Sean Carroll's Mindscape

Sean Carroll talks with Caltech researcher Erik Winfree about programming DNA to process information and build microscopic machines. They discuss molecular computation, self-assembly, biological information processing and the prospects for DNA-based robots in biology and medicine.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Kyle Harper and Sean Carroll examine how humans have altered other life on Earth, from the Ice Age to present-day extinction pressures. Their conversation connects long-term human history with changes in ecosystems, the disappearance of species and less visible transformations of the biosphere, drawing on Harper's account of the historical roots of contemporary biodiversity loss.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Physicist Daniel Akerib joins Sean Carroll to examine the search for weakly interacting massive particles and the challenges of directly detecting dark matter. They discuss a single unusual event in recent LUX-ZEPLIN data and why its low statistical significance warrants interest rather than a discovery claim. The conversation connects this result with Akerib’s experience in the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search, LUX and LUX-ZEPLIN experiments.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Jim Al-Khalili and Sean Carroll discuss the nature of time, whether it is fundamental or emergent, and how its direction relates to physical laws and human experience. Their conversation connects the arrow of time with unresolved questions in quantum mechanics, biology and cosmology.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Vitor Cardoso discusses how observations and theory are changing black-hole physics. The conversation covers Hawking radiation, general relativity, gravitational-wave observations and the Event Horizon Telescope, asking what these measurements reveal about black holes and what future observatories could test.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Stuart Firestein examines why productive science depends on ignorance, unsuccessful experiments and uncertainty as well as established knowledge. The conversation considers research at the boundary of what is understood, the role of conjecture and testing, and the absence of a guaranteed method for making discoveries. It also asks how public understanding and science education can better represent the process of investigation.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Chandra Sripada presents his argument that language models and humans share meaningful features of cognition. Drawing on cognitive science, he and Sean Carroll examine what behavioral similarities can tell us about underlying mechanisms and how to assess the relationship between artificial and human intelligence.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Bonnie Bassler explains how bacteria detect signals from their surroundings and coordinate behaviour through quorum sensing. Chemical communication allows microbes to sense nearby populations and undertake collective activities that individual cells could not accomplish alone. The discussion examines bacterial information processing and the consequences of these coordinated behaviours, including within the human body.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Marc Berman discusses evidence on how exposure to natural environments affects cognition, mood and wellbeing. The conversation contrasts time spent in natural settings with indoor, screen-based and urban environments, and examines the emerging field of environmental neuroscience. It considers how nature may support cognitive performance as well as psychological, physical and social wellbeing.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll explores explanations for cosmic acceleration beyond a constant vacuum energy. He discusses dynamical dark-energy models, their relationship to particle physics, possible changes to gravity and the observations that could help distinguish competing theories.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll traces the cosmological constant from Einstein's equations to modern evidence for accelerated expansion. He explains why the energy of empty space is difficult to reconcile with particle physics and examines the related puzzles of its observed size and importance in today's universe.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Jeff Coller explains how messenger RNA carries information from DNA to the machinery that produces proteins and how researchers are learning to use it therapeutically. The conversation covers vaccination, tailored treatments and approaches connected with gene editing, placing these developments in the broader biology of RNA and its possible role in the origins of life.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll examines quantum mechanics on its own terms and asks how the familiar everyday world emerges from its formalism. The episode explores the tension between quantum theory and classical intuition, including how competing interpretations approach measurement and physical reality.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Alvin Roth examines markets whose transactions raise moral objections even when buyers and sellers agree on a price. Examples include organ sales, adoption, drugs and sex work. The conversation asks how societies reason about contested exchanges, what economic analysis can contribute beyond price efficiency, and what these cases reveal about the organisation and limits of markets.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Daniel Harlow discusses what attempts to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics reveal about quantum theory itself. The conversation follows black-hole radiation, information loss, the wave function of the universe, the AdS/CFT correspondence and quantum information. It then connects these developments to quantum cosmology and questions about the structure of quantum mechanics.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll and astronomer Natalie Batalha discuss the transition from discovering individual exoplanets to systematically understanding planetary populations. They explore how frequently stars host planets, how planetary sizes and orbital distances are distributed, and what observations can reveal about atmospheres and possible habitats for life. Batalha draws on her experience with NASA's Kepler mission to explain what researchers have learned and which questions future observations may answer.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll and chemist Addy Pross examine how living systems maintain persistence despite constant internal activity. Pross introduces dynamic kinetic stability: a way for chemical systems to sustain themselves through continuing processes supported by an energy source. The discussion develops this chemical perspective on the transition from nonliving matter to life and considers its implications for understanding biological organization and, more speculatively, consciousness.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Sara Imari Walker and Sean Carroll explore how life differs from other complex physical systems and whether information and computation help explain its emergence. Beginning around 6:38, Walker discusses biological homochirality: the preference for one molecular handedness, the roughly balanced mixtures produced without biology, and chemical symmetry breaking. Their wider conversation considers definitions of life, prebiotic chemistry, emergence, and the search for life beyond Earth.

Hosted by Sean Carroll