Shows
Night Science74 | Martin Schwartz and the importance of stupidity in scienceMartin Schwartz, a professor at Yale, is known for his work on integrins and his influential essay “The importance of stupidity in scientific research”. He emphasizes that while learning science makes you feel smart, true scientific discovery often involves feeling stupid, because it means venturing into the unknown. We discuss how the ego can obstruct creativity, and how resilience, self-discovery, and the cultivation of "passionate indifference" – being deeply engaged but unattached to outcomes – are key to sustaining a productive and fulfilling life in science.2025-04-2129 min
Night Science73 | Ethan Mollick and a million Einsteins in a serverWith Ethan Mollick, professor at Wharton and author of the bestselling “Co-Intelligence”, we explore how generative AI tools like ChatGPT can enhance scientific creativity. Ethan emphasizes that AI excels at idea generation through sheer volume and recombination, outperforming most humans in many creativity tasks – though it does have odd obsessions with VR and crypto. However, AI is most effective when integrated into a collaborative human–machine workflow rather than used as a replacement. Ethan describes AI as your tireless science buddy that never gets bored or judgmental during b...2025-04-0738 min
Night Science72 | David Baker and the lab's communal brainDavid Baker, who was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for designing novel proteins with AI, is a professor at the University of Washington. In this episode, he explains how he socially engineers his lab’s "communal brain", where all individuals function like neurons, densely interconnected to maximize idea generation. We explore the role of AI in science, discussing whether AI can be truly creative. Finally, we discuss the current funding crisis in science, which disproportionately affects young researchers.For more information about Night Science, visit https://ww...2025-03-2424 min
Night Science71 | Victor Ambros and the unique ways we perceive wonderVictor Ambros, newly awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of microRNA, is a developmental biologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In this episode, we explore improvisational science – the dynamic, collaborative process where researchers build on each other’s ideas using a "yes, and…" approach. We discuss the constant need to reframe and refine scientific questions, and the challenge of helping young researchers build the confidence to question established ideas. Victor underscores the power of curiosity-driven research, emphasizing how each scientist’s uni...2025-03-1035 min
Night Science70 | Meghan O’Rourke on being the artist and their caretakerMeghan O'Rourke, acclaimed author of The Invisible Kingdom, poet, and Yale professor, joins us to explore the parallels between creative writing and scientific discovery. She describes how deep immersion in a project attracts unexpected insights, and she introduces Night Poetry and Day Poetry, inspired by our concepts of Night Science and Day Science—where night represents raw creation and day embodies refinement. We discuss how scientists and writers face similar challenges: questioning assumptions, balancing structure with spontaneity, and finding meaning in unexpected connections. Th...2025-02-1745 min
Night Science69 | Keith Yamamoto and the freedom to failKeith Yamamoto, professor and science policy leader at UCSF, discusses with us how modern science became trapped in a system that discourages creative risk-taking. Keith contrasts academia's fear of failure with Silicon Valley's acceptance of it as just another day at the office. We also talk about Keith’s introduction of a new NIH grant category specifically for paradigm-challenging ideas, where he deliberately chose generalist reviewers rather than domain experts who might reject ideas threatening their own paradigms.For more information about Night Science, visit https://www.bi...2025-01-2740 min
Night Science68 | Peter Godfrey-Smith and middle class sciencePeter Godfrey-Smith, a Professor of the Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney, explores with us the differences between creativity in science and philosophy. While philosophers speculate unconstrainedly, scientists must balance creative thinking with the need for empirical testing and within our fields’ paradigms – if you mention the “Lamarck” word at a bar full of geneticists, don’t be surprised if the piano suddenly stops and everybody looks at you in disbelief. We also talk about Thomas Kuhn’s tension between normal and revolutionary science, the risks and rewards of disruptive i...2025-01-1433 min
Night Science67 | A hypothesis is a liabilityIn this episode, Itai and Martin delve into the interplay between hypothesis-driven and exploratory research, drawing on insights from past guests of the Night Science Podcast. They discuss how being focused on a single hypothesis can prevent us from making discoveries, while emphasizing the value of open-ended exploratory analyses—often dismissed as “fishing expeditions.” The episode also examines the risks inherent to both approaches: hypothesis-driven Day Science may overlook key insights, while exploratory Night Science risks being misled by randomness.This episode was su...2024-12-1639 min
Night Science66 | Michael Fischbach and the scientific decision treeIn this episode, Stanford professor Michael Fischbach discusses insights from his course on how to choose meaningful research problems. Highlights include:- Invest time in problem selection: Spend more time upfront selecting the right research problem.- Date ideas: Before settling on an idea, explore multiple alternatives without emotional attachment.- Fixed vs. floating parameters: Early on, clearly define what aspects of your research idea are fixed and which can be flexible.- Manage risks: Embrace risk but systematically de-risk projects.2024-11-2550 min
Night Science65 | James Kaufman and the art of creativity maintenanceJames Kaufman, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, discusses the psychological underpinnings of creative thinking with Itai & Martin. Together, we delve into the complex nature of creativity, exploring its roots as both a trait and a skill that can be nurtured. We examine the role of personality traits in creativity, the impact of interdisciplinary team dynamics, and how creative metacognition—the ability to recognize one’s own creative strengths and weaknesses—plays a vital role.This episode was supported by Research Theory (resear...2024-11-0430 min
Don't Panic GeocastEpisode 399 - "We would have already sacrificed some people"In our 400th episode, we take a moment to reflect on some of our favorite past episodes and Fun Paper Fridays that have brought joy, knowledge, and a good laugh to the show. From memorable guests to quirky science papers, this episode is a tribute to everything that makes the Don't Panic Geocast special. Join us for this nostalgia-packed episode where we look back at the highlights of 399 episodes!
Highlighted Episodes
Episode 350 - "Borehole to Hell"
Episode 49 - "Would it blow your mind if I told you Africa is 14x larger than Greenland?"
