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65 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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AI-Generated Genomes, Retinal Implants, and Palomar’s Mystery Lights Explained (EP. 15)
7 november 2025 · 2 uur 4 min
AI, Eyes, and the Sky — From Synthetic Genomes to Restored Vision and Cosmic Mysteries
Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode of From First Principles explores three cutting-edge breakthroughs connecting medicine, technology, and astronomy.
Summary
• AI for Oncology, Minus the Privacy Risk: University of Toronto researchers develop OncoGAN—a generative model that creates realistic synthetic cancer genomes to accelerate precision oncology while protecting patient data.
• Restoring Sight: The PRIMA (PRIMAvera) trial in NEJM demonstrates how a wireless sub-retinal photovoltaic implant can restore central vision in people with advanced macular degeneration.
• Revisiting Cosmic Transients: New analyses of Palomar’s POSS-I plates re-examine the “multi-point transients” with fresh alignment statistics and an innovative Earth’s-shadow control test.
Show Notes
• University of Toronto — OncoGAN / Synthetic Cancer Genomes (Cell Genomics)
• NEJM — PRIMA (PRIMAvera) Wireless Sub-Retinal Implant Trial for Geographic Atrophy
• Palomar POSS-I Plates — Multi-Point Transient Analysis (IOP PASP Paper)
• Palomar Alignment vs Earth’s Shadow Control (Nature Scientific Reports 2025) Lees meer -
Chen Ning Yang — The Man Who Unlocked Symmetry (EP. 14)
31 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 43 min
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) Lees meer -
Portable Muon Beams, Sodium Batteries, and the Secret to Long Life (EP. 13)
23 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 36 min
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 Notes
Portable Muon Beam
Nature News Coverage
Physical Review Accelerators and Beams Paper
Sodium Ion Batteries
Science Daily Coverage
Joule Paper (2025)
Naked Mole Rats & Longevity
BBC Coverage
Science Journal Paper Lees meer -
From Princeton to the Nobel Prizes — How FFP Started + 2025 Nobel Recap (EP. 12)
15 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 12 min
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!
Summary
Origin 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 Notes
Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Medicine)
Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Physics)
Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Chemistry)
Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 Mutation Causes Dysregulation
Nature (1999) — MOF-5 Discovery (Omar Yaghi et al.)
Google Quantum AI Lab — Quantum Supremacy (Nature, 2019) Lees meer -
From Cells to Circuits to Crystals — 2025 Nobel Prizes Unpacked (EP. 11)
9 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 54 min
Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this one-episode special brings all three 2025 Nobel Prizes in the sciences into a single listen: Medicine (immune tolerance and FOXP3), Physics (macroscopic quantum tunneling in superconducting circuits), and Chemistry (metal–organic frameworks and “new rooms for chemistry”).
Summary
Medicine: Regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene that prevent autoimmune disease.
Physics: Macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy quantization in electrical circuits — the bridge to today’s qubits.
Chemistry: Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs) — modular porous crystals enabling CO₂ capture, water harvesting, and hydrogen storage.
Show Notes
Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Medicine)
Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 mutation and IPEX link
Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 Mutation Causes Dysregulation
Nature Genetics (2001) — FOXP3 Gene Cause IPEX Syndrome
Science (2003) — FOXP3 function in regulatory T cells
German Journal of Immunology (1995) — Sakaguchi’s first Treg paper
Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Physics)
Physical Review Letters (1980s) — Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling Experiments (UC Berkeley)
BCS Theory (1972 Nobel) — Bardeen, Cooper & Schrieffer, University of Illinois
Josephson Effect (1973 Nobel) — Brian D. Josephson
Google Quantum AI Lab — Quantum Supremacy Paper (Nature, 2019)
Nobel Prize Press Release (2025 Chemistry)
Nature (1999) — MOF-5 Discovery (Omar Yaghi et al.)
Science (2003) — Reticular Chemistry Foundations
Journal of the American Chemical Society (1989, 1990) — Richard Robson’s Early Frameworks
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — ChatMOF and AI-Assisted Materials Discovery Lees meer -
AI Supercharges CRISPR & LIGO (Nobel Prize Week Preview) (EP. 10)
2 oktober 2025 · 2 uur 36 min
Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this two-story, 2.5-hour special sets the table for Nobel Prize Week with deep dives into two recent Nobel-winning domains—gene editing (CRISPR) and gravitational waves (LIGO)—and how AI is accelerating both. We trace CRISPR from bacterial immunity to Stanford’s new “CRISPR-GPT” lab co-pilot, then pivot to how machine learning upgrades are pushing LIGO past its noise limits to capture new classes of gravitational waves.
