Imagine you're in a lab where you've synthesized ancient DNA sequences

and spliced them into modern bacteria just to see how they'd react.

They needed each other, but they didn't want each other.

So, you know, it was like a very complicated relationship unfolding in front of me.

This isn't Jurassic Park or some sci-fi movie.

I'm Steve Strogetz, and this is The Joy of Why.

A new podcast from Quantum Magazine that takes you into some of the biggest unanswered mysteries

in science and math today, where the knots with three crossings, the type you

know from your shoelaces, are just the beginning of a much bigger story.

There's one four crossing knot. There are two five crossing knots. We've tabulated all the possible

knots up to 19 crossings, and there's over 300 million of those knots up to 19 crossings.

And unraveling the mysteries of sleep means studying fish, living in caves?

We can look at the differences in sleep between each population of cavefish

and understand how genetic variation leads to sleep differences.

And that's really important because sleep in humans is incredibly variable.

Some people need five hours of sleep.

Other people need eight hours of sleep.

We'll hope to learn more about distant planets in the early universe

with the help of the new James Webb Space Telescope.

Nature gave us an opportunity to study seven Earth-sized planets

all in one system. Just imagine if there were seven Earths in our solar system.

And we'll travel back in time to try to figure out how life began on Earth.

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