The Amazon’s Hidden Civilization (One Year Anniversary) (EP 52)

More from From First Principles All episodes →

1. 

   S1 · E57 · 14 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 4 min

   What’s Next in Science? Nobel Prizes, Space Missions & More (EP 57)

   What science should you be watching this fall? From Nobel Prize season to NASA’s Roman Space Telescope, Mars’ moons and Mercury, Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary take a relaxed tour of the discoveries and missions on their radar. In Episode 57 of From First Principles, we explore why curiosity-driven research matters, what the Golden Goose Awards celebrate, and how questions that once sounded impractical can lead to unexpected breakthroughs. Then we turn to space: Roman’s search for dark energy and exoplanets, JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, and the mysteries ESA and JAXA’s…

2. 

   S1 · E56 · 7 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 36 min

   The Yak Mutation That Could Help Repair the Brain (EP 56)

   What can a yak living thousands of meters above sea level teach us about repairing the human brain? In Episode 56 of From First Principles , Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary break down a new Neuron paper that traces an evolutionary adaptation found in high-altitude animals to a previously hidden pathway involved in building and repairing myelin. Summary What myelin actually does and why losing it disrupts neural communication How multiple sclerosis damages myelin and why the brain’s natural repair process eventually fails Why oligodendrocyte precursor cells can remain present in damaged…

3. 

   S1 · E55 · 31 Aug 2026 · 3 hr 46 min

   Why Spin Qubits Will Win the Quantum Race (Part 2) (EP 55)

   Which quantum computer will actually scale? In Part 2 of our quantum computing deep dive, Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary move from theory to hardware—comparing superconducting qubits, trapped ions, neutral atoms, and silicon spin qubits before going inside the new Nature cover paper Krishna co-authored with the HRL Quantum Team and collaborators. The episode begins with a simple question: what makes a good quantum computer? We evaluate each architecture using three criteria: qubit quality, qubit control, and scalability and economics. Superconducting qubits offer extremely fast…

4. 

   S1 · E54 · 20 Aug 2026 · 2 hr 11 min

   How Quantum Computing Actually Works (Part 1) (EP 54)

   Quantum computers do not simply “try every answer at once.” So what do they actually do—and why have governments and technology companies spent billions trying to build them? In Part 1 of our two-part quantum computing deep dive, Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary build the field from first principles. The series was prompted by a new Nature cover paper, A digitally controlled silicon quantum processing unit , co-authored by Krishna and members of the HRL Quantum Team and collaborators. Before getting into that hardware in Part 2, we first need to understand why anyone wanted to build a…

5. 

   S1 · E53 · 14 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 47 min

   What Claude Actually Did to the Riemann Hypothesis (EP 53)

   Claude did not solve the Riemann Hypothesis. But what it actually did may be one of the clearest examples yet of how rapidly AI systems are changing the way difficult mathematics can be attacked. In Episode 53, Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary go from first principles on arguably the most famous unsolved problem in mathematics. We begin with Euler and the Basel problem, build the Riemann zeta function from the ground up, explain its deep connection to prime numbers, move into the complex plane and analytic continuation, unpack the famous 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + … = -1/12 result, and finally arrive…

6. 

   S1 · E51 · 31 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 44 min

   The Tech Elon Has Been Waiting For (EP 51)

   What happens when electronics can operate at temperatures hot enough to melt aluminum? In this deep-dive episode, Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary examine a new high-temperature memory device developed by researchers at USC, the Air Force Research Laboratory, Kumamoto University, and their collaborators. Published in Science , the experimental memristor combines tungsten, hafnium oxide, and graphene. It operated reliably at 700°C—roughly 1,300°F—retained data for more than 50 hours, and survived more than one billion switching cycles. We begin by explaining why conventional electronics and…

7. 

   S1 · E50 · 23 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 53 min

   AI Breaks a 90-Year Math Problem, Life’s Alphabet in Space, and Science Funding (EP 50)

   Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary , this episode moves from astrobiology to science policy to the rapidly changing frontier of artificial intelligence and mathematics. First, researchers analyzing pristine samples returned from asteroid Ryugu report all five canonical nucleobases used by DNA and RNA. We explain what that does—and does not—mean for the origin of life, how JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission collected uncontaminated asteroid material, and why comparisons with NASA’s Bennu samples strengthen the case that prebiotic chemistry may be widespread across the Solar System. Next, we…

8. 

   S1 · E49 · 17 Jul 2026 · 40 min

   FIFA Data Scientists Explain Match Momentum (EP 49)

   In this special interview episode, Lester Nare speaks with Juan Busso , Senior Football Data Scientist at FIFA, and Arron Ackerman , FIFA’s Team Lead for Football Performance Analysis, about the data science behind the Match Momentum visualization featured throughout the 2026 World Cup. What does “momentum” actually mean in football—and how can it be measured without reducing the game to possession or shots? Juan and Arron explain how FIFA translates football principles into mathematical models, validates those models with coaches and technical experts, and turns complex tracking data into a…

9. 

   S1 · E48 · 14 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 48 min

   Black Hole Movies, Digital Heart Twins, and World Cup Tech (EP 48)

   Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary , this episode returns to the FFP science rundown with stories spanning astrophysics, precision medicine, medical imaging, artificial intelligence, and World Cup technology. We begin with the Event Horizon Telescope and its evolving view of M87*, the supermassive black hole 55 million light-years away. How do you image something that appears about as small as a donut on the Moon? Krishna explains angular resolution, the Rayleigh limit, radio interferometry, and how telescopes across Earth can function like one planet-sized instrument. We then look…

10. 

    S1 · E47 · 3 Jul 2026 · 2 hr 21 min

    America 250: The Breakthroughs That Built American Science — Part 2 (EP 47)

    Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary , this episode is part two of our July 4th America 250 special : a celebration of the scientific, technological, institutional, and cultural breakthroughs that helped shape the United States into one of the most important scientific nations in human history. In part one, we traced American science from Benjamin Franklin and the founding documents through Sputnik, NASA, DARPA, Bell Labs, the transistor, information theory, nuclear physics, molecular biology, and the birth of the modern American science state. In part two, we pick up after Sputnik…