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That's Y-A-K-U-L-T dot-C-O-J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

This is Clara Moskowitz, and you're listening to the Science Quickly podcast from Scientific American.

Today we're talking about life as we don't know it.

Sarah Skolls just wrote a piece for us in our February magazine on that very subject.

Sarah, hi.

Hi, Claire. How are you?

I'm great. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So what exactly is life as we don't know it?

Or, as you brilliantly call it, in the story, Loddiki.

Yes, I'm glad we like the acronym that I just made up.

But I think to talk about life as we don't know it, it's important first to talk about life as we do know it because we really only think about life is life, biology is biology.

But life as we do know it is really just a specific instance of one kind of biology that could exist, you know, where most

things kind of breathe oxygen, rely on DNA and RNA as genetic material, and kind of share a common,

what they call, the scientists called biochemistry.

And so that is life as we know it.

And life as we don't know it, I guess I'm procrastinating saying what it is because the point

is that we don't know what it is.

...