Episode 50 - "Some...2024-10-1859 min
Night Science64 | Robert Weinberg and the perils of being a FachidiotMIT's Bob Weinberg is perhaps the world's most prominent cancer researcher. In this episode, Bob emphasizes that true innovation often comes from blending ideas from different fields – a synthesis that transcends the boundaries of one's primary area of research. We discuss the vital role of human interaction, with many scientific breakthroughs coming from informal collaborations between researchers, celebrating the collective "lab brain" as a powerful driver of creativity and discovery. And given that modern experimental methods could facilitate an essentially infinite variety of alternative projects, Bob recommends that we continually qu...2024-09-3042 min
Night Science63 | Manu Prakash and how the discovery changes youManu Prakash is a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, asking biological questions with insights from physics. His most widely known contribution is the FoldScope, a $1-microscope made from paper and a lens – 2 million copies of this have been distributed to would-be scientists around the world. In this episode, Manu emphasizes how science is a sense of wonder and a personal journey with no set roads. To get to new and deep questions, Manu feels he needs to “embed” himself in the world he's studying, e.g., by spending weeks...2024-09-0944 min
Night Science62 | Dianne Newman and the visceral and intentional sides of scienceDianne Newman – a molecular microbiologist at CalTech – is a professor both in Biology and Geology. In this episode, she encourages young scientists to pursue questions to which they have a visceral connection, rather than following popular trends. In its search for fundamental truths guided by our inner biases and preferences, Dianne likens scientific curiosity to artistic expression. She emphasizes our control over how much we dwell on the difficult aspects of our research, helping us to find satisfaction in creatively working around whatever obstacles we meet. Dianne also reflects on the unpredictable nature of research, and stresses how a prob...2024-08-1940 min
Night Science61 | Tina Seelig on what to do with a really bad ideaTina Seelig is Executive Director of the Knight-Hennessy-Scholars at Stanford University. She is widely known for teaching creativity courses and workshops with an entrepreneurial focus. In this episode, Tina emphasizes the importance of living in the problem space longer, taking time to challenge assumptions and reframe questions before rushing to solutions. We discuss how deliberately generating bad ideas can lead to innovative solutions, as they allow for bigger conceptual leaps and often contain the seeds of brilliant ideas. Treating ideas as less precious allows for a continuous flow of creativity...2024-07-1529 min
Night Science60 | Venki Ramakrishnan and the secrets of doing science over teaVenki Ramakrishnan shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering the structure of the ribosome. He runs a lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. In this episode, Venki emphasizes the importance of enjoying the scientific process itself, not just aiming for major discoveries. He describes his creativity as a result of mulling over a problem and of talking with people. Venki also highlights the need for scientists to make daily judgment calls about their approach and the future of the project. And he encourages 2024-07-0133 min
Night Science59 | Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv and the point of creative frustrationJennifer Oyler-Yaniv is a professor working on the immune system at Harvard’s Medical School. In this episode, we discuss with her how she teaches creativity in her course for PhD students. We explore the emotional roller coaster ride of research projects, typically culminating in the point of creative frustration, where we get stuck and are tempted to either give up or take an easy, sub-par way out. We discuss how the creative process and its tools are really the same in science and in the arts, but that cu...2024-05-2736 min
Night Science58 | Guy Yanai on PentimentiGuy Yanai is a painter whose work is displayed in many public and private collections across the US, Europe, and Asia, including, for example, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His distinctive painting style blends modernist, abstract tendencies together with references to everyday life and popular culture. Coincidentally, Guy is also Itai’s brother. Together, we explore the many similarities and the interesting differences between the creative processes in art and science. We talk about Guy's creative process of letting art projects simmer inside him for as long as possible – until he f...2024-05-1424 min
Inside Cancer CareersInspiring Creativity through Night Science In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, Dr. Oliver Bogler interviews two guests, Dr. Itai Yanai, who is a Professor at NYU School of Medicine, and Dr. Martin Lercher, who is a Professor at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. They are also co-founders of Night Science, which is the creative aspect of scientific research. They discuss the importance of scientific creativity and explore why it is often overlooked in scientific training and how it can be nurtured. Drs. Yanai and Lercher then discuss their early inspirations for pursuing science, their career paths, and the importance of interdisciplinary thinking. Sho...2024-05-0259 min
Night Science57 | George Church and shooting for the starsGeorge Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, leads a large research group at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. A pioneer in the fields of personalized genomics and synthetic biology, he has co-founded over 50 biotech companies. In 2017, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In this conversation, we discuss the importance of embracing outliers and taking calculated risks – it's not about never failing, it's about failing a million times a day. As Yogi Berra said, "When you co...2024-04-2936 min
Night Science56 | Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz lights a candle for scienceProf. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz directs research labs at both CalTech in the US and the University of Cambridge in England. Magdalena is one of the world’s leading developmental biologists, who has been recognized by the 2023 Ogawa-Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize and Science magazin's People's Vote for Scientific Breakthrough of the Year in 2016. In this episode, we explore the relationship between art and science, and discuss how emotions act as a catalyst for creativity. Magdalena reveals that most of the work in her lab starts without a very detailed plan, which leaves everyone op...2024-04-1539 min
Night Science55 | Isaac Newton and a new kind of scienceNight Science – coming up with novel ways to interpret the physical world – is as old as philosophy. In contrast, Day Science – empirical evidence as the sole argument for truth – was invented only in the 1700s, championed by the groundbreaking work of Isaac Newton. In the April 1st, 2024, episode of the Day Science Podcast, Sir Isaac looks back on his solitary life, revealing how he came up with science’s counterintuitive, narrow, and shallow concept of explanation. Sir Isaac touches on the infamous apple incident as a metaphor for inspiration, and he ref...2024-04-0126 min
Night Science54 | Bo Xia and a tale of tailsBo Xia is a Junior Fellow at Harvard and a Principal Investigator at the Broad Institute. During his PhD with Itai, he suffered a painful tailbone injury that led to an obsession with this vestigial organ and its origins in human evolution. In this out-of-the-ordinary episode, we talk about this specific science project: how did Bo, with Itai’s help, discover the mutation that let us lose our tail?For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .2024-02-2831 min
