we can make even with
single part chemistries we can create
compounds what's a single part chemistry
um that's I would say when you add all
the recipes that you know that will lead
you to the final products do is they
they come up with this pod they throw a
bunch of chemicals in and they try to
try to they're basically Chefs of a
certain kind I'm not sure if that's what
they call it but that's how I think of
it because it is all combined in a test
tube and you know the outcome and and
it's it's mathematical once you know the
right environment and the right
chemistry that needs to get into this
container or the spot you know what the
outcome is there's no luck there anymore
it's a pretty rigid established uh input
output system and it's all chemistry so
you actually wear a lot of hats as one
of them original life chemist my PhD is
in chemistry but I don't do original
live chemistry but you're interested in
origin of Life yes absolutely so some of
your some of your best friends the
original life chemists just make sure
that you have good chemist friends if
you're interested in origin of Life yeah
that's a hundred percent requirement
should be mandatory okay so chemistry uh
so what else about this Machinery that
we need to know chemically well uh
chemically I think that that's it you
have enzymes you have proteins the
enzymes are doing their thing they know
how to chew energy using ATP or GTP they
they know what to do on their in their
own way they do their enzymatic thing so
it's not just the ribosome that is at
the heart of the transition but there
are a lot of different proteins you're
looking about a hundred different
components that compose this Machinery
uh well let me ask kind of maybe it's a
ridiculous question but did the
chemistry
make this machine or did the machine
use chemistry to achieve a purpose
so like
um
I guess there's a lot of different
chemical possibilities on Earth
is is this much translation Machinery
just like
uh choosing picking and choosing
different
chemical reactions that it can use to
achieve a purpose
uh or did the chemistry basically
like uh there's like a momentum like a
constraint to the thing that can only
build a certain kind of Machinery that's
basically is is chemistry fundamental or
is is it just emergent like how
important is chemistry to this whole
process you cannot have
chemistry
process without
chemistry what makes life interesting is
that even if the chemistry isn't perfect
even if there are accidents along the
way if something binds to another
chemical in in a way it shouldn't
um there is resilience within the system
that it can maybe not necessarily repair
itself but it moves on however in
perfect
mistakes can be handled that's where the
biology that's where the biology comes
in but in terms of chemistry you
absolutely cannot have a transition
missionary without chemistry and so
you're as I said there are four main
steps these are the core steps that are
conserved in all translation missionary
and I should say all life has this
machine right
every cell everything on Earth on Earth
yeah yes when you think of this machine
do you think very specifically about the
kind of Machinery that we're talking
about or do you think more
philosophically a machine that converts
information into function it's I I
cannot separate
Machinery fascinating
those five components that I listed are
they coexist
so for instance if we uh let's just
talking about the chemistry part
um
we we know the certain
um rate constant all these proteins that
operate in this Machinery needs to
Harbor in order to get the mechanism
going
right if you are bringing the the
information to the translation
missionary and you're the initiator of
this computation system you need to have
uh you can only afford a certain range
of mistakes if you're too fast then the
next message cannot be delivered fast if
you're too slow then you may stall the
process so there is definitely a
chemistry constant going on within the
Machinery
um again it's not perfect far from it
but they all have their own margin of
error that they can tolerate versus they
cannot otherwise they call that the
system collapses so it's like a Jazz
Ensemble the notes of the chemistry but
you can be I love that you said Jazz
it's definitely through it's a party and
it's like everybody's invited and and
and they need to operate together all
right and and they um and what's really
cool about it I think or there are many
things that are very interesting about
this thing but if you take if you remove
it from the cell and put it in a Cell
free environment it works just fine
right so you can get cell free
translation systems uh put this
transition in a test tube and it is
doing its thing it doesn't need the rest
of the cell to translate information of
course you need to feed the information
at least so far
um but because we are far from evolving
a transition maybe not so far uh
evolving a translation in the lab or the
Machinery that can process information
as it generates it we have not done that
yet it's a pretty complicated Machinery
it's hard for it to for those uh origin
of Life chemists to find a part that
generates because it's far more than
chemistry you need you need uh biology
obviously you need biochemistry you need
to think as a I think a network systems
folk you need to think about computation
you need to think about information and
and that is not happening yet except we
are trying to bring this perspective but
the more you understand how the
information systems work you cannot once
you see it you cannot unsee it it's one
of those things so but you can still bit
out and the chemistry happens yes and
chemistry can happen even with even if
you strip some of the parts out it can
you can get very minimal level of
information processing that does not
look anything like the translation that
cells relies on but that what chemists
showed from linear you can generate
information that arrives to a processing
center in the form of a linear polymer
the informatic part of this system that
I think sets it apart from computation
and from metabolism comes in if you
think about the information itself right
so we have four nucleotide letters that
compose DNA and they are processed in
the translation in triplets
so you have an in triplet codon
fragments so you have four times four
times four so you have 64 possible
states that can be encoded
by four letters in three positions
all right so it's so amazing yeah it's
so amazing there is only one code that
says start that's that there's only one
and then there's two if not three that
says stop
so that's that's that's what you work
with but you can have 64 possible States
but life only uses 20. amino acids so we
used six live users 64 possible States
minus four of the starts and stops to
code for 20 amino acids in different
combinations
that is really amazing if you think
about there there are 500 different
amino acids life can choose right it's
narrowed it down to training we don't
know why a lot of people think about
this genetic code is quite fascinating
right I mean it didn't do it for four
billion years I don't know we may wait
for another four billion years but but
you didn't have those amino acids in the
very beginning right like you don't know
so it we would be fooling ourselves if
we said we know exactly how many amino
acids existed early on but there's no
reason to think that it it wasn't the
same or similar yeah we don't we don't
have a good reason but
but because roughly 20 out of 60 states
are used you're using one-third of your
possible states in the in your
information system so it this may seem
like a waste but informatically it's
important because it's abundant and it
is uh redundant right so so this code
degeneracy you see this in that's
implemented by this translation
missionary inside the cell
so it means we can make errors right you
can make errors but the message will
still get through you you can speak
missing some letters to the information
can miss some parts but the message will
still get through so that's two-thirds
of the not used States give gives you
that robustness and resilience within
this system so at the informatic level
there's room for error there's probably
room for probably in all five
uh categories we're talking about
there's probably room for air in the
computation there's probably room from
area there's yes exactly everywhere yeah
because because the the informatic
capacity is made possible together with
the other
um components and not only that but also
the the product yields
a function no
in this case enzyme are pretty right so
so
that's really amazing for me it is I
mean I mean in my head just so you know
because I'm a computer science AI person
the the parallels between even like
language models that encode language
or now they're able to encode basically
any kind of thing including
um images and actions all in this kind
of way
the the parallel in in terms of
informatic and uh computation
is just incredible actually
um I have a image maybe I can send you
can we pull it up now if you just do
genetic codon charts we can pull that
off yeah it's a very standard table
so I can I can explain what why this is
so amazing so you're looking at um like
this is life's alphabet right and so I
also want to make a very quick link now
to your first question the Tree of Life
um when when we link when we try to
understand ancient languages right or
the cultures of the or the cultures uh
that use these extinct languages we
start with the modern languages right so
we look at
um Indo-European
languages and and try to understand
certain words and make trees
um to understand you know this is what
uh Slavic word is for snow something
like snig now we jump to languages that
humans spoken humans talk history
exactly so we make trees to understand
what is the original ancestor what did
they use to say snow and if you have a
lot of cultures who use the word snow
you can imagine that uh it was snowy
that's why they needed that word it's
the same thing for biology right if if
they have some if we understand some
function about that enzyme we can
understand the environment that they
lived in it's it's the similar it's
similar in that sense so now you're
looking at the alphabet for of life in
this case it's not 20 or 25 letters it's
you have four letters so what is really
interesting that stands out to me when I
look at this on the outer shell you're
looking at the 20 amino acids that's
composed life right the one the
methionine that you see that's the start
so the start is always the same to me
that is fascinating that all Life starts
with the same starts there's no other
start code so you sent the uh AG you
know Aug to the cell that when that
information arrives the transition knows
all right I gotta start function is
coming the following this is a chain of
information until the stop code arrives
which are highlighted in black squares
so for people just listening we're
looking at a standard RNA color table
organizing a wheel there's an outer
shell and there's an inner shell all
used in the four letters that we're
talking about with that we can compose
all of the amino acids then there's a
start and there's a stop and presumably
you put together the the with these
letters you walk around the wheel to put
together the words the sentences that
yeah reverse the sentences and you to
again you get one start you get three
there are three different ways to stop
this one way to start it and for each
letter you have multiple options so you
say you have a code a the second code
can be another a and even if you mess
that up you still can rescue yourself so
you can get it for instance I'm looking
at the lysine Decay you get an A and you
get an A and then you get an A that
gives you the lysine right but if you
get an A and if you get an A then get a
g you still get the license so there are
different combinations so even if
there's an error we don't know if these
are selected because they were Earnest
and somehow they got locked down we
don't know if there is a mechanism
behind this to or we we certainly don't
know this definitively
but this is informatic uh part of this
and notice that the colors in some
tables too the colors will be coded in a
way that um the the type of the
nucleotide can be similar chemically uh
but the point is that you will still end
up with the same amino acids or
something similar to it even if you mess
up the code do we understand the
mechanism how natural selection
interplays with this resilience to error
so which errors
result in the same
uh the output like the same function and
which don't
uh which actually results in a
dysfunction which are we understand to
some degree the how translation and the
rest of the cell work together
have an error at the translation level
this is a really core level can impact
entire cells but we understand very
little about the evolutionary mechanisms
behind the selection of the system it's
thought to be as one of the hardest
problems in biology and it is still the
Dark Side of biology we even though it
is so essential
so this is uh yeah you're looking at the
language of life so to speak and how it
can found ways rather to it to tolerate
its own mistakes so the entire
phylogenetic tree
can be like uh deconstructed with this
wheel of language because all the final
letters those are that's the 20 amino
acids that's our alphabet they are all
brought together with these bits of
information right so you when you look
at the genes you're looking at those
four letters when you look at the
proteins you're looking at the 20 amino
acids uh which may be a little easier
way to track the information when we
create
um the tree so using this language we
can describe all life that's lived on
earth
[Music]
we are not that good at it yet right so
in theory this is one way to look at
life on Earth if you're a biologist and
you want to understand how life evolved
uh from a molecular perspective this
would be the way to do it and and this
is what nature narrowed its code down to
so maybe think of nitrogen than we think
of carbon when we think of sulfur it's
all in this that the all these
nucleotides are built based on those
elements and this is fundamentally the
informatic perspective exactly that's
that's the informatic perspective and
it's important to emphasize that this is
not engineered by humans this is this
evolved by itself like right humans
didn't invent this just because we were
