What Is Life? #2: If We Find Alien Life, Will We Even Know It?

“What Is Life?” is an eight-episode podcast series recorded in front of a live audience. (Subscribe to the podcast at iTunes, via RSS, etc.) In this episode, I spoke to astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker.

Sara Imari Walker is a physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University. She studies life as a physical phenomenon, in order to develop new ways to search for it elsewhere in the universe. We shouldn’t assume that aliens will introduce themselves to us, so we need a way to recognize life no matter what form it takes.

Update: If you’d like to learn more about scientists exploring the borderlands between the living and nonliving worlds, check out my new book Life’s Edge: The Search For What It Means To Be Alive.

Links:
Walker at ASU
Walker’s TEDx talk about a “universal theory of life.”

If you enjoyed this episode, listen to Episode 3 or check out all eight episodes on the main podcast page. And please spread the word however you can, such as reviewing it on Apple and elsewhere!

What Is Life? was recorded in front of a live audience at Caveat in New York and is supported by a grant from Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative. Artwork by Caryn Audenried.