Night Science53 | Todd Golub and bottom-up creativityProf. Todd Golub, the Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, has made important contributions to cancer research. In this episode, he argues that creativity is the greatest hallmark of a successful scientist, and he tells us about his artist-in-residence program at the Broad. As its director, he aims to hire researchers who look like they'll be changing fields in the future, combining boldness with humility – the "blank slate" with which they enter the new field is the best recipe for creativity. We discuss how the best projects cannot be...2024-02-2635 minInside Cancer CareersA Global Outlook on Women, Power, and CancerIn this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Senior Scientific Officer and Senior Advisor for Clinical Research in NCI’s Center for Global Health. Dr. Ginsburg discusses the published article Women, power, and cancer: a Lancet Commission, which focuses on the social determinants of health and the power dynamics that affect women's access to cancer care. She shares the commission's key findings, which highlight the high incidence of cancer in women and the potential for prevention and early detection to save lives. Dr. Ginsburg gives her thoughts on the importance of women's leadership and re...2024-02-1543 min
Night Science52 | Sean B. Carroll – he told some good storiesSean Carroll is a world-renowned scientist, author, educator, and an Oscar-nominated film producer. Sean sees storytelling as the key to all he does. Similar to how musicians get inspiration by listening to other people’s music, Sean attributes his own creativity to his insatiable habit of reading about other people’s science – that’s how he “fertilizes his garden”. To tell a good story, he urges us to seek the emotions. But storytelling is not just for communication: in a research project, we also must develop a narrative, 2024-02-1239 min
Night Science51 | Nigel Goldenfeld and the jazz of impossible problemsNigel Goldenfeld is the Chancellor's Distinguished Professor in Physics at the University of California at San Diego. In this episode, he talks with us about how research is an art form, and how he tries to help graduate students make the transition from being a “classical musician”, where the goal is to faithfully reproduce every note supplied by the composer, to being a “jazz musician”, where collaborators have to develop the beauty of the composition – or here, the science – on the spot. Nigel emphasizes the importance of suspending disbelief in the resul...2024-01-2939 min
Night Science50 | It takes two to thinkDespite the variety of creative approaches practiced by different scientists, one tried-and-true though often overlooked — trick for generating new ideas stands out. It may sound trivial, yet it is as reliable as it is simple: talk to someone. By talking with other people, we not only pool the information or ideas that each of us individually lacks, but we are also able to improvise new thoughts that are not accessible to us alone. In this episode, Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher talk through the ideas in two of their editorials (available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-023-0...2024-01-1523 min
Night Science49 | Rich White on living on the edge casesRich White studies cancer as a professor at Oxford University. Rich is not only a brilliant physician-scientist but also a great friend of Itai Yanai, one of the two Night Science hosts. In this episode, Rich talks about how often the process that led to a particular result can be more interesting than the result itself – something that is true not only in science but also in fields such as art or writing. He emphasizes that the best research strategy depends greatly on the researcher’s personality. He himself thrives on bein...2024-01-0843 min
Night Science48 | Carolyn Bertozzi and a long game called scienceCarolyn Bertozzi is a Professor at Stanford University. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In this episode we talk about how the process of science is unstructured, so you don’t know when and where the next idea is going to come – sometimes even at the supermarket checkout line. For Carolyn, science is a long game, where one person’s negative result might be picked up a decade or a century later, leading to a new breakthrough. When a field is just being born, its new members may have a...2023-12-2540 min
Night Science47 | Stephen Quake and the Creative NetworkStephen Quake is a Stanford University professor and the Head of Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). Among his many inventions are DNA sequencing methods for non-invasive prenatal testing. In this episode, Steve tells us about his tricks for the creative scientific process, including the surprising usefulness of jetlag, the role of generosity – rather than a transactional approach – in collaborations, and the art of making progress in fields that are new for you, including a high threshold for embarrassment. Throughout the research process, Steve encourages his team to ke...2023-12-1135 min
Night Science46 | John Mattick and doing what your mother taught youJohn Mattick is Professor of RNA Biology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. For decades, he has been on a mission to show that the large portions of the human genome that many scientists consider useless "junk" instead have important regulatory functions. In this episode, he tells us that his creative process involves always seeing things from different perspectives – something he learned as a teenager listening to the debates of his mother and her sisters. He reveals how publishing a manifesto can supercharge your research. We...2023-11-2730 min
Night Science45 | Peter Ratcliffe on being the Master of DaydreamsPeter J. Ratcliffe shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oxygen sensing in animal cells. He directs research institutes in London and Oxford. In this episode, he reveals the interplay between dissociation – daydreaming – and interaction with colleagues as a major source of his scientific creativity. He emphasizes that to make an important discovery, you must define your own question, even as everyone – from colleagues to editors and funders – will try to convince you otherwise. We discuss how too much planning can make you unhappy, and how...2023-11-1335 min
Night Science44 | Christina Curtis and keeping the faith in the processChristina Curtis is a Professor of Medicine and the Director of Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Genomics at Stanford University’s Cancer Institute. Among her many achievements is the conception of the “Big Bang Theory” of tumor biology. In this episode, she tells us how not being biased by assumptions of what we know has been very helpful in her research. We talk about how her background in statistical genetics has shaped her cancer research. We also discuss how the despair of not understanding is a phase that occurs in almost any resear...2023-10-3042 min
Night Science43 | Daniel Dennett’s intuition pumpsDaniel Dennett, Professor at Tufts University, may be the most important living philosopher, tackling the biggest questions around: what is consciousness, do we have free will, how does evolutionary adaptation occur? In this episode, Dan tells us about some of his ‘intuition pumps’ - tools that are as indispensable for thinking as hammers and saws are for carpentry. We discuss how creativity really is just a bag of tricks, what Descartes‘ biggest mistake was, and how to ‘jump out of the system‘ to make creative leaps. Dan tells us about h...2023-10-1641 min