just describing we're trying to find
trying to describe the language of life
it's it appears to be a highly optimized
chemical and information code
um it it may indicate that a great deal
of chemical Evolution and uh and and
this may indicate that a lot of
selection pressure and darwinian
evolution happened with prior to the
rise of last Universal common ancestor
because this is uh almost a bridge that
connects the early cells to the last
Universal common ancestor okay can you
describe what the heck you just said uh
so this
mechanism evolved before the what
combination so there's the last
Universal government so when we talk
about the tree when we think about the
root if you I ideally uh included all
the living information or all the
available information that comes from
living organisms on your tree then it on
the root of your tree lies the last
Universal common ancestor Luca right why
last last Universal because the earlier
Universe it also had trees but they all
died off we call it the last because it
is sort of the first one that we can
track
because we cannot we don't know what we
cannot track right so it's one there's
one organism
that started the whole thing it's more
like a I would think of it as more like
a population a group of organisms I
tweeted this I want to know the accuracy
of my tweet all right
um sometimes early in the morning I I
tweet very pothead like things I said uh
that we all evolved from one
common ancestor that was a single cell
organism 3.5 billion years ago uh
something like this
how how true is that tweet do I need to
delete it no there's actually correct
but I mean uh I I think of course
there's a lot to say which is like we we
don't know exactly uh but what to what
degree is that the the single organism
aspect is that true
um versus multiple organisms no
totally honest yes please
this is how we did like caveats the
tweets right so first of all it's not
um 3.5 is still a very conservative
estimate that's the first Direction uh I
would say it's 3.8 is probably safer to
say at this point a bunch of people said
it probably way before if you put an
approximately I'll take that I didn't I
just love the idea
that I was once first of all as a single
organism I was once a cell well your
still is you're a group of cells no but
I started from a single cell
me Lex you mean like you versus Luca are
you relating to Luca right now
like your own development my own
development I started from a single cell
it's like it like built up with stuff
okay that and then so that's a first
single biological and then from an
evolutionary perspective the Luca like I
start like my ancestors a single cell
and then here I am sitting half asleep
tweeting
like I started from a single cell
evolved a ton of murder along the way
into the the this like brutal uh search
for adaptation through the
3.5.8 billion so you you defy the code
of Douglas Adams you are proud of your
ancestors and you you get them over to
dinner and you invite them over to your
Twitter yeah so and it's amazing that
this intelligence to the degree you can
call it intelligence emerged to be able
to tweet whatever the heck I want yes
it's almost intelligence at the chemical
level and this is also probably one of
the first chemically intelligent system
that evolved by itself in nature yeah
you see you see that translation is in a
fundamentally like uh intelligent
mechanism in its own way and and again
the if if we manage to figure out how to
drive life's evolution
in it can if it can evolve uh a
sophisticated sort of informatic
um processing system like this you may
ask yourself what might chemical systems
be capable of independently doing under
different circumstances
yeah so like locally they're intelligent
locally they don't need the rest of the
shebang like they don't need the big
they need so that that's that's a great
segue into what makes this biological
right the the hearts of the cellular
activities are translation you kill
translation you kill the cell yes you
not only the translation itself you kill
the component that initiates that you
kill the cell you kill you remove the
component that elongates it you kill the
cell so there are many different ways to
disrupt this Machinery they all depart
all the parts are important now it it
can vary across different organisms we
see variation between bacteria versus
eukaryotes versus archaea right so it is
not the same same exact steps but it can
get more crowded as we get closer to
eukaryotes for instance but you are
still Computing about
um 20 amino acids per second right this
is this is what you're generating every
second the single Machinery is doing 20
a second 20s 21 for bacteria I believe
eight four eukaryotes or nine 21 a
second I mean that's super inefficient
or super efficient depending on how you
think about it
I think it's great I mean I can yeah but
it's way slower than a computer
could generate it through simulation I I
think if you can show me a computer that
does this we are down here well this is
the big this includes the five things
not just but I could show you a computer
that's doing the informatic right like
yes you can show me that but you cannot
show me the one that has all for now for
now I will ask you about probably what
uh Alpha fold right uh I think the more
we learn about and this is why early
life and origin is also very fascinating
and applicable to many different
disciplines there's no way you see this
the way we just described it unless you
think about early life and early
geochemistry and earliest emergent
systems but going going back to
the biological components
all of these attributes that we think
about life or that we associate with
Biology stems from translation and as
well as metabolism but
I see metabolism as a way to keep
translation going and translation keeps
metabolism going but transition is
arguably a bit more sophisticated
process for the reasons that I just
described so metabolism is a source of
energy for this translation process it's
so it's a it's a way to process
materials and it is inherently Dynamic
and it is flexible but it is not focused
on rapid reputation as translation does
so that's the main difference
translation is the kind of in a way just
it repeats right so you have the
metabolism that can synthesize materials
it creates or benefits from available
energy and again it's a dynamic system
um and then you have computation that it
that is inherently repetitive right
needs to carry out repetitive processes
uh it and it does the tasks and it's it
implements an algorithm but it is not
Dynamic so you see both of those
attributes in Translation combined it is
repetitive and it is dynamic and it also
processes this information so they are
fundamentally different I don't know if
you can get
um the life if you don't find a way to
process the information around you
in a repetitive Dynamic way yeah and
somehow that that's what got
um selected maybe not selected I don't
know if it was
um accidental but that that's what it
seems to be conserved for four billion
years that that's what life established
what's the connection between
translation and the self-replication
which seems to be a another weird thing
that life just started doing wanting to
just replicate it I think when we truly
understand the answer to that question
we may have just made ourselves live
right we I don't think we know quite how
translation Machinery as a whole fits
into equation because so we try to
understand
um ribosomes RNA how the linear
information is processed
um
or the genetic code wise this codons not
others why 20 not more not less and we
are sort of moving towards transition
that's that's what we're working on
anyway uh to finally look at the
patterns in which this system operates
itself and if you understand that you're
really unlocking a very emergent
Behavior
uh one of the things you didn't mention
is physical is there something to
mention about that component that's
interesting there's actually a paper uh
published in 2013 I want to say the
first author zirnoff so they surveyed
computational
[Music]
um engineered systems level computation
energy consumption okay and they try to
understand whether the universe is using
its own or life is using its full
capacity of energy consumption and
whether
um if different planets in the universe
had life would the capacity would
increase or decrease it does life
operate at its energy maximum
and uh and they think that it does that
it actually operates at an efficiency
that is far more above and beyond a
computational system how's that possible
to determine at all that you tell me
that's why I dropped the citation I I
found the citation it's quite an
interesting paper it's a bit you know
it's a um
it's a obviously you can only calculate
and infer these things but that's a good
question to ask is the life that we see
here on Earth and life elsewhere in the
universe is it using the energy most
efficiently yeah yeah it seems to be
very efficient again if we compare to
computers it seems to be incredibly
efficient at using it I think they look
at the like the theoretical Optimum for
electronic devices and then try to
understand where life falls on on this
and life is certainly more efficient and
that's ultimately the physical side how
well are you using for this entire
mechanism the energy available to to you
and so given given all the resilience to
errors and all that kind of stuff it
seems that it's close to its maximum yep
and this this paper aside it does seem
that life obviously that's the
constraint we have on earth right is the
amount of energy
yeah so that's one way to Define life
well
the input is energy and the output is
what I don't know
self-replicating
wait how okay let's go there how do you
how do you personally Define life do you
have a do you have a favorite definition
you try to sneak up on
um
is it possible I Define life
on Earth I don't know it depends on what
you are defining it for if you're
defining it for finding different life
forms then it probably needs to have
some quantification in it so that you
can
um
use it in in whatever the mission that
you're operating to me like it's not
binary it's uh this is like a seven out
of ten
I don't know I I don't I don't think
that defining is that essential I think
it's a good exercise but I'm not sure if
the if we need to agree
um a universally defined way of
understanding life uh because the
definition itself seems to be ever
evolving anyway right we have the NASA's
definition it's it says
it has its uh minuses and pluses but it
seems to be doing its job well what what
are the different if there is a line and
it's impossible or unproductive to
Define that line nevertheless we know it
when we see it
is one definition that the Supreme Court
likes
and that's a
kind of an important thing to um
to think about when we look about when
we look at life on other planets
so
how do we try to identify if a thing is
living when we go to Mars when we go to
uh the different moons in our solar
system we would go outside our solar
system to look for Life yeah on other
planets it's unlikely to be a sort of a
Smoking Gun event right it's not going
to be hey I found this you don't think
so I don't think so unless you find an
elephant on some exoplanet then I can
say yeah that's there's life here no but
is there a dynamic nature to the thing
like uh it moves
it has a membrane that looks like
there's stuff inside it doesn't need to
move right I mean like look at plants I
mean they they grow but there are plants
that or can be also pretty dormant and
arguably they are the most they do
everything that is one of my
favorite professors once said that the
plant does everything that the giraffe
does without moving so the movement is
not a Zen statement necessarily but at a
certain time scale the the plant does
move it just moves slower yes it moves
pretty I would I would say that and it's
hard to quantify this or even measure it
but it is a life is definitely the
chemistry finding Solutions right so it
is chemistry exploring itself
but and and maintaining this exploration
for billions of years so okay so a
planet
is a bunch of chemistry
and then you run it and say all right
figure out what uh what cool stuff you
can come up with that's essentially what
life is given a chemistry what is the
cool stuff I can come up with if that's
that chemistry or the solutions that
it's
embarks upon are maintained in a form of
memory
right so it's this you you don't just
need to have the
uh explore exploring chemical space but
you need to also maintain a memory of
some of those solutions for over long
periods of time so that's the memory
component
makes it more living to me because
chemistry can always sample right so
chemistry is chemistry but are you just
constantly sampling or are you building
on your former Solutions and then
maintaining a memory of those Solutions
over billions of years or at least
that's what happened here chemistry
can't build life if it's always living
in the moment the physicists would be
very upset with you okay
so memory could be
a fundamental I mean life is not just I
mean life is obviously the chemistry and
physics uh leading to biology so this is
not a disciplinary
problem of one discipline trying playing
other discipline it's that but what what
you need to have is definitely a big
chemistry is everywhere right I
tend to think you can be a chemist you
can study chemistry you can study
Physics you can study geology anywhere
in the universe but this is the only
place you can study biology this is the
only place to be a biologist that's it
yeah so so definitely something very
fundamental happened here and you cannot
take biology out of the equation if you
want to understand how that vast
chemistry space how that General
sequence space got narrowed down to what
was what is available or what is used by
life you need to understand the rules of
selection and that's when Evolution and
biology comes into so the rules of
natural selection operate to you on the
level of biology
rules I don't know if there are any
rules like that would be fascinating to
find in terms of the biology's rules
that's a very interesting and
um it's a very fascinating area of study
now and probably we will hear more about
that the decades to come but if you want
to go from the the broad to specific you
need to understand the rules of
selection and that is going to come from
understanding biology yes
well actually let me ask you about
selection you have a paper uh on
