How Is Cell Death Essential to Life?
The Joy of Why
Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine
4.9 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2024
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Death might seem like a pure loss, the disappearance of what makes a living thing distinct from everything else on our planet. But zoom in closer, to the cellular level, and death takes on a different, more nuanced meaning. There is a challenge in simply defining what makes an individual cell alive or dead. Scientists today are working to understand the various ways and reasons that cells disappear, and what these processes mean to biological systems.
In this episode, cellular biologist Shai Shaham talks to Steven Strogatz about the different forms of cell death, their roles in evolution and disease, and why the right kinds and patterns of cell death are essential to our development and well-being.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | In the second that it took you to hit play on this episode, |
| 0:05.0 | a million cells in your body died. |
| 0:07.0 | Some were programmed to expire in natural regulated processes, such as apoptosis. |
| 0:13.0 | Some terminated their own lives after infection to stop viral invaders from spreading. |
| 0:18.0 | Others suffered physical damage and went through necrosis, |
| 0:22.1 | their membranes splitting open and their contents spilling out. We know there are nearly a dozen |
| 0:27.9 | different ways for ourselves to kick the bucket. And learning how to control these processes |
| 0:32.9 | can make all the difference in the world to a sick patient. |
| 0:47.8 | I'm Steve Strogatz, and this is The Joy of Why, a podcast from Quantum Magazine, |
| 0:53.3 | where I take turns at the mic with my co-host, Jan 11, exploring some of the biggest unanswered questions in math and science today. |
| 0:55.8 | In this episode, we ask cellular biologist Shai Shaham, how can the death of a cell help other cells around it? |
| 1:03.5 | And how do these insights help us understand life itself? |
| 1:07.0 | Shy is a professor at the Rockefeller University, where he studies programmed cell death during animal development and the complex role that glial cells play in the nervous system. |
| 1:19.5 | Shai, welcome to the joy of why. |
| 1:22.0 | Thank you for having me, Steve. |
| 1:23.5 | Thank you for joining us. |
| 1:25.4 | I'm very curious to learn more about cell death. |
| 1:28.3 | So I thought maybe we could start by talking about the lives of cells. |
| 1:32.3 | What are the sorts of things that cells do that tell us they're alive? |
| 1:36.3 | So that's actually a fairly complicated question. |
| 1:40.3 | It really depends on the specific assay that you use to ask whether the cell is alive or not. |
| 1:47.2 | So, for example, if a cell is moving from one place to another, you might say the cell is alive. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.