Night Science42 | Howard Stone on how to tilt your head for discoveryHoward Stone is a Professor of Engineering at Princeton. His research explores how fluid dynamics can help to understand diverse systems, from bacterial biofilms to the earth’s interior. In this episode, Howard explains how a lot of important, low-hanging fruit are at the interface between disciplines. Howard is most creative when he debates phenomena at a blackboard together with a collaborator. A trick he likes to use is to identify related problems in isolated disciplines, helping him to unravel underlying mechanisms. And he warns against being too con...2023-09-2539 min
Night Science41 | Prisca Liberali and the junkies of discoveryPrisca Liberali is a senior group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Switzerland. In this episode, Prisca tells us how her creative thinking thrives on recursive thinking – going deeper and deeper into a problem from different angles. Prisca also deliberately uses carefully chosen conferences to discuss and to develop ongoing projects. As much as her lab’s creativity is an inextricable part of the process, she admits that at the core it’s a lonely job. What eases leadership in the lab is learning who you are: which...2023-09-1132 min
Night Science40 | Tom Mullaney & Chris Rea on giving thanks to biasTom Mullaney is a Professor of History at Stanford University and the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress, and Chris Rea is a Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. In 2022, Tom and Chris published the book ‘Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World)’. In this episode, we talk about self-centered research (and about getting over yourself), how vulnerable self-confidence empowers your research, and how your personal biases are necessary for you to n...2023-08-2843 min
Night Science39 | Bonnie Bassler and living on the edge in a nerdy kind of wayBonnie Bassler is the Chair of the Molecular Biology Department at Princeton. In this episode, Bonnie talks about her passion for scientific inquiry, creativity, mentorship, and how the journey of discovery is about asking the right questions, distinguishing between what you can do and what you should do, and about embracing the unexpected. In our very lively and fun discussion, we explore the significance of asking "why" questions to fuel passion and curiosity – even if only the if/what/when/how questions lead to clear answers – and we expl...2023-08-1438 min
Night Science38 | Yukiko Yamashita, the queen of analogiesYukiko Yamashita is a biology professor at MIT and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Yukiko’s research is amazingly broad, perhaps because she often only realizes at the end of a project which question she was asking by what she had been doing, as she explains in this episode. She likens research to solving 5000-piece jigsaw puzzles – not one at a time, but with the pieces from hundreds of puzzles all dumped together. So that while we put the pieces together, we have to be always watching ourselves: does that...2023-07-0326 min
Night Science37 | Stephen Wolfram is the Worldly ScientistCan you think of another big company CEO that does basic science? Stephen Wolfram is the CEO of Wolfram Research – the company that developed Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha – but most fundamentally he has a deep commitment to figuring out the nature of reality. Stephen wrote the landmark ‘A new kind of science’ in 2002 and in his current ‘physics project’, Steven is trying to show that the universe is at its core computation, and that its fundamental laws arise from simple computational programs. We talked with Stephen about how he drills down to get the simplest...2023-06-1941 min
Night Science36 | Laurence Hurst and the slime mold model of discoveryLaurence Hurst is a professor of Evolutionary Genetics and the founding Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at The University of Bath. Martin actually learned biology from Laurence as a postdoc, and he still likes to quote Laurence’s favorite question after the departmental seminars: “Why is this interesting?” In this episode, Laurence explains his Slime Mold Model of the scientific process, advises us to follow the data, and tells us that much of his research springs from him being a magpie for funny little observations that don’t fit in...2023-06-0541 min
Night Science35 | Edith Heard and the feeling for the systemEdith Heard is a Professor at the Collège de France and the Director General of Europe’s “CERN for biologists”, the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL). In this episode, Edith explains how she gets ideas when she’s out of her comfort zone and being challenged, and how in her youth she would go to the piano whenever her brain needed time to solve a hard math problem. She emphasizes how much she profited from the “naive optimism” in science in the US – compared to the much more rigid, historic...2023-05-2237 min
Night Science34 | Ewan Birney and the battle scars of discoveryEwan Birney is the deputy director general of the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL) and co-director of the European Bioinformatics Institute. In his research, Ewan combines his training in biochemistry with computer science, which made him one of the heroes of the human genome project. In this episode, he describes that an “emotional” understanding of science is often enough to have valuable discussions with experts in different fields, a concept that forms the basis of his diamonds-and-whiskers model of successful scientific teams. Ewan also explains how f...2023-05-0840 min
Night Science33 | Paola Arlotta and science as a walk in the dark woodsPaola Arlotta is a developmental neurobiologist and a professor at Harvard. She studies how the most complex organ in the human body (in the world? in the universe maybe?) comes to be: the brain (!). How does it develop from just a bunch of cells? Paola is also the Chair of her Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, where she takes particular care about the nurturing of the next generation of scientists in her field. In this episode, Paola describes the crucial role that happiness and passion play for her in...2023-04-2451 min
Night Science32 | Marty Martin and Art Woods on science podcastingIn this special, we talk about podcasting with the two hosts of the Big Biology Podcast (https://www.bigbiology.org), Marty Martin – professor of disease ecology at the University of South Florida – and Art Woods – professor of physiological ecology at the University of Montana. We had a great time discussing our respective podcast experiences, trading tips and reflecting on our passion for science communication and the ways that it has impacted our own research. In their podcast, Marty and Art tell the stories of scientists tackling some of the biggest unanswered questions in biology. While both of our podcasts focus...2023-04-101h 01
Big BiologyCreativity and passion in science communication (Ep 99)On this episode, we take a break from the regular format to talk with Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher of The Night Science Podcast, a show that explores the creative side of science with guests from across the globe. Itai is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the NYU School of Medicine, and Martin is a professor in both the Institute for Computer Science and the Department of Biology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. We had a great time chatting with them about our respective podcast experiences, trading tips and reflecting on our p...2023-04-061h 03
