FFP EP. 17 | Hypersonic Physics, Deep Sea Life & Princeton’s Millisecond Qubits
Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode dives into three breakthroughs stretching across aerospace engineering, astrobiology, and quantum computing. We start with a Nature Communications paper from Stevens Institute that experimentally validates a 60-year-old hypothesis underpinning hypersonic flight modeling. Then we head 3,000 meters below the Pacific to explore a newly discovered cold, ultra-alkaline biosphere near the Mariana forearc — a finding that reshapes the search for extraterrestrial life. And we close with Princeton’s millisecond-coherent transmon qubit, a materials science triumph pushing the quantum hardware frontier toward real-world quantum advantage.SummaryHypersonics without supercomputers — Stevens Institute validates the Morkovin hypothesis up to Mach ~6 using krypton-tagging velocimetry, confirming that “simple” turbulence models still work in hypersonic regimes and opening the door to viable, inexpensive hypersonic aircraft design.Life where it shouldn’t exist — University of Bremen researchers uncover evidence of a chemosynthetic biosphere in the cold, pH-12.6 serpentinizing fluids of the Mariana forearc, offering the clearest Earth analog yet for Enceladus- and Europa-like conditions.A millisecond qubit breakthrough — Princeton’s tantalum-on-high-resistance-silicon transmon hits 1.7 ms coherence, 15× the industry norm — drop-in compatible with Google/IBM architectures and a major step toward practical quantum computing.Show NotesHypersonics — Nature Communications (Stevens Institute)Deep Sea Life — Nature Communications Earth & Environment (Univ. of Bremen)Princeton Millisecond Qubit — Nature (Transmon Hardware)
Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this super-episode spans four wildly different frontiers: bioengineers hijacking bacterial evolution to mass-produce octopus camouflage pigment; orcas developing cultural hunting strategies against great white sharks; the bizarre chemistry behind civet-processed luxury coffee; and a UCLA breakthrough that pushes telescope resolution beyond the classical diffraction limit.SummaryUCSD’s biosynthesis breakthrough — how researchers engineered a growth-coupled, plug-and-play metabolic pathway to mass-produce xanthomatin, the cephalopod pigment behind octopus camouflage.Orca vs. shark culture wars — first-ever documentation of coordinated predation on juvenile great whites in Mexican waters, plus how whales transmit learned behavior socially.The paradox of civet coffee — wild civet gut chemistry, medium-chain esters, and how microbial fermentation creates the world’s most expensive “biologically processed” coffee.UCLA’s telescope hack — a mode-sorting instrument that extracts phase information from starlight, enabling sub-diffraction-limited imaging and revealing asymmetric hydrogen disks around distant stars.Show NotesUCSD — Nature Biotechnology (xanthomatin biosynthesis)Orca Predation Study — Frontiers in Marine ScienceCivet Coffee Chemistry — Nature Scientific ReportsUCLA Sub-Diffraction Telescope Method — ApJ Letters
AI, Eyes, and the Sky — From Synthetic Genomes to Restored Vision and Cosmic MysteriesHosted 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)
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FFP EP. 14 | Chen Ning Yang — The Man Who Unlocked Symmetry
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)
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FFP EP. 13 | Portable Muon Beams, Sodium Batteries, and the Secret to Long Life
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 NotesPortable Muon BeamNature News CoveragePhysical Review Accelerators and Beams PaperSodium Ion BatteriesScience Daily CoverageJoule Paper (2025)Naked Mole Rats & LongevityBBC CoverageScience Journal Paper
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