April 03, 2026

Life in a Barrel

54 minutes

This week, in an episode we first aired in 2022, we flip the Disney story of life on its head thanks to a barrel of seawater, a 1970s era computer, and underwater geysers. It’s the chaos of life.

Latif, Lulu, and our Senior Producer Matt Kielty were all sitting on their own little stories until they got thrown into the studio, and had their cherished beliefs about the shape of life put on a collision course. From an accidental study of sea creatures, to the ambitions of Stephen J Gould, to an undercooked theory that captured the world’s imagination, we undo the seeming order of the living world and try to make some music out of the wreckage. (Bonus: Learn how Francis Crick really thought life got started on this planet).

EPISODE CREDITS:

Reported by - Latif Nasser, Matt Kielty, Heather Radke, Lulu Miller and Candice Wang

Produced by - Matt Kielty and Simon Adler

with help from - Arianne Wack

Original music and sound design contributed by - Matt Kilety, Simon Adler, Alan Goffinski, and Jeremy Bloom

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles -

Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community (https://zpr.io/j6sYXKfDzPCG), by Benincà, E., Huisman, J., Heerkloss, R. et al. Nature

Chaos theory discloses triggers and drivers of plankton dynamics in stable environment (https://zpr.io/qHKENA3SJ8ML), by Telesh IV, Schubert H, Joehnk KD, Heerkloss R, Schumann R, Feike M, Schoor A, Skarlato SO. Sci Rep.

Books -

Full House (https://zpr.io/pMQZfyPcRzD4), by Stephen Jay Gould

Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? (https://zpr.io/pPVNugUKWpi4), by David M. Raup

Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline (https://zpr.io/YBjJxuXjydPN), by David Sepkoski

The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life (https://zpr.io/LzfueEqUWNHb), by Nick Lane
Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (https://zpr.io/KPZf57eEVMBX), by Francis Crick

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