Ian Sample
speaker
2,123 appearances
29 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 5d ago
Ian Sample’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 29 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 8.
Appearances
So those functions can help it
to do this growing, this feeding, the division, and also this replicating of its own genome so that it can go into the daughter cells, the next generation cells.
And they've had it run over several generations.
Well, it can't do an awful lot.
I mean, this is incredibly basic in terms of the functions it can do.
I mean, the genome inside it is about a 50th the size that you get inside E. coli, which is a common bacteria you'll find in soil.
It produces proteins which it needs and they help it fuse with little balls that are added to the sort of feedstock, if you like, added to the liquid that it lives in.
So it can sort of fuse to tiny little blobs and absorb them.
It needs to be fed these little blobs because they contain all sorts of stuff that the synthetic cell needs to do anything.
And a key thing it can't do on its own without being fed is it can't build its own proteins inside.
It needs these things called ribosomes, which turn genetic material into proteins.
So the cell can't do that.
It needs energy from the medium it's in.
It needs crucial enzymes from the medium it's in.
So essentially an awful lot is done by the liquid that this spud cell is in.
And if you took it out and put it anywhere else, it wouldn't survive.
Yeah, and I think of them as starting blobs for making life.
And I was trying to think of other analogies.
And in a way, they feel more like puppets to me.
And if you have a puppet, obviously it might look like a person, but someone is pulling the strings.
Showing 1381–1400 of 2,123 · page 70 of 107
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