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PODCAST

From First Principles

Krishna Choudhary and Lester Nare

From First Principles is a fast, funny, and rigorous breakdown of the biggest science stories of the week, hosted by Lester Nare and physicist Krishna Choudhary, PhD. We go past headlines into the actual mechanics: what happened, why it matters, and what everyone’s missing. Expect physics, space, AI, energy, biotech, and the occasional “wait… is that real?” story. If you’re curious, skeptical, and you like learning in public — you’re in the right place.

science

All Episodes

01:58:42

FFP EP. 21 | Roman Concrete, Brain “Cognitive Legos,”...

From First Principles ·

2026/01/12

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode jumps from ancient engineering to modern AI and markets. We start with the newly uncovered Pompeii worksite that finally shows how Romans mixed their concrete — and why it “self-heals.” Then we pivot into a Princeton neuroscience idea that the brain builds complex thought like LEGO bricks (compositional neural subspaces). From there, we break down DeepSeek’s “manifold-constrained hyperconnections” as a stability mechanism for scaling deep

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01:17:33

FFP EP. 20 | The Physics Behind Fusion’s Biggest...

From First Principles ·

2025/12/23

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this Season Finale closes out Season 1 with a deep dive into the physics behind fusion’s biggest bottleneck: fast magnetic reconnection. We unpack why classic models predicted reconnection should be slow, why nature (and tokamaks) disagree, and how modern “plasmoid” reconnection helps explain solar flares, plasma instabilities, and the real engineering challenges fusion reactors face. Then we run a full Season 1 recap — our favorite episodes, biggest

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01:34:12

FFP EP. 19 | The Race to the Double Helix — Watson,...

From First Principles ·

2025/12/04

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this single-story deep dive tells the full story of how humanity uncovered the structure of DNA — and the human tensions that shaped it. From Mendel’s pea-plant mathematics to Rosalind Franklin’s groundbreaking x-ray crystallography, from Cavendish–King’s College rivalries to the famous Photo 51, this episode follows the scientific and ethical arc behind one of the most important discoveries in modern biology.SummaryBefore DNA — Mendel’s inheritance laws,

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01:27:30

FFP EP. 18 | 3I/ATLAS Explained, Forensic...

From First Principles ·

2025/11/27

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode spans astrophysics, forensic chemistry, and neuroimmunology. We begin with a deep dive into 3I/ATLAS, only the third confirmed interstellar object to ever pass through our solar system — larger and stranger than ‘Oumuamua and Borisov, with new imagery released as NASA reopened operations. Then we break down a true-crime forensic breakthrough from Maynooth University that reveals how to recover fingerprints from fired bullet casings — a

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01:32:59

FFP EP. 17 | Hypersonic Physics, Deep Sea Life &...

From First Principles ·

2025/11/22

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode dives into three breakthroughs stretching across aerospace engineering, astrobiology, and quantum computing. We start with a Nature Communications paper from Stevens Institute that experimentally validates a 60-year-old hypothesis underpinning hypersonic flight modeling. Then we head 3,000 meters below the Pacific to explore a newly discovered cold, ultra-alkaline biosphere near the Mariana forearc — a finding that reshapes the search for

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01:17:35

FFP EP. 16 | Octopus Camouflage, Orcas vs. Sharks,...

From First Principles ·

2025/11/13

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this super-episode spans four wildly different frontiers: bioengineers hijacking bacterial evolution to mass-produce octopus camouflage pigment; orcas developing cultural hunting strategies against great white sharks; the bizarre chemistry behind civet-processed luxury coffee; and a UCLA breakthrough that pushes telescope resolution beyond the classical diffraction limit.SummaryUCSD’s biosynthesis breakthrough — how researchers engineered a

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02:03:33

FFP EP. 15 | AI-Generated Genomes, Retinal Implants,...

From First Principles ·

2025/11/06

AI, Eyes, and the Sky — From Synthetic Genomes to Restored Vision and Cosmic MysteriesHosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode of From First Principles explores three cutting-edge breakthroughs connecting medicine, technology, and astronomy.Summary• AI for Oncology, Minus the Privacy Risk: University of Toronto researchers develop OncoGAN—a generative model that creates realistic synthetic cancer genomes to accelerate precision oncology while protecting patient data.• Restoring

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01:43:05

FFP EP. 14 | Chen Ning Yang — The Man Who Unlocked...

From First Principles ·

2025/10/31

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode tells the story of Nobel laureate Chen Ning Yang and how his ideas on symmetry and gauge theory transformed modern physics.Summary• Early Years & Mentorship: From China to Chicago — learning under Fermi and Chandrasekhar.• Parity Violation: How Yang & Lee overturned the mirror-symmetry assumption and changed physics forever.• Gauge Symmetry & Yang-Mills Fields: The foundation of the Standard Model of particle physics.• Legacy

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01:36:06

FFP EP. 13 | Portable Muon Beams, Sodium Batteries,...

From First Principles ·

2025/10/23

Aloha internet — Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary return with three extraordinary research stories: portable muon beams, sodium-ion batteries, and the secret to long life.Summary• Lawrence Berkeley’s compact muon beam technology and its applications in archaeology, volcanology, and security.• UC San Diego + U Chicago’s solid-state sodium battery that rivals lithium in power but not in cost.• Tongji University’s naked mole rat DNA study uncovering a genetic pathway for longer, healthier life.Show

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01:12:17

FFP EP. 12 | From Princeton to the Nobel Prizes — How...