Night Science31 | Alfred Russel Wallace and night science by candlelightWhat was the creative process of Alfred Russel Wallace? In this séance, we channel the legendary self-taught evolutionary biologist, founder of the field of biogeography, and co-discoverer of natural selection. Mr. Wallace (as he insists to be called) told us how he did night science by candlelight during long and lonely nights on his travels in the tropics, and how he prefers to ponder the big questions. He sees himself as an early data scientist, identifying patterns in data – in particular in the study of beetles, with bot...2023-04-0153 min
Night Science30 | Zak Kohane and the abstraction of dataIsaac (Zak) Kohane is the Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. In this episode, Zak talks with us about how medicine, at its core, is information processing. But in medical data science, one has to understand and to model the dynamics of two orthogonal systems: the patient’s physiology and the dynamics of the healthcare system, in particular the integrating intelligence of doctors who decide about a patient’s path through that system. Zak also tells us how his creative process is an engineering process...2023-03-2028 min
Night Science29 | Jim Collins and the technology-free FridayJim Collins is Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. In this episode, he talks with us about his radical switch of fields in the early 2000’s, when he essentially founded the field of synthetic biology. Jim’s creative process includes ‘storing content’ about a particular problem; committing a portion of each day to reflect on it, even if this might often feel like wasting time; and then bouncing ideas around in open discussions with colleagues. Jim stresses the need for being disciplined in one's night science improvisations, anchoring oneself...2023-03-0641 min
Night Science28 | Caroline Bartman and the flash(cards) of inspirationCaroline Bartman is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Princeton’s Chemistry Department, and she is about to start her own lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Caroline’s research focuses on how our metabolism changes in response to cancer and to viral infections. In this episode, Caroline explains how she has developed to become a creative scientist. She also describes an unexpected trick: whenever she stumbles upon something interesting – such as an experimental observation or something she read – she adds it as a card to her electronic set, which she reviews on a daily...2023-02-1328 min
Night Science27 | Albert-László Barabási is not afraid to break thingsAlbert-László Barabási is a distinguished professor at Northeastern University in Boston. In this episode, he tells us how he established the field of network science. He explains the expert’s fallacy and why it’s time to move to another field once you become afraid to break things. He tells about his strategies to select research projects with his students, and that the science only really starts after the first draft has been written. He also tells us how the crucial skill to make discoveries is to sense...2023-01-2239 min
Night Science26 | Stuart Firestein on artful ignorance, failure, and neglectDoing science reminds Stuart Firestein of an old saying: “It’s very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room. Especially when there is no cat.” Before studying biology and becoming a professor at Columbia University in New York, Stuart worked for many years in the theater. In this episode, he talks about how he doesn’t miss the creativity or the spirit of the theater, as he finds all of that in science. For Stuart, ignorance and creativity are two horses pulling the same wagon of science, and lab meetings are cent...2023-01-0233 min
Night Science25 | Galit Lahav and the Night Science TuesdayProfessor Galit Lahav is the Chair of the Systems Biology Department at Harvard Medical School, where she creates an environment that is collaborative, stimulating, and interdisciplinary. In this episode, Galit tells us how her creative process consists of incubation and interaction. She stresses the importance of being vulnerable for creativity to emerge, and also how to use night science to make the tough decision to stop working on a particular project. Thinking about how to normalize incubation at the department level, Galit led us to conclude that...2022-12-1038 min
Night Science24 | Eric Topol on thinking big about AI in medicineEric Topol is a cardiologist, scientist, and author. Many twitter users will know Eric from his voice-of-reason tweets related to the covid pandemic. While Eric’s exceptionally broad scientific work includes genetics and clinical trials, his main focus is on the ways in which artificial intelligence may change medicine as we know it. Creativity in this field, Eric explains, lies in exploring applications of AI that no one thought possible before, such as predicting the risk of heart disease from an image of the retina. In our conversation, Eric encourages any scientist to...2022-11-2139 min
Night Science23 | Aviv Regev on how to be generous with your ideasAviv Regev is what anyone would call a true science hero. She is not only a pioneer of single-cell genomics and systems biology, but also a great mentor. In 2020, she moved from her professorship at MIT and the Broad Institute to the biotech company Genentech, where she is Executive Vice President and Head of Research and Early Development. We talked with her about the advantages of setting ideas free and about how to be a generous collaborator. Aviv told us how creativity can arise from a deep frustration2022-10-3135 min
Night Science22 | Cassandra Extavour and the language of creativityCassandra Extavour is a Professor of developmental and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and she is an Investigator at the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Cassandra’s pioneering research focuses on how germ cells – those immortal cells that form the next generation – are specified in different animals. Cassandra is a champion for diversity and inclusivity, helping to found the Pan-American Society of Evolutionary Developmental Biology. Cassandra has a second, part-time job as a professional soprano, singing opera and Baroque music with professional ensembles around the world, and we talked with her about...2022-10-1023 minDon't Panic GeocastEpisode 343 - "Div, Grad, and Curl"Vector calculus is everywhere, but sadly good explanations are not. This week we talk about the div, grad, and curl operations.
Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An Informal Text on Vector Calculus
Fun Paper Friday
Yanai, Itai, and Martin Lercher. "The two languages of science." Genome Biology 21.1 (2020): 1-9.
Contact us:
Show
Support us on Patreon!
www.dontpanicgeocast.com
SWUNG Slack
@dontpanicgeo
show@dontpanicgeocast.com
John Leeman
www.johnrleeman.com
@geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin
@ShannonDulin
2022-09-2353 min
Night Science21 | Daniel Kahneman and the sunk-cost fallacyDaniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for Economics – as a psychologist. His fundamental work in behavioral economics revealed our cognitive biases, such as loss aversion – the fact that we react much more strongly to losses than to gains. Danny’s popular science book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” is a highly influential bestseller; Itai and Martin consider it the operating manual for the human brain. In this conversation, Danny tells us how his creative process is driven by a lack of content with what has already been achieved. Other topi...2022-09-2243 minDon't Panic GeocastEpisode 342 - "Kiss Me"How do we remember all of the sequences, facts, and processes in our fields? Mnemonic devices! This week we chat about a few of our favorites.
Fun Paper Friday
Is having a hypothesis a bad thing?
Yanai, Itai, and Martin Lercher. "A hypothesis is a liability." Genome Biology 21.1 (2020): 1-5.
Contact us:
Show
Support us on Patreon!
