Building Life from Scratch with Kerstin Göpfrich

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4.6 • 14.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is the origin of life in the universe? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Matt Kirshen explore how life got its start, the Miller-Urey experiment, and synthetic biology with molecular biologist Kerstin Göpfrich. Could the first alien life we find be the one we make?

Transcript

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0:00.0	So Matt, she's making aliens in the laboratory.
0:03.0	She is the puppet master.
0:05.0	She's the new creator of the universe and it's quite terrifying, but fun.
0:09.0	It's informative but terrifying.
0:10.0	It's scientifically enlightened, I would say.
0:12.0	Very.
0:13.0	Coming up on StarTalk.
0:15.0	Welcome to StarTalk.
0:19.0	Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.
0:25.3	StarTalk begins right now.
0:30.5	This is StarTalk.
0:32.6	Neil deGrasse, and you're a personal astrophysicist.
0:35.8	I got with me today, Matt Kirshin. Hey, welcome back.
0:38.8	Thank you so much, Neil. It's good to be back. Yeah, it's been too long, I think. It's been a while. It's nice to be back in New York in the office. It's great. But where are you based? I'm in L.A. I'm still in L.A. guy. I knew that. I knew that. Yeah. So it's nice to be back over on this coast. So we nab you every time you slip by. Any time I'm anywhere near, I will
0:37.4	hit your people up and... And now you're on tour, apparently. Oh my gosh. Yeah, well, I'm on two sort of... So I'm touring at the moment with opening for Sarah Milliken, who's a great UK comic. So I'm doing lovely theaters with her. She's doing the US. and then I'm also doing my own headlining spots kind of off the back of those shows.
0:55.0	Right. so I'm doing lovely theaters with her. But she's coming through the States. She's doing the US. And then I'm also doing my own headlining spots kind of off the back of those shows. So I'm like, hey, loads and loads of people. If you enjoyed me for 15 minutes in this massive room and want to see me do a headline show in a significantly smaller room then. So yeah, I'm doing those. So yeah. Okay, cool. So we can find you, matkirchen.com. Mattkirchen.com. All the tour dates and the links are up there. Very cool. Such a big fan of comedians. Thanks for being a part of civilization. Oh, well, I've never heard it put like that. That is a much deeper way than I've ever had my job described before. And I love that. Tell your parents that, too, in case they were wondering.
1:46.5	Mom, Dad.
1:47.2	You know that degree that I did nothing with and then ran off to join the circus?
1:50.6	Well, I am a deep part of civilization.
1:53.4	Exactly.
1:54.1	There you go.
1:55.4	Well, today's topic, oh my gosh.
	...

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