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3:18:09EN
Lex Fridman· Nov 30, 2025Podcast · 2 speakersA Thing Is Alive When Its Goals Outrun Its PartsGuest Michael Levin · Host Lex FridmanTufts biologist Michael Levin tells Lex Fridman that intelligence is a spectrum of persuadability, that even a bubble sort hosts unexpected goals, and that the brain is a thin client to a space physics does not own.
3:26:39ENLex Fridman· Dec 22, 2024Podcast · 2 speakersThe Pessimism Line: Why Earth Is Almost Certainly Not the First CivilizationGuest Adam Frank · Host Lex FridmanAstrophysicist Adam Frank talks with Lex Fridman about habitable worlds, the Fermi paradox, technosignatures, and why science cannot ignore experience.
2:51:58ENLex Fridman· Jun 13, 2024Podcast · 2 speakersSara Walker: Life Is Huge in Time, Not in SpaceGuest Sara Walker · Host Lex FridmanThe astrobiologist tells Lex Fridman why textbook definitions of life fail, how assembly theory measures complexity, and why aliens might disappear into their own causal structure.
4:01:52ENLex Fridman· May 15, 2024Podcast · 2 speakersPaul Rosolie: The Amazon Is a Machine of Death, and Every Heartbeat in It Is Worth SavingGuest Paul Rosolie · Host Lex FridmanDeep in the Peruvian rainforest, the naturalist talks snakes, anacondas, uncontacted tribes, ayahuasca, and why he would rather protect this forest than look for aliens.
3:19:21ENLex Fridman· Dec 9, 2023Podcast · 2 speakersComplexity without copies is just randomness: Lee Cronin on assembly theoryGuest Lee Cronin · Host Lex FridmanThe Glasgow chemist walks Lex Fridman through his controversial Nature paper, a proposed life meter for other worlds, and the claim that the universe is too big to contain its own future.
3:47:09ENLex Fridman· Jan 28, 2023Podcast · 2 speakersKepler Found Thousands of Planets and Not One Earth TwinGuest David Kipping · Host Lex FridmanDavid Kipping explains why cool, Earth-like worlds are the hardest exoplanets to find, and why James Webb is the first telescope that might catch their moons.
2:40:18ENLex Fridman· Dec 29, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersEvery Living Cell Runs the Same Translation MachineGuest Betül Kaçar · Host Lex FridmanAstrobiologist Betül Kaçar tells Lex Fridman how the tree of life is drawn backward, why nitrogen was fixed only once, and why the genetic code is an alphabet with room for typos.
2:06:25ENLex Fridman· Dec 19, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersNathalie Cabrol Wants the Nature of Life, Not Just a Signal from MarsGuest Nathalie Cabrol · Host Lex FridmanThe SETI Institute astrobiologist tells Lex Fridman why crater lakes, panspermia, and a Mandelbrot view of language all point to the same question: what life actually is.
3:43:01ENLex Fridman· Sep 7, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersPut Hydrogen and CO2 in a Tube. Thermodynamics Wants Cells. Nothing Happens.Guest Nick Lane · Host Lex FridmanBiochemist Nick Lane talks Lex Fridman through hydrothermal vents, mitochondria, sex, consciousness, and why bacteria should be common while civilizations are not.
2:32:00ENLex Fridman· Aug 1, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersA Cube Inside a Sphere, Right Between Two Super HornetsGuest Ryan Graves · Host Lex FridmanFormer Navy F/A-18 pilot Ryan Graves tells Lex Fridman how unexplained objects filled East Coast training airspace after a radar upgrade, and why a near-collision made it a safety problem the system still cannot process.
2:13:16ENLex Fridman· Jul 23, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersEvery Atom in Your Body Was Forged in a Dead StarGuest Martin Rees · Host Lex FridmanMartin Rees talks Lex Fridman through dark matter, alien life, one-way Mars trips, and why this century is the first in which one species holds the planet.