www.dontpanicgeocast.com
SWUNG Slack
@dontpanicgeo
show@dontpanicgeocast.com
John Leeman
www.johnrleeman.com
@geo_leeman
Shannon Dulin
@ShannonDulin
2022-09-1051 min
Night Science20 | Peer Bork and the scientific candy shopPeer Bork is a legendary scientist, and these days he’s also the Director of Scientific Activities at the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL) in Heidelberg. Among his many accolades, Peer was recently honored by the International Society for Computational Biology for "Tremendous contributions to bioinformatics on a plethora of fronts within the field". As a highly interdisciplinary scientist, Peer tells us how his team moves into new fields, adapting tools and creating new ones, and trusting their own data more than common wisdom. Peer also talks about how to...2022-09-0228 min
Night Science19 | Edward Tufte and the Thinking EyeEdward Tufte (ET) is widely-considered as the guru of data visualisation. He has taught the world about how data is to be communicated. He is best known for his 5 books on data visualisation, which have had an immeasurable influence on how to reveal the story told by data, combining layers of information into clear visual representations. In this episode, Itai and Martin talk with ET about his most recent book ‘Seeing with fresh eyes - meaning space data truth’, where he introduces the concept of the thinking eye, which reveals meaning from...2022-08-2339 min
Night Science18 | Shafi Goldwasser and the good jokeShafi Goldwasser received the Turing Award – the “Nobel Prize of Computing” – in 2012. She needs no introduction to anyone working in computer science or cryptology, a field she essentially founded as a theoretical discipline. Shafi is a professor at both MIT and the Weizmann Institute in Israel, as well as being the director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at Berkeley. In this episode, Shafi tells us how her favourite scientific ideas are akin to a good joke: they catch you off guard with something unexpected. We discuss how even the...2022-07-1824 min
Night Science17 | Uri Alon and our internal tuning forkUri Alon, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, is best known for his contributions to systems biology. But Uri is also famous for his very joyful and playful attitude to science, which is memorable for anyone who’s ever heard him speak (or sing). Uri’s research is exceptionally broad in terms of the fields he covers, which is one reason why he is one of today’s most cited researchers. We talked with Uri about a wide range of topics: about improvisation in science, about...2022-05-3139 min
Night Science16 | Agnel Sfeir on science as an obsessionAgnel Sfeir is a leading scientist in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who studies fundamental aspects of the biology of the cell. Agnel revels in asking seemingly simple questions that get to the heart of the unknown in biology. In this conversation, she told us how she immerses herself in the project together with her team, and learns how to mentor each person depending on how they like to think. She discusses the trick of ‘thinking selfishly’ for generating ideas: when reading or listening to something, you should constantly thin...2022-05-1642 min
Night Science15 | Nikolaus Rajewsky on how to think like a bacteriumNikolaus Rajewsky is the founding director of the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology. After studying Physics, he moved into systems biology, studying the role of RNA in gene regulation. In this episode, Nikolaus talks about how his training as a physicist enlightens his approach to biological problems. He also studied piano at the Folkwang University of the Arts, which gives him a unique perspective on the relationship between creativity in the arts and in the sciences. We enjoyed hearing about how he steps back from a problem to come...2022-03-2126 min
Night Science14 | Bill Martin on paying attentionProfessor Bill Martin from Düsseldorf University is a leading evolutionary biologist, who has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the origins of eukaryotes, the cell nucleus, and life itself. In this episode, Bill reveals how he chooses a research question and boosts his creativity. He also discusses the pitfalls of exploratory data analysis and the perils of working in highly crowded fields. And he challenges us: whenever a visitor gives a talk at your institute – think of the most interesting question. You owe it to the...2022-02-2439 min
Night Science13 | Steven Strogatz on ruthless simplificationSteven Strogatz, one of the world’s foremost applied mathematicians, is a Professor at Cornell University. While biologists have evolution as a guiding principle, mathematicians have beauty, economy, and connectivity, as Steve tells us. He explains how he ruthlessly simplifies a problem to the point where - while it still seems impossible - it is down to its bare essentials. That’s when he attacks. We talk about how in science you must stick your neck out with bold assertions, even if you might get your head chopped off as a con...2022-02-0747 min
Night ScienceSteven Strogatz on ruthless simplificationSteven Strogatz, one of the world’s foremost applied mathematicians, is a Professor at Cornell University. While biologists have evolution as a guiding principle, mathematicians have beauty, economy, and connectivity, as Steve tells us. He explains how he ruthlessly simplifies a problem to the point where - while it still seems impossible - it is down to its bare essentials. That’s when he attacks. We talk about how in science you must stick your neck out with bold assertions, even if you might get your head chopped off as a con...2022-02-0447 min
