biotech

The Thought Emporium shows how they engineered a yeast strain to produce real spider silk, after more than two years of lab work and many failures. The video explains the genetic engineering process behind it.

The Thought Emporium grows living rat neurons on an electrode array and tries to train them to play Doom. It is part of a series on biological computing.

Michael Levin's NeurIPS 2018 talk on bioelectric computation outside the nervous system, showing how cell electrical networks shape development and regeneration. It covers morphological information processing in living tissue.

A two-hour Joe Rogan Experience conversation with mycologist Paul Stamets about fungi, mycelium, bioremediation and medicinal mushrooms. It touches on Lion's Mane, psilocybin and the many uses of fungi.

John Sotos, a physician and former Intel chief medical officer, argues at DEF CON 25 that genetic diseases are exploitable vulnerabilities in the genome. He warns that CRISPR and related tools will make malicious genome hacks and targeted bioweapons feasible.

A compilation of molecular animations of DNA replication and gene transcription by Drew Berry and Etsuko Uno at WEHI, made with no narration. It shows molecular machinery at work inside cells.

The Thought Emporium's host describes making and taking a DIY gene therapy to treat his own lactose intolerance. It uses an AAV virus to deliver DNA coding for the lactose-digesting enzyme, made with biohacker Gabriel Licina's help.

A short animation from the DNA Learning Center showing how mRNA carries a gene's message to the ribosome, where tRNA and codons are used to assemble amino acids into a protein.

Drew Berry shows scientifically accurate animations of molecular processes inside cells, such as DNA replication, at TEDxSydney.

Biologist Michael Levin explains the bioelectric layer that coordinates cells to build organs and bodies, showing footage of two-headed worms and introducing xenobots. He discusses implications for medicine and the nature of life.

Jack Szostak's lecture covers how cellular life could have arisen from chemistry on the early Earth, starting from the odds of life elsewhere in the galaxy. It is part of a series on protocells and the RNA world.

An award-winning 3D animation by XVIVO for Harvard's BioVisions showing the molecular machinery inside a cell as a white blood cell responds to a stimulus.

A long Portal podcast episode in which Bret Weinstein tells Eric Weinstein the story of his lab mice telomere work, the prediction behind it, and what it means for science and aging.

Soil microbiologist Elaine Ingham speaks at the Oxford Real Farming Conference on how soil organisms cycle nutrients, unlock minerals from rock and air, and why pesticides and fertilizers harm soil life. Slides are linked in the description.

A Capella Science parody of Despacito that sings through evolutionary developmental biology, explaining how a single cell becomes a body, including body-axis genes and dormant snake leg DNA. It runs about four minutes.

A two-minute time-lapse from the Kishony Lab showing bacteria spreading across a giant petri dish with increasing antibiotic doses, evolving resistance as they go.

Bret Weinstein and Yuri Deigin discuss the evidence for the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab, including the furin cleavage site and gain-of-function research. The conversation draws on Deigin's Medium article.

Mycologist Paul Stamets presents six ways mycelium and fungi could help save the world, in an 18-minute TED talk. Topics include environmental cleanup and other applications of fungi.

Gerald Sussman's 2011 Strange Loop keynote argues we still do not know how to compute, comparing biological systems with how we program machines. It touches on propagators, constraint programming and robustness.

A short Harvard Online animated lesson on how the mitochondrial electron transport chain works. It shows proton pumping and the machinery that drives ATP synthesis.

Matt Might's Curry On talk on ending errors in code, both software and the human genome. He covers conservative approximation of the halting problem via static analysis and a computational approach to precision medicine.

A lecture by Prof. Thomas Seyfried arguing that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease rather than a genetic one. It covers the Warburg effect, mitochondrial damage and implications for therapies.

Physicist Geoffrey West speaks at an FQXi conference on time about complexity and scaling laws. He covers how metabolism, growth and lifespan scale across organisms and how the same mathematics applies to cities and companies.

An animated Kurzgesagt explainer on bacteriophages, viruses that kill bacteria, covering how they infect and burst cells and their potential as therapy against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Curt Jaimungal interviews biologist Michael Levin of Tufts about consciousness, bioelectricity, emergence, and cancer research. The conversation challenges reductionist views of life.

Veritasium asks people where a tree's mass comes from, then explains that most of a dry tree's mass originates from carbon dioxide in the air. It combines street interviews with a short explanation of photosynthesis.

A Ninja Nerd whiteboard lecture on the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines. It covers how each works, the preclinical and phase I-III trial process, and Operation Warp Speed.

A Capella Science parody of Camila Cabello's Havana, retold as a song about molecular machines and nanotechnology. It features animations of rotaxanes, catenanes and molecular switches, and comes with footnotes.

Michael Levin presents his lab's work on how cellular collectives use bioelectric networks to make anatomical decisions. Topics include pattern memories, regeneration and synthetic living organisms.

Lex Fridman interviews University of Glasgow chemist Lee Cronin about the origin of life, aliens, complexity and consciousness. The conversation centers on Cronin's assembly theory.

The Thought Emporium's update on the home-brewed gene therapy he took to cure his lactose intolerance. It reports how the effect held up over two years and what future versions might look like.

A long George Hotz livestream in which he explores the coronavirus genome and molecular biology from scratch using a browser and Python, hacking on the science in real time.

Ron Vale of UCSF and HHMI gives an introductory lecture on kinesin, dynein and myosin motor proteins. He covers their roles in cells and how they turn ATP hydrolysis into directed motion and force.

Steve Mould explains homochirality: why biological molecules like sugars and amino acids come in only one handedness. He covers ideas about how this asymmetry might have arisen, touching on meteorite samples and RNA.

The Thought Emporium builds a homemade multi-electrode array, grows human neurons on it and attempts to take readings. It is the first part of a series aimed at connecting living neurons to a computer.

A three-minute clip from BBC's Planet Earth narrated by David Attenborough about Cordyceps, the fungus that infects insects and takes over their behavior. It shows an infected ant and its demise.

A Kurzgesagt animation giving a big-picture tour of the human immune system, its organs, transport network, and the cells it produces every day. It accompanies their IMMUNE book.

A very short animation of a kinesin motor protein walking along a microtubule inside a cell, carrying cargo.

A Kurzgesagt animation about how the immune system constantly detects and kills cells that are turning cancerous. It explains what cancer cells are and why stopping them is so hard.

A Kurzgesagt animation of how the immune system responds to a bacterial infection, depicting immune cells as an army defending the body.