evolutionary stalling
where you describe that evolution is not
good at multitasking
or like uh in uh populations that have
evolved quickly I mean it's a very
specific thing but there could be a
generalizable fundamental thing to this
that evolution is not able to improve
multiple modules simultaneously I guess
the question is
um what part of the organism does
evolution quote unquote focus on to
improve yeah that was the driving
question we meddled with the part where
you shouldn't be messing up with
translation this is the shooter should
not you shouldn't as I said there are
many ways to break it and all life needs
it so one of the things your favorite
things to do is to break life to see
what happens
it's yeah because that's how kids learn
right so you have to break something and
you see how it will then you do over and
over again to see if it will fix itself
in the same ways yeah so that's it's our
I don't know it's the most fundamental
properties of our ourselves as human
beings so if we shouldn't break
translation then we should try to break
it yes to see how it will repair so
which part you break I broke elongation
so what's the role of elongation in this
process so the we we have uh four steps
of the translations initiate elongate so
to elongate the chain of the the
information chain that you're now
creating the peptide chain uh or let's
say broadly polymer chain
um and there's a termination step and
there's the recycling so all of these
com steps are carried out by proteins
that are also named after these steps
initiation is the initiation Factor
protein elongation is the elongated
protein
um we
um
broke elongation
so the cell the starting codon could
still arrive to where it's supposed to
go but the following information
couldn't get carried out because we
replaced elongation with uh its own
ancestral version so we inserted roughly
a 700 million year old elongation Factor
protein
after removing the modern Gene so we
made this ancient modern hybrid
organism and that essentially creates in
some way the ancient version of that
organism
I wouldn't say so it's the it's a it's
a it's organism it's not necessary
because you the rest of this cell the
rest of the
uh genome is still modern and that goes
back to the difference between Jurassic
Park there are many differences
obviously given that this is not fiction
we're doing it but also
um we are not necessarily I think in
Jurassic Park they are taking and
ancients or they find an ancient
organism and then put in modern Gene
inside the ancient organism in our case
we are still working with what we got
but putting an ancestral DNA inside the
modern organisms you're like taking a
new car and putting an old engine into
it in a way yeah yes seeing what happens
yes but in our case it's more like a
Transformer than just a regular car it
is doing things it's yeah so it's a more
complicated organism than just the car
yeah
uh I got it so what is that what does
that teach you
we
sell respond to
perturbation
didn't just put the ancient DNA we
inserted
um we sampled DNA from currently
existing organisms so the cousins of
this microbe and and collected DNA
sequences from the cousins as well so
both ancestor and the current cousin DNA
so to speak and engineered all of these
things to the modern bacteria and
generated a collection of microbes that
either have the ancient component or the
variants
elongator component that still alive
today but coming from a different part
of the tree so you broke elongation
was that something you did as part of
the paper on evolutionary stalling to
try to figure out
how Evolution figures out what to try to
improve did that help yes because we
were not supposed to
mess with different
that's exactly what we did
and we
altered elongation by changing it with
different versions of elongation that
are either coming from
species that still are around today you
can imagine them as sitting on the tips
of the Tree near Branch for our Branch
to compare to the organism that we're
working with cousins distant cousins
as well as the ancestors of the bacteria
that we are now modifying how much
different uh variation is there in that
elongation step like what are the
different flavors of elongation that's a
very good question so
mechanistically or mechanically it's the
same it's it's very conserved so all
life elongates the same way you are it's
nothing but a shuttle you just carry in
um the chemical with you
the bits to the heart of the machine is
that essentially doing like a copy paste
operation it has its tail that's
attached to the the code
which is then carried biochemically to
the linear chain to the core of ribosome
and the it sits on there it's released
and the peptides click uh the the codes
rather click once that chemistry that is
at the tail end occurs the protein
leaves the
um Center so you can imagine it's like
it's hops in there and hops out and when
it pops and UPS out it leaves the
information behind that's all it does is
bring the information get out of there
and it's all triggered by biophysics
biochemistry because of the way the
enzyme chews energy in this case GTP how
the phosphor leaves the center the kicks
that gives the additional kick to the
enzyme to leave the center so what which
parts are different than where's the
flavors of different flavors usually the
parts that matter don't change over time
nature conserves the sites of these
proteins that are important for it is
job
if there's a difference then we we want
to know especially if if there's a
difference between two cousins and in we
look at the sites that interact with the
most important parts of this Machinery
if we see any difference we tend to
mutate or we revert we engineer that
part we alter that part because it gives
us a clue that there must be something
interesting going on here or not okay so
that's not the the fundamental part of
the Machinery but it's some flavorful
characteristic that you can play with so
now you strip the Machinery down to its
parts and now you're looking at the
parts of the parts okay and um it
depends uh where you're looking and how
you're looking and what you're looking
at but usually we see up to 70 percent
level uh conserved identity across all
modern versions when you travel back in
time the identity decreases so
elongation likely existed we have good
reason to think that it existed at the
dawn of life so you're looking at a 3.8
billion year old mechanism
and when we look at the ancestors that
we resurrect we see about 40 identity so
the identity definitely decreases as you
go back in time but still 60 percent
shared information over 4 billion year
is pretty good is that just for
elongation for the entire translation
depends on what you do so for initiation
we've also recently published this it's
a different story uh but overall you see
high level of identity that that is kept
intact especially if the component is
essential for life okay so 40 and 60 70
you said but like from Generations
generation how does evolution and
presumably that's what that paper is
looking at is the parts of the parts
so how does it uh able to say like mess
with the parts and try to come up with a
cooler improved version of the organism
yeah so let me describe to you what we
did in that experiment we took a
different we took bacteria we perturbed
the elongation in all of these with
different variants so we had an initial
set of
um a group of bacteria that we had we
then subjected these bacteria to
evolution in the lab all right so we
first of all we knew we broke it because
upon engineering we measured what's
going on with the cell it's not growing
as well they are not healthy we can see
it with our eyes we can measure it that
if they were generating an offspring
every 20 minutes now it is 40 minutes
right so we really messed them up they
don't want to work with this thing they
don't want each other but they need each
other so we created that situation for
them
which is good because we want to see how
uh we wanted to see how they will uh
cooperate with each other uh to fix this
problem because we know that that's not
the condition that they want to live in
especially when they know what they can
do
so with that we subjected these
organisms to evolution in the lab that's
uh
we refer to this as experimental
Evolution we subject bacteria to
different selection pressure
project them through bottlenecks every
day we randomly collect a handful of
bacteria from the flask give them put
them in a new Fresh environment with
fresh food keep them in this environment
for 24 hours until they reach a more
doormat State and then we
subject introduce them to an even
environment so we repeated this for
about it
um I will say 150 days so every day not
non-stop we repeated this experiment
some kind of uh how much how many
different kinds of environments are
there we kept the environments into the
same and because we had different
initial conditions we kept the
environment constant same temperature
same food same source of carbon but we
created replicates for each
lineage so in some ways we created our
own fossil record in the lab by evolving
and generating these flasks and every
gen every step of the way we all saw
froze these cells and took stocks of
them in the in the cryo freezer how long
does it take to go from one generation
to the next one bacteria if you uh for E
coli it's usually 20 minutes
okay great so that's the experiment
that's the experiment and and you're
you're always messing it with it in the
same way for the initial it's the it's
the same way so we we introduced
variation at elongation level because
so because we um perturbed it with
different elongations we found that if
we introduce a different protein that is
very different the cells don't like that
right so if the distance is larger the
consequences also large meaning that you
hit them harder if you introduce a
variant that is really foreign to them
that's really distant I mean if in our
case it was the ancestor they really did
not like the ancestor but they were okay
with their nearest cousin
right okay great so you did vary in the
distance we varied it to this double
evolutionary distance and then we kept
the experiment called experimental
conditions the same and we propagated
these populations every day for 150 days
and we collected
um bacteria at every step of the way and
looked at the sequence we wanted to
understand what sort of changes may have
happened in the genome to respond to the
variation that we've introduced so what
kind of changes would you be seeing
depending on the evolutionary distance
of the thing you shoved into it exactly
so we knew where we punched right we
punched throughout the heart right we
punched the translation so we expected
is it going to be is a translation
are we going to see a change that will
translation respond to this by fixing
itself right away or will it be
um another outside of translation
something completely different a
different module because translation
itself is a module or would it be within
elongation it really sub protein level
thing so we uh had a strategy to
identify uh the mutational pathways by
categorizing what we expected to find or
where
okay so why does it not do multitasking
why is it there wasn't improving
multiple things why simultaneously it
turned out that what we observed in
general is that first of all the
hardware V hit the cells the more likely
they were to respond by changes right at
where we
hit it when you say hit it you mean like
change the something about looking over
this hitting because we are
because there's breaking the cell right
I mean not breaking enough to kill it
but we still the
they're not doing their job well so the
the bigger the evolutionary distance of
the thing you put in there the the the
the harder the hit is how you think
about it the bigger the hammer bigger
the hammer exactly you hit it with okay
if that's what it turned out to be
because that's what the data told us
that if we
um if the variation is higher than the
consequences will also be higher in the
sense that the cells will not grow as
healthy compared to a variance that is
coming from a near uh or a variance that
is coming from a near revolutionary is
it is it wrong to think of this kind of
hitting as a um akin to a mutation
oh no what are we supposed to learn from
this hitting like how how the thing
evolves after it's being hit in this way
what does that teach us because we
um
it is so conserved and so essential it
is not even clear whether we can remove
some of the parts or whether the entire
translation will need all of the same
Parts in the same efficiency we don't
understand the rules of this machinery
so the first thing we ought to
understand is that how what is the
resilience what are we really talking
about here when we talk about you cannot
mess with this translation is this true
because it is so conserved and so
similar and functions in the most
conserved ways that was the first thing
that we want to understand did you learn
anything interesting about the
resilience at the chemical physical
informatic computation no I I wouldn't
say that I think in the biological level
yes because we found that the different
modules started responding to the
changes that we've introduced and that
we could never recover the translation
as effectively as it used to be so that
it never reached to it is
um optimality that it was always
sub-optimal it needed to say one more
mutation perhaps to get there it
accumulated four mutations that was we
did a lot of experiments to understand
this of course it was accumulating
mutations it was getting better at its
task maybe it needed a couple other
mutations to get really good at it but
somehow those limitations never happened
and before those mutations happened we
saw another module
um emerging through mutations and
getting better at its own different
tasks that is not translation you can
think of cell as a web of networks right
when we think of this as multiple almost
airports that are proteins that are more
Central hubs versus there are proteins
that maybe are not as important if you
introduce a problem in the most
populated Hub you're gonna mess up the
traffic system more drastically and and
that's what we were messing with in in
the biological terms as well so when we
say module like translation would be one
of the most translation would be one so
you're basically saying when you mess
with translation
the organism would choose to either try
