What Earth’s undefeatable organisms reveal about survival
July 1, 2025
91,555
1,091
34
1.23%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Big Think Episodes Around July 1, 2025
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
6:47Now PlayingWhat Earth’s undefeatable organisms reveal about survival
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelThis interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @TempletonFoundation.
Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ►
Watch Kaçar’s next interview ► What NASA is really looking for in space
What’s the best way to understand ancient life on Earth? Replicate the conditions it survived in.
NASA astrobiologist Betül Kaçar is recreating conditions from 3 billion years ago to study how microbes have evolved throughout history. By studying the way life once endured a frozen, unstable planet, Kaçar and her team are hoping to find clues for how we might face environmental challenges today and prepare for what’s coming next.
Read the video transcript ►
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Betül Kaçar:
Dr. Betül Kaçar is a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and NASA-funded research leader exploring life’s early evolution. Her team has developed methods to uncover ancient biological innovations. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Emory and trained at Harvard in Evolutionary Biology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About The Well
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
Together, let's learn from them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Well on your favorite platforms:
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.