From First Principles

Explore the secrets of ancient Roman concrete and its astonishing self-healing properties uncovered at Pompeii. Dive into the concept of cognitive LEGOs, where our brains assemble thoughts using shared neural blueprints. Discover DeepSeek's groundbreaking techniques for stabilizing AI networks through manifold constraints. Finally, unravel how the square-root law of market impact reveals universal patterns across markets, offering insights into financial systems that persist across time and stocks.

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this Season Finale closes out Season 1 with a deep dive into the physics behind fusion’s biggest bottleneck: fast magnetic reconnection. We unpack why classic models predicted reconnection should be slow, why nature (and tokamaks) disagree, and how modern “plasmoid” reconnection helps explain solar flares, plasma instabilities, and the real engineering challenges fusion reactors face. Then we run a full Season 1 recap — our favorite episodes, biggest scientific moments, and the corrections and lessons we’re taking into Season 2.SummaryFusion’s biggest problem — magnetic reconnection, why the Sweet–Parker model breaks down at scale, and how plasmoid instability enables fast reconnection.From the Sun to tokamaks — how reconnection drives solar flares, space weather, and plasma confinement limits in fusion devices.Season 1 leaderboard — our top episodes and the breakthroughs that stuck: astronomy, biology, AI, quantum, and the history of science.Corrections + what’s next — what we fixed, what we learned, and how Season 2 evolves the format.

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this single-story deep dive tells the full story of how humanity uncovered the structure of DNA — and the human tensions that shaped it. From Mendel’s pea-plant mathematics to Rosalind Franklin’s groundbreaking x-ray crystallography, from Cavendish–King’s College rivalries to the famous Photo 51, this episode follows the scientific and ethical arc behind one of the most important discoveries in modern biology.SummaryBefore DNA — Mendel’s inheritance laws, Miescher’s nuclein, Levene’s early models, and why scientists initially believed proteins carried heredity.The turning point — Griffith’s transformation experiment and the Avery–MacLeod–McCarty proof that DNA is the genetic material.The physics connection — Schrödinger’s What Is Life? and the idea of an “aperiodic crystal” inspiring Watson, Crick, and a generation of physicists to enter biology.Two labs, one race — Cavendish vs. King’s College, Wilkins vs. Franklin, and the clash of personalities, methods, and interpretations.Photo 51 — Franklin and Gosling’s pivotal diffraction image revealing the helical structure of DNA.The model — base pairing, antiparallel strands, and why the double helix immediately explained replication.Recognition & legacy — the 1953 Nature papers, the 1962 Nobel Prize, Franklin’s omission, and Watson’s later controversies reshaping his legacy.Show NotesMendel (1866) — Pea Plant GeneticsGriffith (1928) — TransformationAvery–MacLeod–McCarty (1944)Schrödinger — What Is Life?Franklin’s Photo 51Watson & Crick (1953)

Dive into the fascinating world of astrophysics with the discovery of 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object captured by NASA. Uncover a groundbreaking forensic method from Maynooth University that retrieves fingerprints from fired bullet casings, potentially solving cold cases. Finally, explore a groundbreaking finding in Alzheimer’s research, revealing a microglial state that might reshape our understanding of the disease and its treatment. This mix of science, crime-solving, and medical breakthroughs is truly riveting!

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode dives into three breakthroughs stretching across aerospace engineering, astrobiology, and quantum computing. We start with a Nature Communications paper from Stevens Institute that experimentally validates a 60-year-old hypothesis underpinning hypersonic flight modeling. Then we head 3,000 meters below the Pacific to explore a newly discovered cold, ultra-alkaline biosphere near the Mariana forearc — a finding that reshapes the search for extraterrestrial life. And we close with Princeton’s millisecond-coherent transmon qubit, a materials science triumph pushing the quantum hardware frontier toward real-world quantum advantage.SummaryHypersonics without supercomputers — Stevens Institute validates the Morkovin hypothesis up to Mach ~6 using krypton-tagging velocimetry, confirming that “simple” turbulence models still work in hypersonic regimes and opening the door to viable, inexpensive hypersonic aircraft design.Life where it shouldn’t exist — University of Bremen researchers uncover evidence of a chemosynthetic biosphere in the cold, pH-12.6 serpentinizing fluids of the Mariana forearc, offering the clearest Earth analog yet for Enceladus- and Europa-like conditions.A millisecond qubit breakthrough — Princeton’s tantalum-on-high-resistance-silicon transmon hits 1.7 ms coherence, 15× the industry norm — drop-in compatible with Google/IBM architectures and a major step toward practical quantum computing.Show NotesHypersonics — Nature Communications (Stevens Institute)Deep Sea Life — Nature Communications Earth & Environment (Univ. of Bremen)Princeton Millisecond Qubit — Nature (Transmon Hardware)

