What makes ‘life’ so hard to define? A developmental biologist weighs in : Short Wave : NPR
LOS ANGELES – JANUARY 9: Brent Spiner plays Lt. Commander Data in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Big Goodbye.” Season 1, episode 11. Original air date January 9, 1988.
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In this Back To School episode we consider the “List of Life”: the criteria that define what it is to be a living thing. Some are easy calls: A kitten is alive. A grain of salt is not.
But what about the tricky cases, like a virus? Or, more importantly, what about futuristic android robots?
As part of our Black History Month celebration, developmental biologist Crystal Rogers and Short Wave co-host Regina G. Barber dig into what makes something alive, and wade into a Star-Trek-themed debate.
Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Is there something you’d like us to cover? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Gabriel Spitzer and fact-checked by Anil Oza. The audio engineer was Josh Newell.