to fix that module or another module
depending exactly but it wouldn't do
multiple mods you wouldn't do multiple
modules it focused on one module at a
time and right before that module maybe
reached to its own maximum it's stalled
its optimality at a certain degree so
you never get to a degree that is more
optimal than you can achieve even though
perhaps another mutation could get you
there since you messed with the
translation
from a sort of optimal perspective
wouldn't it make sense for the cell to
try to start fixing the translation not
there's exactly
exactly what we thought and it didn't it
was not the case for all the broken
translation missionaries for instance if
the variant was coming from a near
ancestor that didn't happen it was
almost cruising around trying different
modules and sort of living its best life
still without because there is no real
urgency in the system to fix the most
important problem and there's also not a
Direction
you know maybe to you it's obvious
that's the problem but to the cell maybe
you're the problem I'm living like you
said my best life like we don't I mean I
guess that's the thing about evolution
is we don't know what the right
direction to yeah it's almost like you
can imagine that you have this mess see
closet and um you know
happens to be an accurate representation
of my life so if you can't you you take
a look at it and you see all the
sweaters or you know jeans or all over
the place and then you look at a drawer
that has sucks coming out of it and
you'd think that's the most important
one I'm just gonna fix that one yeah and
then you fix that one and then you think
you will get to the other one but you
don't because you just fix the most
important one that is the whatever that
was getting into your way that's what
really what evolution is it's quite lazy
it fixes a problem that seems to be the
most immediate and it doesn't go beyond
what it really needs to it seems like at
least for our experimental setup that
was the case uh especially for rapidly
evolving systems so like there's the
environment they're operating in pretty
constrained like is there a urgency I
would think I would say that we
definitely constrained the environment
it's definitely removed from their
natural
setup we are not evolving them in our
guts it's a very homogeneous system very
controlled controlled temperature
controlled food controlled carbon so
just looking at that let me ask the the
Romantic question uh how did Evolution
create so much beautiful complex variety
on Earth
like from that you're saying that we're
talking about improving different
modules but if we step back and look at
the entirety of the tree of the
different organisms that created all
throughout history the the stuff that's
fun to you with the the first few
billion and the the stuff that's fun to
me when I watch on YouTube which is like
the the line versus gorilla fights and
so on uh but the whole thing is fun so
with all that beautiful variety from the
predator and the prey uh from the
self-replicating bacteria and all that
kind of stuff how to do it how is a very
difficult question especially when we
don't understand
um the past with Clarity at all I can
tell you that there seems to be very
critical innovations that happened
throughout the history of life that are
each themselves
very sophisticated singularities that
emerged once and then they set the tone
one of which is emergence of translation
it seems like it happened once it had to
happen once seems like that's all it
took
3.8 billionaire maybe older clearly
subjected to a lot of chemical Evolution
even prior to the last Universal common
ancestor and then you jump and you see
um emergence of
cyanobacteria
that's undeniably change the course of
those planets
in the subsequent aerobic
photosynthesis that life learned
how to utilize what's available in the
environment in the most profound way
and then you move forward you see the
emergence of eukaryotes to the
endosymbiosis also another singular
events and then you move forward and
then comes the plants so these are I
counted I think six different things
that seems to have happened just once
and the singularity events in the
history of evolution of life on Earth so
what's really fascinating here is that
there seems to be two different courses
the time course Evolution or is
operating at the molecular level right
we're talking about
seconds we're talking about mutations
that happen every second we're talking
about selection that's also happening
under a minute right so that is a very
fast process the fact that I can evolve
bacteria in a lab and I say I almost
complainingly oh my goodness it took me
150 days I mean that's pretty rapid to
for for a change to be seen
but then the big changes and the ones
that I'm talking really big innovations
that increased that cause to an increase
of oxygen on this planet or even its own
mere presence are due to these molecular
Innovations
seems to only happen a handful of times
over billions of years of time scale let
me ask you this question having to do
with my half a sleep tweet
so saying that we all originate from one
common ancestor
um that's just one of them miraculous
things
about life on Earth of course you could
say there's multiple common ancestors in
the beginning multiple organisms and so
on but the other stuff that you're
talking about is these singular events
these leaps of invention throughout
evolution in history
now there's a bunch of people who were
commenting
a bit surprising to me who were
basically skeptical of this idea the
idea of well I would say Evolution
honestly the process of evolution but
when you just actually focus in on like
holy crap
um
eukaryotes were invented holy crap
photosynthesis was invented like those
are incredible inventions and also we
can go to Homo sapiens think
intelligence like where did that come
from it's it did these Mysteries I think
where that skeptical comments are coming
from were also just a general skepticism
of science
I think from the pandemic people may be
a failure of Institutions and so on they
um
there have been a growing distrust of
Science and it's not so so much that
it's anti-evolution it's it's more of a
stepping back and saying wait a minute
maybe scientists don't have it all
figured out and I think
um to Steel man that case is almost a
step back and to realize there's so much
mystery to each of these leaps right so
it makes you wonder is there something
that in 100 200 years we'll figure out
that we totally don't understand yet
like some you know there's I talked to a
bunch of people about another mystery
which is consciousness right and there's
people called pan psychists who believe
Consciousness is one of the fundamental
laws of the universe so there could be
um you know like we have laws of physics
that could be something that's like a
Consciousness field or something that
permeates all matter and so like there
might be uh it's kind of like Newtonian
physics versus general relativity like
we have a good understanding of how
things happen but we need another layer
of understanding to fill in the gaps of
the mysteries of it all and
that sort of is a sobering reality that
maybe there is something we really
deeply don't understand do you have a
sense of where the biggest mysteries
here are is it the origin of life itself
is it the leaps
that we're talking about so you you see
the beauty you're fascinated about the
translation mechanism
what are the Deep Mysteries there to you
we are nothing but chemical systems
capable of
formulating or answering questions about
our own existence
we humans or all of life you think
humans humans are uh I mean the fact
that we can we even have this
conversation about
our
place in the universe is is
that is to our knowledge is quite
specific to our own chemical species
but
yeah it's kind of wild we're we're uh
introspecting on our evolutionary
history and we're just a couple of
organisms
yes I would like another organism
listening to this and like they're mind
blown
there's like three organisms two of them
talking and the third one's like holy
shit
life or or even contemplating about our
own place in the universe if at the end
of this would come down to appreciating
uh or even before appreciating really
truly comprehending what it is that we
got here
um that to me is a huge gain because
there's no single question in biology I
think that will give that
the that would deliver that magnitude of
that message and understanding but
understanding how life here started at
first place if it we truly comprehend
that we this is not a concept that is
well thought in schools
we ask students to memorize these
Concepts maybe if they are lucky they
learned RNA world
chicken and egg problem
Etc that's the extent to which that God
may be their biology teacher was
personally interested in the subject
matter if they're lucky and you know the
saying that the the
uh brain brains are
evenly distributed uh across any metric
you can imagine but opportunities are
not
so if people aren't understanding the
importance of this is because that's a
lack of opportunity right there that's
was skipped through
the
proper Education and Training then the
delivery of my
Science Matters or how science actually
works yeah but how do you even begin to
uh
I seriously think about the origin of
life
I mean
every problem
of existence of life
has its time so I don't know if it's
time to understand Consciousness yet we
might be a hundred years away from that
the origin of life I don't know if it's
time for us to understand that yet maybe
we need to solve so many more problems
along the way and so it's not the
competition of problems right so there
are all kinds of problems and it takes a
lot of people to make the world so you
will always have some interesting brain
in going after an interesting problem to
their own the issue here is that we we
need to first of all understand that we
what we have going on on this planet is
pretty good
good planets are hard to find
if we are alone in the universe that's
that's huge
we need to take care of what we got here
and we are incredibly vulnerable to the
changes that our own species also helped
create on antibiosphere at the ecosystem
level we take it for granted we take
what we created for granted because of
the fact that we think we are some sort
of ultimate endpoint the most
sophisticated amazing thing that nature
could generate
I think understanding and not even
understanding but asking these questions
of where did this even come from how did
this even begin and
attempting to understand that using
chemistry and physics and biology and
because we can
That's The Ultimate Gift we can give
back to the entire species on this
planet
yeah I mean it's humbling it's humbling
to realize the the complexity of this
whole mechanism it certainly puts humans
in their proper perspective that we're
not
um just because we have brains and
brains are intelligent doesn't mean
we're the most intelligent thing because
ultimately the the whole mechanism of
nature seems to be orders and magnesium
more intelligent all all of it like
we're we're a bunch we're like a
hierarchy of organisms that have a
history of several billion years and
that all somehow came together to make a
human and there'll be life after us
just as it was life before us and
something that comes after will be
perhaps even more fascinating
yeah I think when you understand the
magnitude of what happened here there is
there is no room for arrogance it should
overwhelm you and humiliate it's pretty
humiliating yeah like you know it's it's
it's quite amazing what what what was
what happened here and there is no other
discipline that will
deliver that but exploring our own
Origins and looking at Life as a more
planetary system phenomena rather than
one single species at a time a
collective look
uh you mentioned this question in your
Ted Talk is
the two possibilities
of the universe being full of life
and the universe being empty and we're
the only life in the universe
how do you feel about both options
just actually you as a single chemical
organism introspecting about its
existence in this world it's having a
planet flow of life is interesting
because there are we talked about
life being all about chemistry exploring
Solutions and having Solutions in front
of you is is great it's beneficial right
Solutions being different organisms like
other humans you see them as a solution
to a chemistry problem different
different yeah that's an interesting
Solution that's not next time we're in
Austin so there's a bunch of weirdos
every time I see a weirdo I'll be like
oh that's an interesting solution to
this chemistry problem
now you think like an origin of
Lifestyle but it's funny that that one
worked out let's see where else it goes
but having just emptiness and
unpredictability of
uncovering a novel solution can also
have its own benefits and and we should
uh
be open to
what other Solutions might be out there
and exploring those Solutions okay
different chemistry problems so that's
where you see you see the other planets
out there as different chemistry
problems to their own local environment
yes so how many chemistry problems
have solutions that are lifelike to you
out there in the universe
wide open palette if you think about it
I don't quite know it's the we know the
the chemistry is chemistry I don't think
the chemistry will be different
elsewhere but again what is selected by
chemistry will be determined by the
environment most likely see I think
there is a life
everywhere out there
so there's a guy named Nick Lane
whose gut and it's interesting to me I
wonder what you think about it his gut
is there's life everywhere out there but
it stops at like the bacteria stage so
he says that you you eukaryotes
is like the biggest invention and the
hardest one I wonder if he thinks that's
an accidental outcome if he thinks
that's inevitable I wonder what that
means but it's it's very it's a likely
possibility that the uh bacterial or
microbial life is definitely more
attainable
um so that that's a weird world where
our entire galaxy just says but our
bacteria everywhere so you know if you
don't like microbes you aren't on the
wrong planet
and viruses I don't know which one is
more of but they're they're both and
most of them are like productive they're
fascinating they do everything for us
like bankruptcy on the wrong planet
uh you're full of good lines okay right
right I just can't there's like an
