Dr. Starkid

In Part 3 of the Dr. Starkid astrobiology series, Dr. Dakotah Tyler traces the history of the universe from the Big Bang to the formation of worlds capable of supporting life.

Expect to learn about the three major lines of evidence for the Big Bang, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background, the first stars, and how stellar explosions created the heavier elements needed to build planets.

The episode also covers planet formation, migrating gas giants, the Grand Tack model, why Mars may be so small, how Earth got some of its water, the giant impact that formed the Moon, and why icy moons such as Europa may contain oceans beneath their surfaces.

This series is adapted from astrobiology courses taught at UCLA and Pomona College.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.

This is Part 2 of the Dr. StarKid astrobiology series.

Before we can talk seriously about life beyond Earth, we have to understand how humans figured out Earth was not the center of everything. This episode walks through the ideas, assumptions, observations, and arguments that moved us from ancient skywatching to modern astrophysics.

Expect to learn about ancient debates over infinite worlds, human pattern recognition, the night sky as an early scientific tool, planets as “wanderers,” retrograde motion, epicycles, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Galileo, and Einstein’s update to gravity.

We also get into Tycho Brahe’s brass nose and drunk moose, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, why orbits work, and why this history matters for astrobiology.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.

This version has the corrected audio

Tony Baker is a comedian, actor, creator, and lifelong astronomy fan who came into this conversation ready with the National Geographic space book that first got him hooked as a kid.

Expect to learn how Tony thinks about space, comedy, God, science, acting, stand-up, observation, crows, astrology, astronomy, alien life, and the absurd luck of existing at all. We talk about why comedians are professional observers, why space makes us feel small in a good way, whether intelligent life is out there, why aliens probably have not visited Earth, and why the distances between stars and galaxies are so hard to overcome.

The conversation also covers dinosaurs, mass extinctions, water worlds, Mars, Venus, Saturn, the Moon, natural disasters, whether Tony would go to space, and why humans may be the biggest threat to life on Earth.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.

Tony Baker is a comedian, actor, creator, and lifelong astronomy fan who came into this conversation ready with the National Geographic space book that first got him hooked as a kid.

Expect to learn how Tony thinks about space, comedy, God, science, acting, stand-up, observation, crows, astrology, astronomy, alien life, and the absurd luck of existing at all. We talk about why comedians are professional observers, why space makes us feel small in a good way, whether intelligent life is out there, why aliens probably have not visited Earth, and why the distances between stars and galaxies are so hard to overcome.

The conversation also covers dinosaurs, mass extinctions, water worlds, Mars, Venus, Saturn, the Moon, natural disasters, whether Tony would go to space, and why humans may be the biggest threat to life on Earth.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.

Dr. Natasha Latouf is an astrobiologist, NASA Fellow, and PhD physicist studying how we could detect Earth-like life on nearby Earth-like planets.

Expect to learn what astrobiology actually is, how scientists search for biosignatures, why oxygen is both useful and dangerous, why UFOs and UAPs probably are not aliens, and what future telescopes may be able to detect in the atmospheres of small rocky planets.

We also talk about Dr. Latouf’s BARBIE code, K2-18b, extremophiles, Mars, Venus, viruses, whether life may be almost impossible to fully kill, and whether we might confirm alien life in our lifetime.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.

Qasim Rashid is a human rights and civil rights attorney, author, advocate, and the founder of Let’s Address This. His work focuses on justice, democracy, human rights, and public discourse, but this conversation turned into a wide-ranging exploration of science, society, faith, sci-fi, and the future.

Expect to learn how an astrophysicist and a human rights attorney ended up talking about alien life, Project Hail Mary, relativity, intelligent whales, faith, the Quran and astronomy, black holes, dark matter, dark energy, space law, human rights in future space colonies, and why curiosity matters in an age of anti-intellectualism.

We also talk about The Expanse, Interstellar, Contact, The Last Question, The Space Traders, whether intelligent life might exist in our galaxy, and one biology fact about mitochondria that still blows my mind.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.

June Sass is a public health scientist and microbiologist with a master’s from Johns Hopkins in molecular microbiology and immunology. Her work connects fungal biology, public health, pathogens, therapeutics, astromycology, and the microbiome. She also runs Summercraft Kombucha, where she develops mushroom kombucha and wellness drinks.

Expect to learn why fungi and bacteria are not just harmful pathogens, but also essential parts of our health, our ecosystems, and the story of life on Earth. We talk about how microbes compete, cooperate, adapt, survive extreme environments, and sometimes behave in ways that start to feel strangely intelligent.

The conversation also covers kombucha, symbiosis, NASA clean rooms, fungi in space, extremophiles, panspermia, the origin of life, alien biology, the deep ocean, antibiotics, antifungals, microbial defense systems, and the weird power of tiny life.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.

This is the first installment in the astrobiology series, adapted from the astrobiology course Dr. Dakotah Tyler taught at university. Expect to learn what astrobiology actually means, why sci-fi aliens are usually too human, why UFO claims require careful assumptions, and why defining life is harder than it sounds. We cover viruses, dormant microbes, ideas as information systems, chemical possibility, life as a physical process, habitability, synthetic life and biosignatures. As always, lead with curiosity.

Dr. Dakotah Tyler sits down with Dr. Suh for a wide-ranging conversation on biomedical engineering, organs on chips, how biology behaves in space, stem cells, evolution, and human identity.

They talk about microgravity and aging, space travel, induced pluripotent stem cells, tissue engineering, animal research ethics, body odor genetics, microplastics, beauty standards, the manosphere, and what it means to deconstruct your sense of self.

Lead with curiosity.

What would alien astronomers see if they pointed an impossible telescope at Earth from millions of light-years away?

This episode uses that thought experiment to explain light travel time, relativity, time dilation, the Andromeda paradox, and the strange idea that there may be no single universal “now.” We also get into the block universe, why GPS depends on relativity, and what all of this might mean for how we think about the future.

Hosted by Dr. Dakotah Tyler.

Lead with curiosity.