56 | Kate Adamala on Creating Synthetic Life

56 | Kate Adamala on Creating Synthetic Life

Scientists can't quite agree on how to define "life," but that hasn't stopped them from studying it, looking for it elsewhere, or even trying to create it. Kate Adamala is one of a number of scientists engaged in the ambitious project of trying to create living cells, or something approximating them, starting from entirely non-living ingredients. Impressive progress has already been made. Designing cells from scratch will have obvious uses is biology and medicine, but also allow us to build biological robots and computers, as well as helping us understand how life could have arisen in the first place, and what it might look like on other planets.

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Katarzyna (Kate) Adamala received her Ph.D. working with Pier Luigi Luisi at the University of Rome and Jack Szostak at Harvard. She is currently an assistant professor of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development at the University of Minnesota. She is a member of the Build-A-Cell international collaboration, which brings together multiple groups to work on constructing artificial life.


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AMA | August 2024

AMA | August 2024

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284 | Doris Tsao on How the Brain Turns Vision Into the World

284 | Doris Tsao on How the Brain Turns Vision Into the World

The human brain does a pretty amazing job of taking in a huge amount of data from multiple sensory modalities -- vision, hearing, smell, etc. -- and constructing a coherent picture of the world, const...

29 Juli 20241h 2min

283 | Daron Acemoglu on Technology, Inequality, and Power

283 | Daron Acemoglu on Technology, Inequality, and Power

Change is scary. But sometimes it can all work out for the best. There's no guarantee of that, however, even when the change in question involves the introduction of a powerful new technology. Today's...

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282 | Joel David Hamkins on Puzzles of Reality and Infinity

282 | Joel David Hamkins on Puzzles of Reality and Infinity

The philosophy of mathematics would be so much easier if it weren't for infinity. The concept seems natural, but taking it seriously opens the door to counterintuitive results. As mathematician and ph...

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Ask Me Anything | July 2024

Ask Me Anything | July 2024

Welcome to the July 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

8 Juli 20243h 21min

281 | Samir Okasha on the Philosophy of Agency and Evolution

281 | Samir Okasha on the Philosophy of Agency and Evolution

Just like with physics, in biology it is perfectly possible to do most respectable work without thinking much about philosophy, but there are unmistakably foundational questions where philosophy becom...

1 Juli 20241h 11min

280 | François Chollet on Deep Learning and the Meaning of Intelligence

280 | François Chollet on Deep Learning and the Meaning of Intelligence

Which is more intelligent, ChatGPT or a 3-year old? Of course this depends on what we mean by "intelligence." A modern LLM is certainly able to answer all sorts of questions that require knowledge far...

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279 | Ellen Langer on Mindfulness and the Body

279 | Ellen Langer on Mindfulness and the Body

For those of us who are not dualists, the mind arises from our physical bodies -- mostly the brain, but the rest of the body has a role to play. And yet it remains tempting to treat the mind as a thin...

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