imperative to the whole thing to me the
origin
is the hard question but once it gets
going I just don't see them wait it
seems like it's constantly creating more
intelligent things
more
fascinating complex things they're able
to solve that's a video that's a very
interesting like that's I I definitely
agree that the initial steps may be the
ultimate determinants that once it's you
cannot stop it once it starts it's
possible
right and um I just have never on Earth
maybe but maybe
I just whenever I see life it seems to
flourish
everywhere
it the thing is I don't the only thing I
haven't seen is the start of it
exactly but that and how are we gonna
understand that if we don't the origin
of life science I mean that's the and
and the question here isn't exactly our
ability to recapitulate everything that
happened in the exact way that it
happened right this is about what can
happen rather than and or maybe how you
think it is possible to study the origin
of language using English
so
like there's a very particular chemistry
here there's a particular set of
assumptions understanding about what
life is what everything is our
perception of reality is very
specifically constructed through the
evolutionary process I wonder if it's
possible to get to some first principles
deep understanding of
how life originates in such a way that
you can actually construct it on other
planets I ultimately it feels like if
you're doing it in the lab on Earth
you're always going to be using some
aspect of the life that's already here
so
that's what I sort of talked about in my
talk as well
and um everyone should go
watch the TED Talks very good the
annoying thing to me about TED Talks I
guess this by Design is they're too
short it's like come on
and did you know that there's no
prompter involved
there's no wait there is or there isn't
yeah you have to memorize stuff yeah
it's a
editor who probably is watching this too
David bielo it was very very helpful but
I would say I like this podcast it's a
very professional organization I respect
that Medium uh yeah anyway the in the in
the talk about yeah life
life creating life so it's a likely
scenario that once we understand how
life
is a chemical system is is capable of
formulating its own expression
and generating a memory and manages its
existence on a planetary body for
billions of years
once we understand
what conditions gave rise to that
we may be very likely to understand
whether a different planet also be
likely to instigate its own chemical
Revolution if it were
it was provided by through some missing
ingredients so you can think of it as a
sanding fertilizer to a different
planets that is missing its own chemical
composition or lacking or that it needs
more of what it has
the difference between making that
planet Earth like which was this is this
is not what that's about we're not
talking about terraforming or if you're
not talking about turning that planet
into Earth-like system we are talking
about first understanding that planet
studying its chemistry studying its its
properties well enough to understand
whether it is close so it is on chemical
Revolution and maybe giving it that
extra nudge
so this is obviously a pretty big
speculation and suggestion and it's a
very interesting proposition because
this is a yes or no question right this
is this is the ultimate would you rather
it's it's the and I think it says a lot
about
um the perception of the person who is
asking this question that if the answer
is no no no absolutely not that's not
something we want to do I wanna know why
that is the case so just to be clear
what we're talking about is looking at
the chemical cocktail of a particular
planet
yeah and having like tasting it
and seeing uh seeing what's missing so
having a very systematic rigorous
scientific process of understanding what
is missing
not what is missing in terms of to make
it Earth-like but what is missing in
order to be sufficiently uh have the
spark or the capacity of the spark to
launch the uh Evolution Revolution
The evolutionary process exactly so and
then the question is do we want to then
complete the cocktail the proposition is
to also make us think that we will
likely have this capacity at some point
especially when we understand
origin of life better and better
right so we will be asking ourselves
this question I guess I wanted to bring
this to Daylight a little bit because uh
maybe in 10 20 years maybe more so you
wanted to ask the ethical question
should we
of basically start life
Elsewhere on another planet or enable
the the chemicals uh the chemical
capacity of that planet that it may one
day itself get there okay so for me the
answer is yes
so if you were to try to argue against
my yes what would you say why not what's
the worst that could happen
if we seed another planet with life what
are the things we should think about is
your main concern a chemical biological
one or is it an ethical one what do you
think about well the worst thing that
can happen is that it wouldn't work
right so that it's not a
the likely it's not likely that any
attempt like this would work that's
probably because how do you so you gotta
be very you know you have to have an
understanding that I don't think we have
just yet I see because if it doesn't
work then we could try again right
to me
the worst case the thing I would be
worried about is we create life I mean
the same stuff I worry about like with
plants are
is things that might have a conscious
experience and then
the the dark aspect of life is life is
increasingly complex life
maybe I'm anthropomorphizing but it
seems to have the capacity to suffer huh
and so we're creating something
it's like when you have children you put
creatures into this world
that will suffer can suffer and may
suffer depending on how you view life
may likely suffer and so now you carry
this responsibility for doing your best
to alleviate any suffering they might go
through and that that perhaps that's uh
romanticizing this notion of life
perhaps bacteria are not capable of
suffering but perhaps it'll create more
complex life forms that
would be able to suffer
and that feels like a responsibility as
well of course other people would be
concerned the more obvious concern is
like well you just created a life form
how do you know it's not going to be a
super deadly virus that somehow is able
to hurt humans yeah my my concern is
more I feel like that's a solvable
problem the problem of
creating conscious beings that are able
to suffer that's a tricky one yeah I can
see why because
because it goes back to again with
first of all
um
do we have a responsibility to
propagate more of this chemistry that we
have on this planet elsewhere
given that we know ultimately we will be
vanished
by the I mean entire planet
and if this is in fact a very rare
chemical events that happens because all
the
right circumstances came together and we
were the lucky one
do we have
a responsibility to sponsor it this is a
if if we were to back up sponsor I like
it let's go where to put it yeah if you
try to back up remnants of our
civilization right so we've got a
potentially
creates conditions on different planets
so that humans can survive given that we
know or we want to just just for the
sake of
growing yeah propagating uh becoming
multiple terrorist species exactly but
what really is at stake here I think
it's actually or what is really more
interesting is what we don't see which
is the again that the chemical behavior
that enabled everything at first place
that's different than
sending potato crops or engineering
bacteria to live on a different planet
that's very different
you're really good stripping it down to
what is what it what is possible at the
chemical level so even if you are
instigating the con chemistry on
different planets you are letting that
very planet to do its thing you're not
necessarily contaminating this planet
with different chemistry because the
idea behind us at this the way I would I
thought about is that you understand
that planet you understand the
conditions you understand the chemistry
of the planet really well before
choosing the planet as a candidate at
first place
and then it's not about sending a
missing ingredient per se but again just
sending more of what it already has
this that would be respecting that
planet's condition to so I'm not
suggesting any occupation I'm not
suggesting any colonization I'm not
suggesting any like let's just strip
everything and make everything
Earth-like
that's not what I'm saying it's more
about empowering that place
what you are saying is is likely to be
the motivator behind all this that's not
because I see suffering I see pain it's
it's very interesting I think this is a
question that really reveals about a lot
about the person who's answering it well
okay so the pushback on my
pushback
if I so I'm deeply troubled by suffering
then I should be probably paralyzed
about the history of life on Earth
and
um you know there's can you elaborate
what do you mean most of Life who's ever
lived
suffered in ways that are almost
unimaginable to me you mean um like
you're our own species our own species
and before and animals living today and
we're not even talking about factory
farms
uh were just uh animals living in
extreme poverty in the jungle
you don't people think like in a natural
environment animals live in a happy
place no it's a brutal place of
desperately trying to survive of
desperately trying to look for food and
it's just like all of that life that's
just mammals and we understand mammals
but like throughout like trillions of
organisms that led up to those mammals
and the organisms living everywhere like
even bacteria there's death everywhere
so maybe this idea of death this idea of
suffering
is actually this thing that we see as a
bug
is actually a feature
I don't think suffering is a linear
property like that with life
and I may be with Nick Lane on this one
that the likeliness of anything similar
to what we got here evolving in another
planetary body I think is quite low
where would you say is the the biggest
unlikely thing do you mean humans or do
you mean even multicellular organisms
probably multicellular multicellularity
it's uh but
I I understand the
both sides of the
equation right in in one level I can see
that we may not have any other choice
but to
back up this chemistry somewhere else
yeah so you would be saving it's the
ultimate saving or the record our own
record it's not about you know yes let's
also save
um beetles and all the amazing songs but
this would be the ultimate repository of
life
but it's I can also see your point of
view
for sure it's really interesting so like
don't see the plan with the missing
ingredient try to understand what the
ingredients it has
it possible to construct life
uh for me for uh from a computer person
it just feels like something that could
be solved computationally we can learn
from the mistakes that we've done here
and Aspire not to repeat them
it is possible we do amazing things as
humans there's a lot of suffering but
there's also a lot of beauty and and we
we could choose
what we want to be or what we want to
see right so the these attempts don't
need not to come from not to come from a
place of fear but it can be ultimately
can come from a piece of hope and love I
think we're just very recently figuring
out stuff like we've even just a century
ago we're doing atrocities that uh
weren't seen as atrocities at the time I
mean
I think we're learning very quickly of
what is right and wrong yes and I work
with a lot of maybe because I'm at the
University I get to teach young people
every day
even at a time of four year or three few
years you see
yeah
generational difference already
unfolding in front of you and maybe
that's why I see hope because I think
what we get to interact with in
classrooms every year is getting better
they are aware of issues in a way that I
sure wasn't at their age some levels I
was but in many levels I didn't think
about I I wasn't concerned of the
problems well they maybe have to be
concerned because it's hitting the
reality he's hitting them hard but
younger people are not afraid of these
things an 18 year old can face these
brutal facts about the planet in ways
that I don't think any other generation
before them did yeah it's super cool and
and like the uh
you know there's all these cool
technologies that Aid in the process
of a human being
being able to see the truth the deeper
deeper levels like you know Wikipedia
and just the internet in general is
enabling education a level that was
unimaginable before the internet yes and
I think space exploration
even contemplating about these
possibilities ultimately and I will
emphasize this again should make us
think about our own place in the
universe if we are alone that is quite
fascinating and we definitely have a
responsibility to guard what we got
better and protect it better and don't
take it for granted if we are not the
only one that's also a lot of
responsibility to understand
what else is out there so either
proposition is famously being told is
fascinating but
is a as a scientist I think
and I think that's the general Behavior
maybe not my fellow scientists listening
to this can correct me if they aren't
liked but you need to have a level of
optimism and and hope it that's
something you know that things are work
worth working for worth dreaming worth
imagining and we cannot just have fear
of suffering or fear of pain
stopping us from doing marvelous things
I've talked to quite a few people in my
life who've done who've gotten a lot of
shit done have helped a lot of people
and I don't know a single one of them
who's not an optimist
now there's a place for critics and
cynicism in this world but in terms of
actually building things and creating
things in this world that help a lot of
people
um I think optimism is a is a
requirement is it precondition in almost
all cases in my Limited
humble Human Experience but I tend to
when I look out there think that aliens
are everywhere I think there's
to me I have a humility about I tend to
see us humans as being very limited
cognitively
like there's so many things we don't
understand
I think eventually we'll understand of
course we don't know this but my gut
says
will understand that alien signals and
life has been all around us
and we're too dumb to see it
like whatever life is whatever the life
force is whatever Consciousness is