Summary
• CRISPR, from bacterial immune memory to RNA-programmable genome editing
• The 2012 Science breakthrough: guide RNAs unlock programmable editing
• The patent saga and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Stanford’s CRISPR-GPT: an AI “co-pilot” trained on expert lab threads and papers
• Experiment planning, guide design, and safety guardrails for CRISPR-GPT
• Biosecurity and ethical guardrails around AI in biology
• LIGO’s foundations: Einstein’s equations, binary pulsars, and interferometer engineering
• The “noise budget”: seismic, environmental, and quantum limits
• AI-driven denoising and template generation: unlocking earlier inspirals and tougher detections
• Funding, leadership, and the global policy race to keep LIGO competitive
• Big picture: AI as an amplifier of discovery in both medicine and physics
Show Notes
Stanford Medicine — AI + CRISPR Breakthrough
Nature Biomedical Engineering — AI-CRISPR Original Paper
Caltech — AI Helps LIGO
Science — LIGO Machine Learning Paper Lees meer -
China’s AI Breakthrough, Time Crystals, Hidden Viruses, & Brightest Cosmic Signal (EP. 9)
23 september 2025 · 1 uur 42 min
Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary return for Episode 9 of From First Principles, breaking down the latest breakthroughs across AI, physics, biology, and astronomy. From China’s stunning AI leap with DeepSeek to time crystals you can actually see, hidden viruses in our DNA, and the brightest fast radio burst ever detected—this episode spans the cutting edge of science and its global implications.
Summary
• China’s DeepSeek AI model: geopolitics, open science, and the future of AI competition
• Time crystals at room temperature: from theoretical physics to practical cryptography
• Hidden viruses in our DNA: new structures decoded with potential for cancer & autoimmune therapies
• Brightest fast radio burst: unraveling cosmic mysteries with new telescopes and James Webb
Show Notes
• Nature: China’s DeepSeek AI paper (1)
• Nature: China’s DeepSeek AI paper (2)
• Nature: Time crystals with liquid crystals
• Science Advances: Viral protein structure discovery
• Astrophysical Journal Letters: Brightest FRB Lees meer -
Strongest Evidence for Alien Life? (Mars, K2-18b & JWST) (EP. 8)
16 september 2025 · 1 uur 20 min
NASA just dropped what they’re calling the strongest evidence yet for biosignatures on Mars, so we spun up an emergency pod. We break down what the rover actually found in Jezero Crater, why geochemical “life-adjacent” reactions matter, revisit April’s hyped K2-18b claim from Cambridge, and close with brand-new JWST hints of atmospheres on Earth-sized exoplanets. Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary.
Summary
• NASA’s Mars result — Perseverance, Jezero, Bright Angel Formation, and inorganic proxies for life (iron phosphates/sulfides) plus how instruments like PIXL actually read rocks.
• The April headline on K2-18b (“strongest evidence yet”) and what atmospheric retrieval really does and doesn’t prove.
• Fresh JWST papers hinting at atmospheres on TRAPPIST-1 worlds — why that’s huge and how transit spectroscopy underpins it.
Show Notes
• NASA — Mars Biosignature Claim
• Cambridge — K2-18b Atmosphere Study
• Astrophysical Journal Letters — JWST TRAPPIST-1
• Atmosphere Study (Paper 1)
• Astrophysical Journal Letters — JWST TRAPPIST-1 Atmosphere Study (Paper 2) Lees meer -
Interstellar Visitor 3I/Atlas, Human Longevity Plateau, New No-Sort Plastic & Analog AI (EP. 7)
10 september 2025 · 1 uur 24 min
Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, Episode 7 of From First Principles covers four stories at the frontier of science and technology. This week, we dive into new telescope data on the interstellar visitor 3i Atlas, explore a major longevity study that suggests life expectancy may have plateaued, unpack a breakthrough nickel catalyst that could enable no-sort plastic recycling, and look at Microsoft’s analog AI computer — a potential game-changer for energy efficiency and medical applications.
Summary
• Interstellar comet 3i Atlas imaged by Hubble, JWST, TESS, and ESA orbiters
• Longevity study shows human life expectancy may have plateaued post-1939 births
• Northwestern researchers develop a nickel catalyst for no-sort plastic recycling
• Microsoft unveils an analog optical AI computer with 100x GPU efficiency
Show Notes
Space.com — 3I/Atlas Coverage
PNAS — Longevity Plateau Study
Nature Chemistry — No-Sort Plastic Catalyst
Nature — Analog AI Lees meer -
New Supernova, Virus+Bacteria vs Cancer, Electron Spin, Bee Superfood (EP. 6)
2 september 2025 · 1 uur 28 min
Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, Episode 6 of From First Principles covers four groundbreaking stories in science—from rare cosmic explosions to synthetic biology breakthroughs that could save our food supply. This week, we dive into a never-before-seen type of supernova, explore a surprising alliance of viruses and bacteria against cancer, unpack how scientists are turning electron spin into power, and highlight Oxford’s CRISPR-based superfood for honeybees.
