Conquering Fear with Alex Honnold

StarTalk Radio

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4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

Is the fear of heights innate or learned? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O'Reilly explore taking risks, the neuroscience of fear, and how to overcome it with freestyle rock climber and subject of the film Free Solo, Alex Honnold, and neuroscientist Heather Berlin.

Transcript

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0:00.0	About time we revisited neuroscience.
0:02.0	Yeah.
0:03.0	Of fear.
0:04.0	Fear is the mind killer.
0:05.0	Yeah, we got the guy who was featured in Free Solo.
0:09.0	Not dying, ascending that cliff face.
0:12.0	Yes.
0:13.0	Coming up on StarTalk, special edition.
0:16.0	Welcome to StarTalk.
0:20.0	Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.
0:25.9	StarTalk begins right now.
0:30.2	This is StarTalk Special Edition.
0:33.6	Neil deGrasse Tyson, you're a personal astrophysicist. And when it's special edition, it is Gary O'Reilly.
0:39.2	Hey, Neil.
0:39.7	Hey, man. Chuck, how are you doing, professional comedian? Yes, sir. All right, dude. Feeling good, man. All right. So, Gary, you cook these topics up. I'm impressed every time. Yeah, man. Well, thank you. Tell us what you brought us. Got to give a shout out to Lane Unsworth over in LA.
0:54.4	All right, so getting to the top, reaching the summit, they are goals for millions, maybe, if not billions of people daily around the world. Yes. Either literal or figurative summits. Totally, yes. But not all of us can get over our fears to reach it, but then there are some of us who can. So we've got to think about that. Today we're going to talk about the science of fear. Yes, the science of fear. I like that. And how we can change it. The neuroscience of fear. Of course. And change our brains to overcome it. And who better to discuss that with a neuroscientist and a freestyle rock climate.
1:30.3	Plus I want to find out about his podcast, what's it called Planet Visionaries.
1:33.3	Yes, it's with Rolex perpetual planet initiatives.
1:36.3	Okay, we'll find out more about that.
1:38.3	Yes.
1:39.3	So Neil, please introduce our first guest.
1:41.3	I will be delighted to.
	...

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