whatever intelligence whatever the the
mechanism
that led to the origin of life on Earth
was everywhere
oh we're just too dumb to see it it's in
the physics it's somewhere we'll find it
somewhere in the physics
also being a scientist
that we know that we never know for sure
and for the
Outsiders perhaps that may be a very
um strange way of living
especially when your pursue is about
creating knowledge and that you'll know
that what you created can also be and
hopefully will be
disproven so that another level will
rise
um and and I think we've seen that the
this lack of maybe connection between
the approach to science or knowledge
versus uh folks who are maybe not
thinking about these problems every day
that we are okay with being wrong that's
in fact we know that that's the only way
to push the limits of knowledge
how do you think life originated on
Earth we've talked about this a bit do
you have a gut feeling about
first of all actually even to step back
do you think because you were like
flirting with this idea the translation
mechanism came before life
I think that you cannot separate from
translation emergence of translation
Machinery from immersions of life or
something like transition missionary
this whole informatic chemical Computing
system that is also capable of dynamism
and evolvability that comes with Biology
biological behavior from emergence of
life itself we've definitely
took a lot of steps towards
understanding Origins we are able to
create molecules from
right
environments lightning Heat
and you make amino acids so we are able
to create the building blocks the Miller
Yuri experiment that's Now 60 years ago
we are able to uh create the building
blocks we are able to make them interact
with one another they can get more
complex some call this messy there's all
this chemistry that's going on we are
able to
have these chemicals interact with by
another maybe
um
it have even some emergent properties
that we can quantify
definitely there is this trend towards
more systems level approach to Origins
with more introduction of systems level
chemistry or network level chemistry uh
and complex system integration in order
to understand how now that we can make
these building blocks we can make them
interact with one another but how do we
make them interact with one another in
more intelligent ways that will
have the properties of a biological
system will be heritable it will be
responding to the environment it will
mutate and it will sustain itself
that is the final bit I think in in our
uh origin of Life Adventure and we are
extremely close I I'm very optimistic
that our community will get a handle of
this problem in in this decade this is
in fact I think one of the most exciting
times to be doing this work what would
be super convincing to you like
incredibly amazing would blow your mind
if it was done
X was done in the lab like what
would yeah I mean I don't know if you
would call it origin of life but
something really truly remarkable and
special done in the lab what would that
look like to you the the
properties that I list
this was five properties that I listed
about in the Machinery that is capable
of sensing and responding the
environment if we can
um I would imagine it's similar to a
Miller Yuri experiment where they
on the sparked in a particular
environmental forces and were able to
produce a chemical that is important for
life or a mix of chemicals important for
life or building blocks rather I would
if I saw that a similar experiment there
and well-defined geochemical perimeter
was subjected on a mix of chemistry
which led that chemistry to form some
level of computation informatic
biological property and by biological
I'm going to keep it to very minimum
um as I defined early on
um that would be super exciting to me is
self-organizing chemistry that we can
create experimentally in a flask by
simulating the conditions of early Earth
beard radiation be it temperature or mix
of both
that would be very cool and doing all
the five the the chemical physical
informatic computational biology yes
so like simulation and a computer would
not no would not be good it would be
great because they help to understand
the parameters
maybe formulate maybe quantify create
models But ultimately you need to
experiment unless it's quantum
mechanical simulation but that's going
to be extremely difficult so simulating
from the physics up that's going to be
very because you're gonna have to
simulate
the the physical the chemical the
informatic I mean honestly it's it's
very start to it's very difficult to
start the quantum mechanics and end up
in biology all through simulation but
the stuff that deepminded with Alpha
fold and protein folding is really
inspiring it's a
it's inspiring in that you're able to do
to solve a difficult biology yeah
absolutely that's that's why there's
definitely a lot of benefits to those
models predictions because they at least
help the experiment experimentalists to
come up with the priors and parameterize
things better maybe eliminate very
obvious dead ends early on given that
experiments take such a long time and
it's a huge investment
um and no one's a better experimentalist
than nature so let me let me ask you
perhaps a depressing sad for you
question really want to make me sad
you're not going to win no I know
there's a flame of optimism in you that
will never be extinguished okay uh the
idea of past Birmingham
you mentioned would we seed another
planet with life is it possible that our
planet
was seated with life from elsewhere so
what the the proposition I made I like
to think of it as protospermia rather
than panspermia because it seems it's
even more it's a more proto-state than
the acknowledging because in in Pan's
permia you still have a self
right you still have something that is
very even the cell to me would be very
Earth-like yeah right I'm I'm talking B
I'm talking at sub-seller level in in
the proposition of uh
spreading chemistry so spreading
chemical ingredients not spreading life
exactly it will be more like the
fertilizer that is well adopted and
compatible with that planetary body in
pan spermia you're still imagining
either an entire bacteria or microbe or
a cell or something that is a DNA which
is still tearing so in that sense that
would
that doesn't matter to you because it's
it's chemistry that's the initial
conditions doesn't matter how the
initial conditions came to be they are
what they are and let's go from there
yeah and there's all kinds of
fascinatingly different
initial conditions in terms of chemistry
at different planets yes but but in
terms of past permia I mean obviously
that's that there's going to be always
room for
those sort of discussions or there will
be uh those discussions will always be
present I think in any life in Universe
debates but the problem I have with
panspermia is that it removes the
problem from
the planet to somewhere else it makes it
very difficult to answer scientifically
right you you are just you just took the
problem away from this planet and uh
formulated in a way that I cannot go and
try to understand in the lab doing
experiments or even through models does
it though so I've heard brilliant
biologists like yourself say that but I
I just to me
okay here's how I think of Earth so I
actually am able to hold all these
possibilities in my head and all of them
are inspiring to me I kind of think
there's a possibility that Earth is just
an experiment by a graduate student by
an alien graduate student like so I know
the exact episodes of Star Trek you're
talking about but like there is some to
me that's inspiring if we are but that's
not what's uh panspermia is about that
you're talking about my proposition
that's not what panspermia is what's
pants it just oh life just came from
elsewhere
still that's interesting because there's
still giant leaps that happened on Earth
it seems like beyond the initial
primitive organisms like eukaryotes I
don't think panspermia I usually uh
articulates at the level of eukaryotes I
think they talk about
bacteria primarily I think so right so
that that's still interesting because
all the different leaps of evolution
still happen here on Earth that's still
interesting yeah but it's I mean it's
definitely
um
interesting to listen to but I I
wouldn't uh place it you know I wouldn't
know how to place it in the studies of
origin of life I guess or early yes I
will place it you have the initial
conditions for the origin of life and
you try to create life in that way that
you've described in the five components
and it keeps failing
see what what pantspermia allows you to
do is to also consider the question
maybe there's missing components how do
you answer that question
to exploration and through science yes
looking outside looking outside of Earth
looking at the fundamentals of chemistry
and physics how do you understand that
with fundamentals of chemistry and
physics how do you understand how do you
understand the gravity but you're
talking about panspermia right just I
don't understand how would you it's
different than if if you think it's
similar to looking for life in the
universe is that what you're thinking no
I'm saying there's a missing component
that came from elsewhere but the whole
entire organism is not a missing
component like that right I mean when
you're thinking about origin of life no
no no that that's an assumption your
your assumption is all the ingredients
for the origin of Life are here on Earth
now I tend to believe that most likely
that's the case I'm just saying it's
inspiring to think that there is some
ingredients
you're going to push back because that's
not past perm yeah that's promised but
see okay so think
but yeah it's also kind of fun to push
back on you uh no I I I understand I
understand I understand if actually a
living organism
ended up here from elsewhere that means
a lot of the exploration we're doing
here with the ingredients that we know
will not give us the clues to the
um to the origin of life but it just
seems like
it's still very useful to try to create
life here and then we'll see wait a
minute don't you think we'll be able to
prove not prove but show that past Burma
is very likely
like if we just keep failing we
understand biology deeply I don't I
don't think so I mean there there will
be the failure is is not going to
indicate that this must have been I
don't think anyone will put the problem
to some some something else just because
our failures our experiments failed so
failure means we don't understand the
chemistry deeply enough yeah and we've
given the progress we made and how many
brilliant people are working on this
right now and it's definitely more I
would say that we are approaching this
problem in more broader ways with
different ways possible I'm confident
that we will get there for for us again
very interested in if
early souls and first cells and what
followed the origin of life but we
cannot be given that it's a Continuum
that's the between the origin and
emergence of first cells it's hard to
separate these two ends from one another
so given that life is a solution to a
chemistry problem if we re-ran Earth a
million times how different would
the results be
if we look at that wheel
how different would be the the Tree of
Life do you think like what's Your Gut
say
my uh mind asks are you imagining if if
we're repeating the planet one million
times are we seeing
um artists things that happened I'm not
talking at the chemical level but at the
environment level did do they happen at
the same time at the same frequency at
the same intensity every time you're
running this tape over and over again
yes you mean like geological stuff yeah
like so is this your singles are
important I mean that's that's yep the
fact that you would ask that question is
also fascinating so that's important the
timing the frequency the intensity of
geological yeah so when when we run this
imaginary rewind and play experiments in
our minds I want to know whether we are
positioning all the same geologic events
at the same chronological order as well
or whether we are also giving them more
randomness
so if the volcano erupted is happening
at the same time if if you have a are
dinosaurs getting wiped off every time
with the same meteorite that's hitting
the same but also like temperature
changes that changes everything
that's actually I've heard you say
somewhere that one of the things that's
fascinating to you about this whole
process of evolution is that
the the mem the memory the the process
of evolution the all the mechanisms were
invented and developed
despite all the variation geologically
through the hardship that Earth has gone
through that the the biological
Innovations persisted this person yeah
despite that which is which is
interesting you kind of think of the
biological Innovations kind of happening
on their own because we so we uh
actually have a center of exploring this
problem uh we want to understand whether
it's almost like judging a book by its
cover right do you just look at an
environment and then see whatever is
present or scares in that environment
and then think that okay the life form
that will exist in this environment will
obviously have a lot of molybdenum in
its system look at all this bully them
around here or will it be uh because if
you say that you are now putting the
environment in in
the more Prime driver role right that
you're saying that environment will
determine what biology will or will not
use
um but we've done studies that
show that it's not necessarily the
straightforward that for instance we
looked at going back to nitrogen uh one
thing that's fascinating about the way
cells fix nitrogen uh the ones that can
do is that they also do this through a
lot of help of a lot of metals a lot of
Elemental support really
and
um which geologists use to understand
where did this metabolism even evolved
where at first place so we look at
ancient oceans we try to understand the
elemental composition of ancient oceans
and what we see is that
in some cases the metabolisms even
though they prefer a certain metal or an
element that is in the environment
that metal wasn't abundant in the
environment but still life shows that so
it's not that straightforward as though
whatever you are you are what you eat
but you don't necessarily eat what is
obvious to you and just because there's
a lot of that food around it doesn't
mean life will ultimately go there maybe
most of the time it will but it seems