Summary
A naked supernova reveals the inner layers of a dying star
Viruses and bacteria team up to fight cancer with Trojan-horse biology
Harnessing electron spin for ultra-efficient future tech
Scientists engineer bee superfood to save pollinators and agriculture
Show Notes
CNN — New Supernova Discovery
Nature — Virus+Bacteria Therapy
Phys.org — Spintronics Study
BBC — Bee Superfood Lees meer -
Hacking The Human Brain, Unlocking Our DNA, Unbreakable Diamonds & The Quantum Magician (EP. 5)
27 augustus 2025 · 2 uur 10 min
This week we break down four big stories—no PhD required.
Reading “inner speech”: Invasive brain–computer interfaces record neurons in motor cortex and decode attempted vs. inner speech into words. Results from Stanford even generalize to simple symbols and numbers. Cool science, huge privacy questions, and a proposed “brain password” to keep users in control.
What makes us human: UC San Diego highlights human accelerated regions (HARs)—genomic control switches (promoters/enhancers) that tune when and where genes are used. We revisit classic HAR examples and a new result connecting a specific HAR to brain development.
Diamonds get an upgrade: Scientists at HPSTAR (Beijing) grow stronger lab diamonds with clear industrial upside—from cutting tools to power electronics—and potential to reduce harmful mining incentives.
International Year of Quantum (2025): A fast retrospective on 100 years of quantum mechanics and how today’s quantum tech is reshaping computing, sensing, and materials.
Hosts: Lester Nare & Dr. Krishna Choudhary
Show: From First Principles Podcast Lees meer -
3rd Interstellar Visitor, Rubin’s Sky Camera, AI CRISPR Boost & T. rex Blood Vessels (EP. 4)
20 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 22 min
Interstellar visitor #3 is here. We unpack 3I ATLAS (why it’s moving so fast, why we finally saw a tail, and how Hubble/JWST—and maybe even Juno—could nail down its makeup). Then we dive into the Vera Rubin Observatory, the 32-gigapixel camera that will turn the entire sky into a time-lapse movie and supercharge discovery. Next: AI just boosted CRISPR by predicting and guiding DNA repair (Pythia), making edits cleaner—especially in non-dividing neurons. And we close with a crossover of dinos + particle physics: preserved T. rex blood vessels revealed by a synchrotron. Mystery Box: the viral “Black aliens” meme. Lees meer
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Oldest Molecule, Programmable Proteins, Europa Radar & Light’s Double Life (EP. 3)
14 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 17 min
We go from the universe’s first chemistry to tomorrow’s designer biology, swing by Mars to tune Europa Clipper’s ice radar, and finish with a fresh take on the double-slit experiment.
In this episode
The “oldest molecule” puzzle (HeH⁺), cooling the early universe, and why JWST’s findings matter
Programmable proteins: reassigning codons, recoding organisms, and real biosafety
Europa Clipper’s REASON radar test at Mars: frequencies, ice thickness & ocean clues
Double-slit, demystified: single photons, “which-path” info, and measurement reality
Chapters
00:00 Intro
• 01:26 First molecule
• 22:27 Programmable proteins
• 43:05 Europa radar
• 55:00 Double-slit
• 1:15:03 Sign-off Lees meer -
Hidden Star in Betelgeuse, Dancing Atoms, Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays & VR Immunity (EP. 2)
5 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 18 min
Lester and Dr. Krishna dive into:
• Beetlejuice & “Bracelet” – why a red super-giant may soon swallow its tiny partner
• Atomic Harlem Shake – 0.15 Å resolution images of thermal jiggles in 2-D materials
• Too Fast, Too Furious – IceCube’s constraints on proton fractions in 10²⁰ eV cosmic rays
• Interstellar Google Maps – New Horizons proves star-pattern navigation works
• Mind-Body Woo-Woo – VR coughs that literally raise your white-blood-cell count Lees meer -
Earth’s 1-ms Day, Baby Solar Systems, Record Black Hole Crash, CRISPR Cancer Hack & AI Indiana Jones (EP. 1)
1 augustus 2025 · 56 min
Last week the Earth finished a full rotation one millisecond early – but that’s just the opener.
In this week’s From First Principles we dive into six mind-bending headlines with our trademark mix of hard science and light-hearted banter:
Earth’s fastest spin ever recorded – what shaved a millisecond off the day and why your chakras are still safe.
ALMA spots a “baby Earth” forming 1,300 light years away – the first direct look at rocky planets in the making.
Biggest black-hole merger on record – 15 ☉ of mass vaporized into pure gravitational waves, detected by LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA.
CRISPR reveals a vitamin-D “kill switch” for tumors – how silencing one gene in pancreatic & colon cancers triggers 4,000 downstream changes.
A star that died… then died again – the first confirmed “double-detonation” white-dwarf supernova.
DeepMind’s Aeneas AI deciphers broken Latin tablets – giving historians new text, provenance and dating in seconds.
👋 Hosts • Lester Nare – storyteller & professional curiosity machine • Dr. Krishna Choudhary – Princeton-trained physicist & cosmic tour guide
👍 Like what you hear? Hit Subscribe, ring the bell 🔔, and drop your questions for next week’s episode. Lees meer