4:13:30ENLex Fridman· Jun 9, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersHumanity showed up 10^18 times too earlyGuest Robin Hanson · Host Lex FridmanRobin Hanson tells Lex Fridman why our date in cosmic history is data, and why an empty sky means the loud aliens are coming fast.
2:55:05ENLex Fridman· May 8, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersExtinction awareness is the human trait Mason wants to carry to the starsGuest Chris Mason · Host Lex FridmanCornell geneticist Chris Mason on why seeing our own end creates a duty to engineer life for other worlds — and what a 500-year plan would actually require.
4:05:22ENLex Fridman· Apr 24, 2022PodcastIf We Cannot Say What Life Is, We Cannot Recognize AliensHost Lex FridmanAstrobiologist Sara Walker and chemist Lee Cronin argue that the hunt for alien life is really a hunt for a physics of memory, objects, and time.
1:46:49ENLex Fridman· Mar 23, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersAriel Ekblaw on Self-Assembling Habitats and Why the Real Space Cities Will FloatGuest Ariel Ekblaw · Host Lex FridmanThe MIT Space Exploration Initiative director talks swarm tiles, lunar ants, and why Mars is a research station rather than a backup Earth.
4:05:51ENLex Fridman· Mar 11, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersLife is the universe developing a memoryGuest Lee Cronin · Host Lex FridmanChemist Lee Cronin tells Lex Fridman why life looks inevitable, how assembly theory could detect it on any world, and why silicon may never hold enough states for consciousness.
1:42:58ENLex Fridman· Feb 6, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersDon't Talk Conclusions. Talk Data.Guest Garry Nolan · Host Lex FridmanA Stanford immunologist sat through the brain scans of people who said they had met UFOs—and treats the rest of the subject the same way.
3:59:41ENLex Fridman· Jan 18, 2022Podcast · 2 speakersDust Covered the Origin of the UniverseGuest Brian Keating · Host Lex FridmanExperimental cosmologist Brian Keating on telescopes as time machines, the BICEP2 false alarm, and what it actually means to lose a Nobel Prize.
2:56:42ENLex Fridman· Sep 26, 2021Podcast · 2 speakersSilicon Does Not Emit LightGuest Jeffrey Shainline · Host Lex FridmanNIST physicist Jeffrey Shainline on why a brain-like computer should calculate in superconducting electronics and talk with single photons.
2:39:53ENLex Fridman· Jul 19, 2021Podcast · 2 speakersThere's Something at the Edge of the Solar SystemGuest Konstantin Batygin · Host Lex FridmanCaltech planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin tells Lex Fridman how a hypothesized five-Earth-mass world shepherds the distant Kuiper Belt — and why a photograph would end the argument.
1:59:28ENLex Fridman· Jul 9, 2021Podcast · 2 speakersSara Walker says “what is life?” is the wrong questionGuest Sara Walker · Host Lex FridmanThe astrobiologist and theoretical physicist tells Lex Fridman that origin-of-life science is stuck on molecules, and that causation, assembly, and planetary-scale information are closer to the real problem.
1:58:12ENLex Fridman· Jun 27, 2021Podcast · 2 speakersThe Universe Doesn't Sacrifice. That's Why Phosphine Might Mean Life.Guest Clara Sousa-Silva · Host Lex FridmanQuantum astrochemist Clara Sousa-Silva on the contested Venus detection, a molecule nobody could spell, and why she treats cosmic meaninglessness as a relief.
2:22:20ENLex Fridman· May 29, 2021Podcast · 2 speakersThe closer quarks get, the weaker they pullGuest Frank Wilczek · Host Lex FridmanNobel physicist Frank Wilczek talks with Lex Fridman about asymptotic freedom, beauty, dark matter, consciousness, and whether a theory of everything would even help.
1:56:54ENLex Fridman· May 17, 2021Podcast · 2 speakersKatherine de Kleer still calls moons planetsGuest Katherine de Kleer · Host Lex FridmanThe Caltech planetary scientist talks with Lex Fridman about Pluto’s demotion, tidal heating on Io, hidden oceans, and the ice that may explain Oumuamua.Load moreShowing 24 of 34