like in the case of nitrogen fixation it
didn't and maybe that made the
difference it's so cool that uh right
it's not the Abundant resource that's
going to be the definition of what kind
of life flourishes
so
so it's not it's not a straightforward
thing yes but your sense is that the
different timing of the different
conditions of the environment would
change the way Evolution happens yeah
for instance I mean there I think it's
in the 80s maybe earlier than that the
Stephen J Gold's book Wonderful Life
which changed I think a lot of
scientists life including mine
um he contemplates on this notion of the
tape of Life Of course
I hope people still know what tape is
but I think your listeners will know
what tape is I don't know it's the uh
tape Taiwan tell me about this is it
like a tick tock do can you swipe on it
he speculated or suggested this
hypothetical experiment whether if life
was recorded on or Can Be Imagined to be
recorded on a linear is it linear chain
of events recorded on a tape and if we
were to rewind the step would be listen
to the same song right so this was and
in his proposition I also thought
um yeah but are we replaying the tape in
the same exact manner or are we meaning
all the geological and environmental
events are they happening at the same
time because then you removed the
randomness from equation a little bit
right you just
removed it because you're assuming
everything will happen at the same time
at the same intensity so that's not two
contingent
um that means that the natural selection
you're thinking is really operating it
more or evolution is operating it more
under more random forces then that can
be dictated by the environment so in our
way of understanding or thinking about
rewinding replaying I don't think we're
thinking about the role of the
environment is clearly or don't seem to
be integrated as much
but I'll I also wonder if it's possible
that the chemistry ultimately defines
the destination
that uh
despite all the environmental changes
despite all the randomness
you're not talking about whether life
will emerge and sustain itself we're
talking about whether life will emerge
and sustain itself in the shape and form
that is similar to what we have right
now so you are chemistry on chemistry
we're having this conversation and your
plans are chemistry too they are also
having their own conversation these
plants are fake but yes but I still
didn't want to say that but they they're
fake do you look at my place of course
that would be fake otherwise they would
die what's wrong with this place it's uh
it's wonderful it's
um we're I'm Alice and this is
Wonderland this this is great this is
great it's just that you know there's
this is a place where robots flourish
and this is that those plants are fake
are you saying that you and I are the
only living organisms well obviously
there are microbes in this room but yeah
yeah we are the only living organisms a
second of getting a dog well you you
know this is not a clean room so you
have microbes here yes many millions yes
so so you and I and all the microbes in
this room your chemical systems that are
operating it in a way that we can
respond and sense and our environments
and whatnot yeah but in if you are
asking if you're going to be here then
you're imagining that another solution
is also possible which is different
then the fundamentals of life because
life will be always life will do its
life thing
I guess it goes all the way back to the
things we're talking about translation
and the stuff you were messing with is
figuring out what is the important stuff
and what isn't
makes you wonder about you know just
like with the Trans uh translation
machinery
with human beings I wonder what's the
important stuff is it important to have
two limbs
is it important to have eyes like it was
obvious that the sensory mechanism of
eyes like sight were to develop how many
times if you're in Earth would the
sensory mechanism of sight develop and
what would it look like would it be one
giant eye
I would be two what's with a symmetry
why are we so damn symmetrical in
response to Steve J Gold's proposition
uh
most people who would who argue that
life is convergent and it will in fact
lead to a few determined outcomes or the
it's not that the outcome is determined
per se but uh it's the pathways are
restricted and the mutational
trajectories that life can act upon uh
are already very limited so that the
final outcomes are a few
and eyes being one of them so
the con the convergence that the eye
level was suggested as an example was
presented as an example of why life may
actually embark on the same solution
over and over again given that many
species evolved it independently from
one another do you think there's any
inkling of Truth there like uh is it
just us humans thinking we're special I
think the those Innovations came again
so far after the uh
the fun stuff yes uh because it's it's
thank you I mean thank you I think we
humans tend to talk about the later
stuff but without the earlier yeah so
when we when we think of earlier there's
and I asked this to my students too I
want them to close their eyes and think
about just nothingness but dust we don't
have trees we don't have plants when we
say an empty place or visually at least
two we're talking about a planet that is
really alien so understanding our own
past is similar to understanding an
alien planet altogether given that it is
a very different planet that did not
have any Oxygen for 2 billion years we
there's nothing that is familiar to us
that we would even think about with when
we think about life that is present in
our past yet here we are so cool that
from that came this like houses and we
are very very
we are the super late arrivals to the
party right so this is definitely not
our planets it's the microbial planets
that we live in but the potential to
create us was always there
I just know that
because we were created
oh
I don't know I what is it you think it's
possible this even for the early stuff
yeah maybe if it's super unlikely yeah
that we just got super oh this is the
planet that got really lucky given the
chemistry
like maybe to create the bacteria is not
so lucky
but to create complex organisms all the
way up to mammals that's super lucky yes
and it may all come down to a few
innovations that happened at the
molecular levels
um that may or may not be inevitable
that's that so all these molecular
tricks may have enabled the the sort of
mere existence of whatever you are able
to Define as familiar to yourself and
you have a hope that science can answer
this these questions to reconstruct
science is answering these questions I
mean it's a we are limited to going uh
back to the beginning in our ways right
so we rely on biology it is overwritten
you're talking about for four billion
year old records that is ever changing
that again makes it beautiful but also
makes it difficult it's not tractable
geology has
some degree to some degree it has a
record of a more static
Frozen state record that is embedded
on itself on the surface of this planet
if we can find them
and that's the key that most of these
recorded
um
remnants are
if we're lucky we find them they are not
naturally selected
they're they're found they need to be
found for us to read them so we work
with a very handful set of samples
especially when we talk about the Deep
past the
planets with no oxygen when we passed
the great oxidation event threshold that
is about 2.5 billion years so the
earliest life is even harder you are
trying to write the story of life based
on a handful of rocks and what is
recorded on them
speaking of finding
select remnants of our deep past you
said that you've been thinking about
Nick
Newlands essay on scientific knowledge
and scientific abstraction so let me ask
you what do you think scientific
questions and answers or in general
ideas come from
you're a scientist
you ask very good questions and try
systematically and rigorously to answer
them through experiment
where do you think ideas come from so
ideas come all the time right there are
all kinds of ideas there are good ideas
that are not so good ideas
um
there are really exciting ideas uh maybe
some boring ones but
um if if you
are you really interested in doing
something different then you need to be
willing to take the risk to be wrong
uh and that's incredibly difficult it's
even though we talked about the idealist
uh sort of notion behind science that we
ultimately want to be rejected or our
ideas need to reject it for it too for
the entire infrastructure to move
forward
there there is a level of risk-taking I
think behind
um
any creative idea and and I mean that in
a true sense if you are disappointed
that your idea didn't work
then it wasn't a risk because you still
hoped that it will work
through risk is that you accept that it
may not work so that the failure
shouldn't also surprise you
yeah
is that when you embark on stuff do you
when you embark on an idea do you
actually
contemplate and accept uh failure like
as a society I wouldn't say so but I
eliminated a lot of the things uh
out of my work line by simply
not feeling like studying them I was
bored chasing certain questions and I so
you trusted the signal of boredom as a
as a good sign that it's not a good
question it should definitely
be whatever you're doing should be
exciting to you if you're the only if
there's only one person that should be
ever excited about what you're doing
that should be you yeah and if that's
enough for for that idea to go somewhere
I think that you need to believe in the
idea but at the same time I think it's
important to not fall in love with your
mistakes
you know that you if if something isn't
working
you should let it go
instead of trying to fix it even though
you feel that this is a mistake or you
know that it's a mistake
in order to
sorry instead of trying to fix it
you should
wrap it up and move on to something else
which is incredibly hard good advice for
science but also good advice for
relationships
um but okay so like well that's actually
really hard especially I mean this is
like PhD stuff like if you sink in so
much of your time not even PhD the
entire entire Scientific careers it's
really tough to let go yes and there is
not a lot of room for True freedom
um maybe at this certain degree so first
you need to be trained right it's not
that scientists are just brilliant
amazing humans I mean they just know and
learn how they they know how to do
science because they're trained and how
to do science so that that is important
because I I as someone who
wants to definitely I'm hoping that I'm
giving the message that this is for
everybody that there's this notion of
science scientists being super smart
people that's definitely not true right
it is a method that you learn to solve a
problem that's really what science is
and some are really good at it uh and
they they get better edits under really
good guidance maybe good mentorship
and ultimately everyone finds their own
style of problem solving and what sort
of problems they sold but I have not met
a scientist that finds their own pursue
boring
well it can happen but they're not going
to be affected just like you said I
think
it's kind of interesting because
um in in the age of social media and
attention economies and stuff like that
you know I've interacted with a lot of
folks like uh YouTubers and so on
I think a lot of their work is driven by
what others find exciting
and I think that ultimately leads to A
Life That's not fulfilling I can see the
reason behind it or perhaps there's a
again failure a fear of failure that can
be a major determinant of that pattern
right so you try to do something that is
accepted by others because that's maybe
unlikely to
um give results right away but it's a
long game it's a very long game and if
you're aiming a long-term change in
long-term impact you're going to be very
very patient about it and you better
um
tame your ego
I mean on YouTube and those kinds of
places on the internet on social media
you get feedback
like right away and so it's even harder
to be patient yes so in because yeah the
change in ideas develop over a period of
months and years if not decades and the
response from social media and so on is
on the rate of seconds and minutes and
hours so I recommend actual physical
libraries for people who may want to
appreciate or remember the sense of time
and and how long it takes to build
something I think it is
um you're right that's the immediacy and
the right response of and and the fact
that the these
places I've algorithm wants you to
respond right away and interact with
itself right so
um I can see the appeal but through
Innovation I think it doesn't even
scream it doesn't it's not shiny
especially in the beginning
but it's also important to not fool
ourselves and think that everything that
people criticize has some super
important meaning behind it
so it's a mix of the technique the
methods and your gut feeling
yeah and a weird dance between learning
and accepting the the ideas of the
current science and
at times trusting your gut and rejecting
those because science progresses by
sometimes rejecting the ideas of the
past or sometimes building on them in a
way that changes them transforms them
yes and and I think what is hard is to
really drill down
to a concept right so you can create a a
new thing and then it may be appealing
and get a lot of gain a lot of traction
but to sustain that to continue that you
really need to show the true expertise
so it's not only about defining a
problem but then really systematically
solve that problem
I'll do maybe over the course of decades
you mentioned the library I've also saw
that you've translated scientific
documents or at least like mentioned
that you did it at some point in your
life
um
so let me ask you how much do you think
is Lost in Translation
in science and in life
how many languages do you speak two two
how much is lost
in Translation in in science and in life
between those two it's actually three
because science isn't like another
language right it is I speak Russian a
little bit of French and it's always
fascinating to see how much is lost and
the Soviet Union has a tradition of
Science and Mathematics and so on and
it's interesting that a lot of the
wisdom gained from
that part of the world is lost basically
because of it was never translated
per se
maybe it's more like a gain in some
sense right because you understand and