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this super-episode spans four wildly different frontiers: bioengineers hijacking bacterial evolution to mass-produce octopus camouflage pigment; orcas developing cultural hunting strategies against great white sharks; the bizarre chemistry behind civet-processed luxury coffee; and a UCLA breakthrough that pushes telescope resolution beyond the classical diffraction limit.SummaryUCSD’s biosynthesis breakthrough — how researchers engineered a growth-coupled, plug-and-play metabolic pathway to mass-produce xanthomatin, the cephalopod pigment behind octopus camouflage.Orca vs. shark culture wars — first-ever documentation of coordinated predation on juvenile great whites in Mexican waters, plus how whales transmit learned behavior socially.The paradox of civet coffee — wild civet gut chemistry, medium-chain esters, and how microbial fermentation creates the world’s most expensive “biologically processed” coffee.UCLA’s telescope hack — a mode-sorting instrument that extracts phase information from starlight, enabling sub-diffraction-limited imaging and revealing asymmetric hydrogen disks around distant stars.Show NotesUCSD — Nature Biotechnology (xanthomatin biosynthesis)Orca Predation Study — Frontiers in Marine ScienceCivet Coffee Chemistry — Nature Scientific ReportsUCLA Sub-Diffraction Telescope Method — ApJ Letters

Discover groundbreaking advancements in healthcare and astronomy! Explore how AI-generated synthetic cancer genomes promise privacy protection while enhancing precision oncology. Learn about a revolutionary retinal implant that aims to restore vision for those with advanced macular degeneration. Delve into cosmic mysteries with a fresh analysis of Palomar’s photographic plates, revealing new insights into transient events. This engaging journey intertwines cutting-edge science with captivating possibilities for the future!

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode tells the story of Nobel laureate Chen Ning Yang and how his ideas on symmetry and gauge theory transformed modern physics.Summary• Early Years & Mentorship: From China to Chicago — learning under Fermi and Chandrasekhar.• Parity Violation: How Yang & Lee overturned the mirror-symmetry assumption and changed physics forever.• Gauge Symmetry & Yang-Mills Fields: The foundation of the Standard Model of particle physics.• Legacy & Philosophy: Why Yang saw beauty as nature’s signature and symmetry as its language.Show Notes• Nobel Prize in Physics 1957 — Chen Ning Yang & Tsung-Dao Lee• Original Yang–Mills Paper (1954, Physical Review)• Madame Wu’s Parity Violation Experiment (1957)• Biography of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (University of Chicago)

Aloha internet — Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary return with three extraordinary research stories: portable muon beams, sodium-ion batteries, and the secret to long life.Summary• Lawrence Berkeley’s compact muon beam technology and its applications in archaeology, volcanology, and security.• UC San Diego + U Chicago’s solid-state sodium battery that rivals lithium in power but not in cost.• Tongji University’s naked mole rat DNA study uncovering a genetic pathway for longer, healthier life.Show NotesPortable Muon BeamNature News CoveragePhysical Review Accelerators and Beams PaperSodium Ion BatteriesScience Daily CoverageJoule Paper (2025)Naked Mole Rats & LongevityBBC CoverageScience Journal Paper

After a packed week of Nobel Prize coverage, Lester and Krishna look back on how From First Principles began and why they built it as an “ESPN for Science.” They revisit 2025’s Medicine, Physics and Chemistry winners and discuss why fundamental research and immigration policy are core to America’s scientific edge.Quick note: this week’s episode is in vertical format because of a technical hiccup during recording — back to widescreen next week!SummaryOrigin Story — Two Princeton friends from different continents unite around a shared love of science and storytelling.The Mission — Creating an “ESPN for Science” that celebrates research and the people behind it.Nobel Follow-ups — Medicine (Tregs and non-immune roles), Physics (macroscopic quantum tunneling and quantum supremacy), Chemistry (MOFs and industrial scaling).Funding + Immigration — Why public research grants and curating global talent are vital to scientific leadership.Show NotesNobel Prize Press Release (2025 Medicine)Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Physics)Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Chemistry)Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 Mutation Causes DysregulationNature (1999) — MOF-5 Discovery (Omar Yaghi et al.)Google Quantum AI Lab — Quantum Supremacy (Nature, 2019)