Night Science12 | Samantha Morris on building your own creative lineageProfessor Sam Morris from Washington University in St. Louis is elucidating how cells make developmental decisions as they navigate the space of cell identity. She had a rocky start in science, but falling in love with her projects led her to stick it out. Luckily so: she now runs a highly successful and highly creative lab. Sam thoughtfully discusses how terminology - such as ‘dead end states’ versus ‘partially reprogrammed states’ - can influence the interpretation of results in a project. She also allowed us to peek into her lab meetings: every time, in addition to the pr...2022-01-0854 min
Night Science11 | Ruth Lehmann and the Saturday afternoon experimentHow do world-class scientists make discoveries? “Observing and listening” says Professor Ruth Lehmann, the Director of MIT’s Whitehead Institute. Ruth’s pioneering research focuses on germ cells and embryogenesis, and in this episode we were very fortunate to sit down with her to discuss her creative process, which she likens to the opening of a window. Most inspiringly, we discuss how Ruth created an environment that nurtures and empowers researchers to do their best work at the Skirball Institute at NYU and now at the Whitehead at MIT. For more information on Night Sci...2021-12-2436 min
Night Science10 | Tom McLeish on the poetry of scienceHow is science like art? In this episode, we talk about the similarities between the creative processes of science and art with Tom McLeish, a Fellow of the Royal Society and Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Dept. of Physics at the University of York in England. Tom has written a fascinating book entitled “The poetry and music of science”, where he discusses how we have everything to gain by better explaining the creative scientific process. Tom also has an explanation of why the "a-ha" moment of discovery may occur particularly when stepping off o...2021-09-3039 min
Night Science9 | Ben Lehner on how to start your own scientific fieldBen Lehner is a Professor and Coordinator of the Systems Biology Programme at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. In this episode, Ben talks with us about how careerism is bad for science. He describes how he avoids being limited to the confines of individual fields and disciplines and his strategy for dealing with the unpredictability of science. He also discusses with us how to not get attached to any particular idea in order to really make progress. In his work, Ben explores how one can predict the biological differences a...2021-09-0247 min
Night Science8 | Yana Bromberg on getting creative with machine learningYana Bromberg is a Professor at Rutgers, where she teaches computers to speak the functional language of biological sequences. In this episode, she talks with Itai and Martin about the amazing creativity of machine learning, the search for weirdness, and her superpower of translating things from one field to another. Her work is being recognized from virtually all sides, including NASA and NIH. She has received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. Yana asks deep fundamental questions whose answers are very important for improving our health, preserving our environment, a...2021-06-2851 min
Night Science7 | Michael Strevens on how science really worksIn this episode, Itai and Martin talk to New Zealander Michael Strevens, who – after studying mathematics and computer science – became professor of philosophy at New York University. Michael recently published an amazing book on the scientific method, which not only manages to reconcile crucial ideas by Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend, but is also immensely readable. In this episode, he discusses the main ideas of the book with your hosts, including the crucial difference between what scientists say in their official communications and in the privacy of their labs, what makes mode...2021-06-0744 min
Night Science6 | Harmit Malik’s dark alleys to discoveryIn this episode, Itai and Martin talk to Harmit Malik, Professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and President of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. Harmit’s main Night Science tool is to talk again and again about the same puzzling observation to different people, drawing variations of the same story on the blackboard. At some point, he says, you realize that something in your story never changes - that is where the false assumptions are. Harmit thinks that in pretty much every important result he published, there was a point where he...2021-05-2440 min
Night Science5 | Sarah Teichmann’s artist colony of scientistsIn this episode, Itai and Martin talk to Sarah Teichman, Head of Cellular Genetics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Director of Research in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England. In her creative research, Sarah’s thoughts constantly switch between her native languages – bioinformatics and genomics – and foreign languages, such as chemistry and physics. Sarah talks about storytelling vs. modeling when interpreting data, and discusses hard vs. soft hypotheses.Sarah is interested in global principles of protein interactions and gene expression, focusing her research on genomics and immunity. She is an EMB...2021-05-1720 min
Night Science4 | Oded Rechavi: biology’s Indiana JonesIn this episode, Itai and Martin talk to Oded Rechavi, Professor of Radical Science at Tel Aviv University in Israel. Having watched Indiana Jones as a kid, Oded jumped on the opportunity to sequence the DNA of the skins on which the dead sea scrolls were written, figuring out how different fragments fit together. Inspired by Michael Crichton’s book Prey, he uses parasitic worms to deliver drugs into the brain. To add more creativity to a project, he always involves someone from a distant field. Listen to this episode to he...2021-05-0737 min