science is ultimately a human pursue so
you cannot separate
as much as maybe it's the best
system that humans ever came up with
to seek knowledge to generate and make
sense of the world
it works most of the time it doesn't
mean it's perfect
did the kind of translation do by the
way was for scientific work I directly
translated for scientific work yes I
think that
um again we
brains are equally distributed but not
opportunities are not right so if you
um
want to include if you want to benefit
from all human power whatever we can
generate as human beings you need to
include everybody on the table and that
is by extending the opportunity is I
think most of us that make it
tend to think that we did because of
something special about ourselves and
but it is important to know that no we
were given opportunities and that's why
we are here not because
there was something inherently special
about us or
um or that the system truly selects for
the ones that really are yeah and
language is a part of the opportunity
yeah language is on the fortunate
because comes with similar to bacteria
right they they speak these languages
they they have even we call this we call
culturing the bacteria we call it
culturing right when we grow bacteria
that we isolate from the environment in
the lab meaning that you create an
environment for them to grow and Thrive
and sustain themselves that's what we
say but cultures for microbiologists for
language with language comes a different
culture a different perspective
um and and you bring that to
the table I mean it brings the sense of
diversity that can only be achieved by
clashing perhaps two different cultures
two different languages two different
approaches maybe in some cases four
different approaches
yeah I think language is not just a
mechanism of communication it's a way to
um it's a dynamic system of exploring
ideas and it's interesting to see that
different languages explores ideas
differently yes and I think that so when
I said science is like a language itself
I said it in two different ways one is
very very literal meaning that you can
speak English but you that doesn't mean
you will understand the scientific paper
uh that it's a different level of
English that you need to learn to
understand even not just for scientific
papers even from discipline to
discipline I I challenge any chemist to
read an evolutionary biology paper
and vice versa it may sound extremely
different a different language
altogether but there's also the language
of communicating and because words
matter how we talk matter how we
represent our Science Matters so yes
just learning English as a second
language alone it's not going to make
you fluent in science either
and it's interesting because
in that sense you speak many more than
three languages because uh you're pretty
cross-disciplinary it seems like you're
you're you have a foot in
in a lot of disciplines I mean geology
biology
evolutionary biology I mean there's uh
chemistry
biochemistry biophysics even we do a lot
of Statistics so there's a lot of
mathematics to what we do as well yes we
like to think of it as this uh
NASA astrobiology program says I
repeated because it's fun that it is not
a
fruit salad but it's a smoothie
that that's what we are generating
uh if it's not a fruit salad so a
smoothie is a successful
uh is a successful combination of those
fields that are fruit salad it's not I
wouldn't say it's success is necessarily
it's some if you put it if you put the
wrong ingredients and you press the
blender and you made it a smoothie you
mean it can ruin the entire place can it
though because I feel like yes I can
definitely assess that for ginger first
those that ruins every smoothie I don't
like ginger I think so but it's just a
personal thing and also I don't like
cinnamon but um oh the ginger has a
cinnamony taste because I thought Ginger
no I don't think they do but I I also
don't like they add in a lot of
smoothies I was forced a smoothie I went
to Malibu with a good friend of mine
damn Reynolds and he forced me to
consume a smoothie and you know it's
probably the first smoothie I've ever
had because I've always had was very
judgmental of the kind of places and
people that drink smoothies but it was
good it was good well smoothie is very
American so I yeah it is an American
thing I wouldn't say success per se but
it is true that's when you dance at the
edge of different disciplines that
that's when the
inevitably you know Innovation will rise
because you will see things
um maybe a little differently when
you're on the edge right so
but it will probably take longer and it
may not be understood right away it may
not come into final form quickly given
that it is a new
concept Rising so therefore the patients
will make more sense I'm sorry patients
will be even more important so if you
are
um in other words if you are into
immediate
appreciation
that's probably not the way to go
you're one chemical organism
uh so let me ask maybe a little bit more
of a personal thing where did your life
form originate
um and what fond memory do you have from
the early days of childhood
um the representative of your bacteria
culture
I was born in Istanbul so I grew up in
Turkey
um
which city that has two continents which
is quite interesting you have a you see
a welcome to Europe sign and then
welcome to Asia sign the same day
depending on which part of the bridge
you are
um so that's where I was born and I
spent about roughly 20 years of my life
and then I immigrated to United States
and it's a very proud culture it's a
beautiful culture it's a very flavorful
culture
what aspects of it is part of who you
are that what what are the beautiful
aspects that you carry with you and your
heart
uh I think uh we are very sincerely
human
as a culture I think that we have a
saying that don't go to bed
full if you're the neighbor is hungry
so you know you wouldn't
eat any food in front of someone where I
come from without offering to share the
bite so I think those things however
small they may sound
um a really big deal especially when you
are put in a or move to a place that may
not have those attributes
so I think that
culturally there we had a lot of
conscious like and
you know just roll deep human
um the connection value the connection
between human beings I think so yeah I
think I definitely carried that with me
we talk a lot about biology let me ask
you about the Romantic question what
role does Love play in The Human
Condition or
in the entirety of life on Earth
it's not easy to learn how to or how to
love if you're not loved
okay so so it's something but the good
news is that it is something that
um you can learn I think that's you can
practice uh and and teach yourself how
to maybe give yourself the thing that
wasn't given to you and then ultimately
give it to others I think it would be
quite
arrogant to think that we will be
capable of loving it could be anything
really
um so just like translation it's a
repeating and a dynamical process that
you can learn yeah that you can learn
yes and you should learn we should even
there is no excuse to not learning to
love yeah because that's a deeply human
thing it is a deeply human thing it's it
is a very sad thing if if any one of us
passes this planet without the
knowing what love is and that could be a
love to a pet a love to a plants to a
robot
just kidding
um or a fake plant
we love we can't help who we love uh
what advice would you give to a young
person today high school college
um how to have a career
they can be proud of or how to have a
life they can be proud of we said an
interesting thing about brains being
distributed evenly but opportunity is
not
it's um it's really interesting to think
about I've I've talked to folks from
Africa
you realize that there's whole areas of
this Earth
that have so much Brilliance uh but
unfortunately so little opportunity
and one of the exciting things about the
21st century is more and more
opportunities are created and so the
Brilliance is unlocked in all different
places
and so all these young people now have
the opportunity to like do something to
change the world
I had a chance to visit
um Bosnia
so I
um was invited to give a talk in a very
uh up north like very northernmost part
of the country
that was impacted by the war
tremendously
and it was a
public talk it was open to everybody in
the village and I was told even people
drew from Sarajevo to attend
whenever I think about
our role as a scientist or the
beneficiaries of the knowledge that we
create I always think about that night
that's how many people were in that room
it was incredibly crowded
and the a lot of lots of young people
who were trying to
start everything new and not do or not
carry
um
replace whatever maybe the feeling that
was taken from them with hope and love
starts A New Beginning be deceit for the
Next Generation
and it's moved me so much that they all
came to hear about early life
space something may be different for
them that maybe they were always
interested and never thought about
but what what stayed with me was the
just the look and the feeling the look
on their faces and the feeling in the
room the energy just was really moving
their willingness to be the seed
the the first of their family and
generation to do that big news yes and I
will and that's exactly why I'm telling
this whole story because
um some for most of us we may have to be
that seat in our families that the first
one to do something new
um to do to break that cycle whatever it
is that you want to break free from uh I
want I would want the young people to
know that you can be that that's that
there are
um
just wonderful things to learn from this
life and it's just incredible to be
living
and I would want them to know that their
voice matters and they need to use it
especially uh
those who think that their voice doesn't
matter
ultimately I think what it comes down to
is to trusting yourself
trusting and respecting your voice
if you're not loved learn how to not if
you were not respected start by
respecting yourself learn how to respect
yourself you can teach yourself things
yes uh really difficult when you're
surrounded by people
that don't believe in you yes I think I
definitely know the feeling and I would
uh just want them to know that they
don't need to be defined
by or reduce down to
what others see in them
believe in yourself have the respect if
you try to develop the respect and love
for yourself
and then from that it flourishes you'll
find others they'll give you love it may
not
I mean life is not fair it's true yeah
he prepared that it's it's a it's a it's
not very fair unfortunately
and so I don't want to depict this
Disney story that and then yes and
everything will be just fine it's mostly
isn't but you learn away learn you know
life does it all the time
speaking of which what do you think is
the meaning of all this
what's the meaning of life
why are we here why we are here all the
beauty you've discussed
why
is the translational mechanism Machinery
here
why I don't think why so much Beauty why
so much Beauty
it is because we choose to see it that
way it's beautiful but there is no
meaning I don't think no yeah
but why is it so beautiful why did we
choose why from where is the imperative
to see it as to see so much Beauty in a
thing that scientifically speaking or
from a rational perspective is void of
beauty it's just it just is
not everybody chooses to see the beauty
Haters Gonna Hate
I mean we have the capacity to see that
we have the capacity so why why not use
it to the fullest right we we have the
capacity but that that capacity isn't
that fascinating that we developed that
it feels like that was always late in
there and in the whole process of life
this ability to
find to to introspect ourselves I mean
like this definitely would be soothing
to things like that but I don't think
there is a meaning like that way I that
that's it's fascinating that we can
understand it
um but why is it soothing
there's a desire there's a longing but
suiting doesn't mean
that there's a meaning why why is
soothing meaning let me just put it this
way because there is just I think so
much unfairness going on
um I wouldn't even dare myself to think
that there's a meaning to out of my out
of respect to the ones that are
suffering
I see I I think
I think our suffering emerges
flourishing in Beauty I mean that's what
I see I agree with you when I went and
went to Ukraine it's all the people
suffering in their eyes and in their
stories is a hope for the future there's
a love
um is a love for the people who are
still living as a love for life so it's
there and that's the dark thing is the
suffering and the law somehow
intensifies your appreciation of the
life that is the left that's a weird
thing I think that's
there is some something about
still doing your best and believing that
there's
whatever the goodness is worth working
for
um
is beyond and and to do that without a
meaning
that there's something more humiliate
humbling
and and profound about that
if
and and I we have a
um this will come out very random okay
so just
um in Turkish bathrooms there is this uh
sign
that says
um
leave it as you want to find it
yeah and I think
that's a pretty good
that's your that's the meaning of life
found in the turkey there's wisdom to
that there's wisdom to that
whatever you leave defines you right
so I think there's some profound meaning
to that too that just just leave it as
you would
want to find it
so that uh you're a little scribble in
long story of life on Earth is one that
ultimately did a pretty good job you
know it at least kept it the same as you
found it
or at least I left it in the way that I
I wish I found it yeah yeah right
oh man yes that's that's the wisdom from
Turkish bathrooms that's where I
searched for wisdom as well and as as we
we started with the origin of life and
ended with the wisdom of the Turkish
pratham I think that's a perfect
conversation you're an incredible person
uh the humor the humanity but also the
Brilliance of your work
um I really appreciate that you would
talk with me today this was really fun
thanks for having me
thanks for listening to this
conversation with batul kachar to
support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
let me leave you with one of my favorite
quotes from Robert Frost
in three words I can sum up everything
I've ever learned about life
it goes on
thank you for listening I hope to see
you next time