What Is Life?

Hosted by science writer Carl Zimmer, What Is Life? tackles one of the oldest and strangest questions in biology: what actually separates the living from the nonliving? Across conversations with biologists, philosophers, and origin-of-life researchers, Zimmer walks through the messy, contested territory where viruses, cells, prions, and self-replicating molecules blur the line between chemistry and creature. Listeners hear from scientists studying everything from deep-sea hydrothermal vents to the minimal genomes of synthetic microbes, each chasing a different angle on what it means to be alive. Zimmer, a longtime New York Times columnist and author of books like Life's Edge, brings a journalist's eye for clear storytelling without watering down the science. Episodes move at a patient pace, giving researchers room to explain their thinking and the experiments behind it. You'll come away understanding why a simple textbook definition of life has never quite held up, and why the search for extraterrestrial biology depends on answering this question first. It's a show for people who enjoyed Radiolab or Big Biology and want something that treats uncertainty as part of the story rather than a problem to paper over. Expect interviews with working scientists, thoughtful narration, and occasional detours into the history and philosophy of the field.