Night Science3 | Arjun Raj’s bag of tricksIn this episode, Itai and Martin talk with Arjun Raj, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. Arjun understands the functioning of biological cells using a bag of tricks that he carries from problem to problem; the art of science, he posits, lies in figuring out what tricks will tell you what answers to what problems. Arjun thinks that we are all born night scientists, and that it's day science that needs to be learned. The ultimate goal of life as a scientist, he believes, is not so much writing papers, but...2021-05-0345 min
Night Science2 | Tzachi Pilpel on channeling other people’s minds for creativityIn this episode, your hosts Itai and Martin talk with Tzachi Pilpel, Professor of Genome and Systems Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Tzachi eloquently describes his creative process, the role of language, the freedom of data analysis, the imagined channeling of other people’s minds for new ideas, and scientific fearlessness. Tzachi’s research focuses on complex networks within cells. His lab applies systems biology and genomics experimental strategies to the study of genetic circuits that process and transmit information in cells. A central goal in his lab i...2021-04-2631 min
Night Science1 | Ellen Rothenberg: inhabiting the dataIn this episode, your hosts Itai and Martin talk with Ellen Rothenberg, a Distinguished Professor of Biology at Caltech, who always wanted to be Beethoven when she grew up and who feels claustrophobic when doing something that other people are doing. Ellen is one of the leading scientists of our time, and her infectious energy and enthusiasm for science make her an amazing guest. Ellen loves to use metaphors and likes to imagine that she’s a transcription factor in a cell’s nucleus. She stresses how a detailed and explicit knowledge structure is c...2021-04-2143 min
Night ScienceTrailerIn this 5-minute trailer, your hosts Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher explain what the Night Science Podcast is all about: conversations with great scientists about the creativity in their scientific process.2021-04-2005 min
LIBRE DE VOLER 聽書－彭瀞儀20200825_3_生科新知。冬陽時間 Ep.33：《基因社會》 【蘭陽有約】生科新知。冬陽時間Ep. 33：《基因社會：從單一個體到群體研究，破解基因的互動關係與人體奧妙之謎》■ 作者：以太•亞奈 Itai Yanai, 馬丁•勒爾克 Martin Lercher■ 譯者：潘震澤■ 出版社：衛城出版■ 出版日期：2020-01-22■ 選書導讀：台灣推理作家協會理事長冬陽（許鈺祥）上個月《我，為什麼會這樣？》一書告訴我們：「世間萬物都由原子所構成，當人拆分到最細小的單位就是原子。這些原子碰撞出來的化學反應，其實人體就是是一整座化學工廠。這個化學工廠產出什麼、製作什麼、對什麼有任何的反應，都來自裡面的化學分子。」「這些化學分子包括：有從父母親的精子、卵子結合之後，內部各自的23條染色體，組成的23對染色體所型塑出來的人類，所型塑出來的個體，他擁有的21000個基因去調控了我們原本被遺傳物質所控制的部份。」今天是七夕情人節，生科新知。冬陽時間 Ep.33，一起共讀的是一本更進一步「認識自我」的生命科學科普書《基因社會》。1970年代，演化生物學大師、英國皇家學會會士理查．道金斯成名著作《自私的基因》出版，一時間被奉為圭臬。直到2003年「人類基因組計畫」（HGP）成功為人類去氧核醣核酸（DNA）的30億個核啟酸單元（A、C、T、G）定序，遺傳學的研究才又進入了一個嶄新的階段。冬陽今天為大家選讀的《基因社會》，敘述的就是定序前、定序後，從《自私的基因》到「有著複雜無比的互動關係，可以被後天環境教化、能夠相互學習」的《基因社會》。正如本書作者，兩位系統生物學家亞奈（Itai Yanai）與勒爾克（Martin Lercher）在書中（The Society of Genes）所說：「我們的基因體就是一個基因的社會，和人類的社會一樣。」也就是說，人們雖然是基因的載體，深受遺傳物質的影響，但是在「後基因體時代」中，人們可以有更具開創性的未來，勇於突破科學認知的極限。請聽生科新知。冬陽時間 Ep. 33：《基因社會：從單一個體到群體研究，破解基因的互動關係與人體奧妙之謎》聽書｜客座總編冬陽（許鈺祥）清華大學生命科學系畢業，現任社團法人台灣推理作家協會理事長，正職為文學小說、科普出版品編輯，工作資歷十六年。曾任城邦出版集團馬可孛羅文化副總編輯、讀書共和國集團讀癮出版副總編輯、新經典文化副總編輯。照片提供、冬陽（許鈺祥）王夢真：蘭陽晨景 2020.08.18 黃昏景色 2020.08.18收聽｛聽書｝FB｜https://reurl.cc/3LNyx8Blog｜https://reurl.cc/n0nxZ6Castbox｜https://reurl.cc/3LNyYl 2020-08-2517 min
LIBRE DE VOLER 聽書－彭瀞儀20200825_2_冬陽 Ep.33：《基因社會》 【蘭陽有約】生科新知。冬陽時間Ep. 33：《基因社會：從單一個體到群體研究，破解基因的互動關係與人體奧妙之謎》■ 作者：以太•亞奈 Itai Yanai, 馬丁•勒爾克 Martin Lercher■ 譯者：潘震澤■ 出版社：衛城出版■ 出版日期：2020-01-22■ 選書導讀：台灣推理作家協會理事長冬陽（許鈺祥）上個月《我，為什麼會這樣？》一書告訴我們：「世間萬物都由原子所構成，當人拆分到最細小的單位就是原子。這些原子碰撞出來的化學反應，其實人體就是是一整座化學工廠。這個化學工廠產出什麼、製作什麼、對什麼有任何的反應，都來自裡面的化學分子。」「這些化學分子包括：有從父母親的精子、卵子結合之後，內部各自的23條染色體，組成的23對染色體所型塑出來的人類，所型塑出來的個體，他擁有的21000個基因去調控了我們原本被遺傳物質所控制的部份。」今天是七夕情人節，生科新知。冬陽時間 Ep.33，一起共讀的是一本更進一步「認識自我」的生命科學科普書《基因社會》。1970年代，演化生物學大師、英國皇家學會會士理查．道金斯成名著作《自私的基因》出版，一時間被奉為圭臬。直到2003年「人類基因組計畫」（HGP）成功為人類去氧核醣核酸（DNA）的30億個核啟酸單元（A、C、T、G）定序，遺傳學的研究才又進入了一個嶄新的階段。冬陽今天為大家選讀的《基因社會》，敘述的就是定序前、定序後，從《自私的基因》到「有著複雜無比的互動關係，可以被後天環境教化、能夠相互學習」的《基因社會》。正如本書作者，兩位系統生物學家亞奈（Itai Yanai）與勒爾克（Martin Lercher）在書中（The Society of Genes）所說：「我們的基因體就是一個基因的社會，和人類的社會一樣。」也就是說，人們雖然是基因的載體，深受遺傳物質的影響，但是在「後基因體時代」中，人們可以有更具開創性的未來，勇於突破科學認知的極限。請聽生科新知。冬陽時間 Ep. 33：《基因社會：從單一個體到群體研究，破解基因的互動關係與人體奧妙之謎》聽書｜客座總編冬陽（許鈺祥）清華大學生命科學系畢業，現任社團法人台灣推理作家協會理事長，正職為文學小說、科普出版品編輯，工作資歷十六年。曾任城邦出版集團馬可孛羅文化副總編輯、讀書共和國集團讀癮出版副總編輯、新經典文化副總編輯。照片提供、冬陽（許鈺祥）王夢真：蘭陽晨景 2020.08.18黃昏景色 2020.08.18收聽｛聽書｝FB｜https://reurl.cc/3LNyx8Blog｜https://reurl.cc/n0nxZ6Castbox｜https://reurl.cc/3LNyYl 2020-08-2519 min
LIBRE DE VOLER 聽書－彭瀞儀20200825_1_冬陽 Ep.33：《基因社會》 【蘭陽有約】生科新知。冬陽時間Ep. 33：《基因社會：從單一個體到群體研究，破解基因的互動關係與人體奧妙之謎》■ 作者：以太•亞奈 Itai Yanai, 馬丁•勒爾克 Martin Lercher■ 譯者：潘震澤■ 出版社：衛城出版■ 出版日期：2020-01-22■ 選書導讀：台灣推理作家協會理事長冬陽（許鈺祥）上個月《我，為什麼會這樣？》一書告訴我們：「世間萬物都由原子所構成，當人拆分到最細小的單位就是原子。這些原子碰撞出來的化學反應，其實人體就是是一整座化學工廠。這個化學工廠產出什麼、製作什麼、對什麼有任何的反應，都來自裡面的化學分子。」「這些化學分子包括：有從父母親的精子、卵子結合之後，內部各自的23條染色體，組成的23對染色體所型塑出來的人類，所型塑出來的個體，他擁有的21000個基因去調控了我們原本被遺傳物質所控制的部份。」今天是七夕情人節，生科新知。冬陽時間 Ep.33，一起共讀的是一本更進一步「認識自我」的生命科學科普書《基因社會》。1970年代，演化生物學大師、英國皇家學會會士理查．道金斯成名著作《自私的基因》出版，一時間被奉為圭臬。直到2003年「人類基因組計畫」（HGP）成功為人類去氧核醣核酸（DNA）的30億個核啟酸單元（A、C、T、G）定序，遺傳學的研究才又進入了一個嶄新的階段。冬陽今天為大家選讀的《基因社會》，敘述的就是定序前、定序後，從《自私的基因》到「有著複雜無比的互動關係，可以被後天環境教化、能夠相互學習」的《基因社會》。正如本書作者，兩位系統生物學家亞奈（Itai Yanai）與勒爾克（Martin Lercher）在書中（The Society of Genes）所說：「我們的基因體就是一個基因的社會，和人類的社會一樣。」也就是說，人們雖然是基因的載體，深受遺傳物質的影響，但是在「後基因體時代」中，人們可以有更具開創性的未來，勇於突破科學認知的極限。請聽生科新知。冬陽時間 Ep. 33：《基因社會：從單一個體到群體研究，破解基因的互動關係與人體奧妙之謎》聽書｜客座總編冬陽（許鈺祥）清華大學生命科學系畢業，現任社團法人台灣推理作家協會理事長，正職為文學小說、科普出版品編輯，工作資歷十六年。曾任城邦出版集團馬可孛羅文化副總編輯、讀書共和國集團讀癮出版副總編輯、新經典文化副總編輯。照片提供、冬陽（許鈺祥）王夢真：蘭陽晨景 2020.08.18黃昏景色 2020.08.18收聽｛聽書｝FB｜https://reurl.cc/3LNyx8Blog｜https://reurl.cc/n0nxZ6Castbox｜https://reurl.cc/3LNyYl 2020-08-2515 min