Episodes
Published 12/29/20
Published 12/29/20
Published 12/18/20
Published 10/14/20
Published 09/10/20
Published 08/27/20
Published 08/04/20
Published 07/28/20
Published 06/29/20
Published 06/17/20
How do we get our stuff? Ryan Petersen is the founder and CEO of Flexport, a freight forwarding and customs brokerage company. We sat down to talk about the nature of trade, a literally ancient system that has been the lifeblood of global commerce, and by extension human civilization, since the dawn of time. How is technology changing that system? How *should* that system change? And how do we apply some of the logistical lessons we've learned from our success in modernizing ancient trade to...
Published 04/21/20
Published 04/13/20
SEASON TWO FINALE: and we enter the galaxy. From an atmosphere and an ocean to genetically-modified flora, new AR construction paradigms, and the directed evolution of our second branch of human civilization, we’ve created a new world on Mars. But what comes next for humanity? Let’s take a look at the mechanics of interstellar travel in antimatter propulsion, hibernation technology, and time dilation. Then, why are we doing this? In our concluding episode we talk about the shape of the...
Published 02/22/19
This season we've talked a lot about different ways of doing things. Now let's talk about a country that IS doing things differently — at least... differently than the United States. We sat down with Kai-Fu Lee, author of AI Superpowers, to talk about artificial intelligence, China, and what the Chinese technology strategy means for America and Europe.
Published 02/18/19
Sex, reproduction, and marriage have been linked for most of human history, but today that paradigm is evolving. This season of Anatomy of Next we've looked at every aspect of turning Mars into a habitable world. Now what about the changes in biology that are going to alter the way we populate our world? From artificial gametes derived from skin cells and genetically-modified embryos to babies in bags, polyamory, and the heteroflexible astronaut – let's talk about sex.
Published 02/12/19
In our last episode, we looked at the technologies that are fundamentally changing biological reproduction. Now, we conclude that conversation with a look at the human relationship. What is a healthy relationship on Earth, and what might it look like in space? Or Mars? We explore the problems we're currently facing in love, and we imagine a healthy path forward: new paradigms for navigating conflict, an exploration of monogamy in the context of polyamory, and let's go ahead and talk about the...
Published 02/12/19
Augmented and virtual realities are introducing a digital layering to the human experience that will dramatically impact every city of the future. In “Multiplanar Humanity” we explore the complications and potential of a multi-layered world, starting with one of the more practical applications of augmented reality technology — construction, and a look at how the first city on Mars will be built. Then, we complicate the story, and take a peak inside that next, totally virtual layer of human...
Published 02/04/19
In our second episode on materials science, we take a look at metal. Christina Lomasney is the CEO of Modumetal, a company nanoscopically-engineering alloys. In a wide-ranging conversation, we talked about her work at Modumetal, the Martian applications of her work, the decentralized city, and the democratization of engineering.
Published 02/02/19
Dan Widmaier is the founder and CEO of Bolt Threads. They make materials from nature that are high performance, but hard to extract, and develop technology that makes the scaling of production on these materials possible. Today, they're making spider silk affordable to the average consumer. We're designing a new world, and to build our new world we'll necessarily be developing new materials. But before we start inventing, let’s take a close look at what already exists in nature, and develop...
Published 01/31/19
What if you could plant a seed, and grow a building? A few episodes ago we talked to Paul Dabrowski, CEO of Synthego, a company building tools that help biologists. Paul's hope for the field of synthetic biology is a path to curing all disease. But in a world of further biological understanding, there are few limits to what we can grow. Let’s talk about the biological factory.
Published 01/30/19