From First Principles ·

2025/10/15

After a packed week of Nobel Prize coverage, Lester and Krishna look back on how From First Principles began and why they built it as an “ESPN for Science.” They revisit 2025’s Medicine, Physics and Chemistry winners and discuss why fundamental research and immigration policy are core to America’s scientific edge.Quick note: this week’s episode is in vertical format because of a technical hiccup during recording — back to widescreen next week!SummaryOrigin Story — Two Princeton friends from

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01:54:25

FFP EP. 11 | From Cells to Circuits to Crystals —...

From First Principles ·

2025/10/09

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this one-episode special brings all three 2025 Nobel Prizes in the sciences into a single listen: Medicine (immune tolerance and FOXP3), Physics (macroscopic quantum tunneling in superconducting circuits), and Chemistry (metal–organic frameworks and “new rooms for chemistry”).SummaryMedicine: Regulatory T cells and the FOXP3 gene that prevent autoimmune disease.Physics: Macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy quantization in electrical circuits — the

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02:36:24

FFP EP. 10 | AI Supercharges CRISPR & LIGO (Nobel...

From First Principles ·

2025/10/02

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this two-story, 2.5-hour special sets the table for Nobel Prize Week with deep dives into two recent Nobel-winning domains—gene editing (CRISPR) and gravitational waves (LIGO)—and how AI is accelerating both. We trace CRISPR from bacterial immunity to Stanford’s new “CRISPR-GPT” lab co-pilot, then pivot to how machine learning upgrades are pushing LIGO past its noise limits to capture new classes of gravitational waves.Summary• CRISPR, from bacterial

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01:41:54

FFP EP. 9 | China’s AI Breakthrough, Time Crystals,...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/23

Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary return for Episode 9 of From First Principles, breaking down the latest breakthroughs across AI, physics, biology, and astronomy. From China’s stunning AI leap with DeepSeek to time crystals you can actually see, hidden viruses in our DNA, and the brightest fast radio burst ever detected—this episode spans the cutting edge of science and its global implications.Summary• China’s DeepSeek AI model: geopolitics, open science, and the future of AI competition• Time

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00:22:02

FFP Story — JWST Detects Signs of Atmospheres on...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/21

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this story unpacks brand-new Astrophysical Journal Letters results from JWST hinting at atmospheres on TRAPPIST-1’s Earth-sized planets. We explain how transit spectroscopy works, why TRAPPIST-1 is the perfect laboratory, and what tentative signals of CO₂ and methane could mean for the search for life beyond our solar system.Summary• JWST papers show potential atmospheres on TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets• Transit spectroscopy 101: starlight filtering through

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00:21:36

FFP Story — This Exoplanet Made Headlines as the...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/20

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this story revisits the April headlines claiming the “strongest evidence yet” for life on exoplanet K2-18b. Cambridge researchers reported dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the planet’s atmosphere using JWST data and atmospheric retrieval models. We unpack why DMS is exciting on Earth, what Bayesian retrieval actually does, and why multiple teams pushed back—arguing the evidence isn’t at the 5-sigma gold standard and could be explained by other gases or model

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00:32:07

FFP Story — NASA Finds Potential Biosignatures on...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/19

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this story covers NASA’s announcement of potential biosignatures on Mars. Perseverance rover data from Jezero Crater revealed unusual nodules containing iron phosphates and iron sulfides, chemical fingerprints often linked to biological activity. While not definitive evidence of life, the finding represents a huge step forward in astrobiology, highlighting why Mars Sample Return is critical for confirmation — and sparking debates in both the scientific

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01:19:52

FFP EP. 8 — Strongest Evidence for Alien Life? (Mars,...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/16

NASA just dropped what they’re calling the strongest evidence yet for biosignatures on Mars, so we spun up an emergency pod. We break down what the rover actually found in Jezero Crater, why geochemical “life-adjacent” reactions matter, revisit April’s hyped K2-18b claim from Cambridge, and close with brand-new JWST hints of atmospheres on Earth-sized exoplanets. Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary.Summary• NASA’s Mars result — Perseverance, Jezero, Bright Angel Formation, and inorganic

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00:20:01

FFP Story — Breakthrough Analog AI Computer Is 100×...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/11

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this story dives into Microsoft’s analog optical AI computer — a breakthrough published in Nature that runs on light instead of transistors. The system cracks two fundamental AI bottlenecks, achieving 100× energy efficiency compared to GPUs. Beyond cutting costs and power demand for data centers, the same architecture could reduce MRI scans from an hour to just five minutes, showing how fundamental physics can transform both tech and healthcare.Summary•

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00:17:56

FFP Story — New Breakthrough Enables Next-Generation...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/10

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this story explores a breakthrough from Northwestern University: a nickel-based catalyst that could transform plastic recycling. Instead of requiring costly sorting or producing low-value waste, this method selectively breaks down polypropylene while leaving polyethylene intact — even turning common contaminants like PVC into a benefit. The result is a scalable approach that could finally make large-scale plastic recycling practical.Summary• Plastic is

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00:22:59

FFP Story — Why Human Life Expectancy May Never Pass...

From First Principles ·

2025/09/10

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this story examines a major international study published in PNAS suggesting human life expectancy may have plateaued for cohorts born after 1939. We trace the “longevity revolution” driven by vaccines, antibiotics, and sanitation, then unpack why new data indicates we may be hitting biological and societal limits.Summary• Headline: generations born after 1939 unlikely to reach 100• Collaboration: Max Planck Institute, INED (France), UW–Madison• How we

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72 results

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