Strange New Worlds: A Science & Star Trek Podcast

Hosted by planetary scientist and astrobiologist

Author: Michael L. Wong

Hosted by planetary scientist and astrobiologist Dr. Michael L. Wong, Strange New Worlds examines science, technology, and culture through the lens of Star Trek!
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Language: en

Genres: Science

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Episode 192: Whispers of Life in Ancient Rocks
Monday, 17 November, 2025

Guest: Dr. Anirudh Prabhu Mike brings aboard Dr. Anirudh Prabhu to discuss an exciting new study of theirs that uses machine learning trained on organic chemical data to detect the "whispers" of life—including photosynthetic life—in ancient rocks. This exciting technique could one day be used to seek out new life on strange new worlds. Mike & Anirudh's paper, "Organic geochemical evidence for life in Archean rocks identified by pyrolysis–GC–MS and supervised machine learning": https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2514534122 Follow us on Bluesky! Mike: https://bsky.app/profile/miquai.bsky.social Anirudh: https://bsky.app/profile/anirudhprabhu.bsky.social