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1:02

This program is sponsored by the

1:05

Cauley Foundation based in Los Angeles,

1:07

California. The Cauley Foundation

1:09

is dedicated to advancing science

1:11

for the benefit of humanity.

1:19

I'm Alan Alder and this is

1:22

Clear and Vivid. Conversations about

1:24

connecting and communicating. We

1:30

discovered more life in the

1:32

oceans than all the

1:34

planets and stars in the universe. It's

1:37

amazing. You can look at that water

1:39

and it looks like pure crystal clear

1:41

water. It's because our

1:43

visual acuity can't see

1:46

these tiny organisms. Before the

1:48

tools that we developed

1:50

are shotgun sequencing, the world of

1:53

microbiology was seen either

1:55

through the lungs of a microscope

1:58

or by what would grow. in culture

2:00

and it turns out probably

2:03

99% of the life forms on

2:05

the planet won't grow in the

2:07

existing culture conditions that scientists use.

2:10

So they assumed it didn't exist because they couldn't

2:12

see it. That's Craig

2:15

Venter. In the 1990s he launched

2:18

a privately funded effort to beat

2:20

the federally funded project in sequencing

2:22

the first human genome, which

2:24

many in the genetics community at the time

2:27

called the brazen stunt, but

2:29

in the year 2000 the race was

2:31

declared a tie. For

2:33

much of the past 20 years he's

2:35

been roaming the world's oceans in his

2:37

yacht sampling the DNA from the literally

2:39

billions of microorganisms that live there, largely

2:42

undetected. And he had adventures

2:45

doing it with a few

2:47

little brushes with local law

2:49

enforcement along the way. This

2:51

is really going to be interesting for me

2:54

because I'm getting used to talking to people

2:56

who have done one or two extraordinary things,

2:58

but you've done a string of extraordinary things.

3:00

One of the most extraordinary things is to

3:03

be neck-and-neck in the race to sequence the

3:05

human genome and a lot of people think

3:07

you won by a furlong. I

3:09

tend to agree with them. And

3:13

now you have this really interesting

3:15

book called The Voyage of Sorcerer

3:17

Two where you talk

3:19

about how you discovered this incredible

3:21

amount of diversity in the ocean.

3:24

And not just diversity, but there's some total

3:26

of life in the ocean that is so

3:29

much greater than everybody's supposed.

3:31

Isn't that so? In fact,

3:34

we discovered more life in the

3:36

oceans than all the planets and

3:40

stars in the universe. I

3:43

read your saying that every

3:46

millimeter of sea out there has

3:48

a million bacteria and 10 million

3:50

viruses. That's correct. It's

3:52

amazing. You can look at that

3:55

water and it looks like pure

3:57

crystal-clear waters because our visual acuity...

4:00

can't see them in this range

4:02

to see these tiny organisms. We

4:04

have to use the new tools

4:06

of DNA sequencing or

4:08

powerful microscopes to see them. So

4:11

you discovered really for the first

4:14

time that the oceans are a

4:16

living soup. And yet responsible

4:18

scientists, when you announced that you

4:20

were going to take this voyage

4:23

to explore the microbes in the

4:25

ocean, I get

4:27

the impression that they practically called you crazy

4:29

for doing it. Well, some

4:32

actually went even further than that. But because

4:34

before the tools that we developed are

4:40

shotgun sequencing, the world of

4:43

microbiology was seen either

4:45

through the lungs of a microscope

4:48

or by what would grow in culture.

4:51

So if they couldn't grow in culture, you

4:53

couldn't see it under a microscope, it didn't

4:55

exist. And it turns out probably

4:58

99% of the life forms on

5:02

the planet won't grow in the

5:04

existing culture conditions that scientists use.

5:07

So they assumed it didn't exist because they couldn't

5:09

see it. So I'm really

5:11

interested with the scientific community against

5:15

the idea. How

5:17

did you manage to sell the idea to

5:20

other people, people you wanted to accompany

5:22

you on the trip to help work

5:25

the ship, to

5:27

help fund it? What did you see and what were

5:29

you able to communicate to them that

5:31

enabled you to actually make the project a go?

5:35

Well, convincing my working

5:37

colleagues, offering

5:39

somebody to sail to Bermuda and

5:41

take samples, you know,

5:43

that's not a tough argument. The

5:46

most important argument was convincing the head

5:48

of biology at the Department of Energy,

5:52

who happened to believe along with me

5:54

that the future of biology was

5:57

a combination high

6:00

throughput biology discovery with DNA

6:03

sequencing combined with

6:05

the most advanced computers. And

6:09

even though all his

6:11

reviewers wanted to

6:13

turn down my grant with extreme prejudice,

6:16

he overrode them. This is Ari Petrino's of

6:18

the Department of Energy. I dedicated

6:21

the book apart to him because

6:24

it wouldn't have happened had he not

6:26

taken the big step on his own

6:29

to believe in my idea. Why

6:35

did you choose to go to the

6:37

Sargasso Sea? Well I've been

6:39

spending a lot of my

6:41

life sailing and

6:44

sailing to the Caribbean from

6:47

the east coast. Bermuda is

6:50

an excellent stop-off point and I

6:53

happen to be passing through there to

6:56

and from the Caribbean on my boat

6:58

and it's a beautiful place

7:00

and it's also where a lot of

7:02

research was going on. So there's a

7:04

Bermuda biological station. People

7:07

were discovering microorganisms there

7:10

but they numbered them one at a

7:12

time. And when did this experiment they

7:14

were up to Sargasso Sea 11,

7:16

so SAR 11. So

7:19

you can see why people thought there was very

7:21

low diversity when they were finding these one at

7:23

a time and they're only up to 11. Our

7:26

first experiment we discovered

7:29

several thousand just from

7:32

sequencing the DNA isolated from a

7:34

single barrel of seawater. You

7:36

traveled many thousands of miles before you were

7:38

finished with this survey. How many miles did

7:41

you travel? So we did a total

7:43

over 15 years of 65,000 miles at sea. So you have to

7:45

really like being

7:50

at sea I guess. You have

7:52

to like sailing after like being at

7:54

sea and I did all the ocean

7:56

passages. Most sailors never leave site of

7:58

land but there's something when

8:01

you're two weeks out in the middle

8:03

of the Pacific Ocean, there's nothing around

8:05

you except the life

8:08

of the ocean. It's just, and you're

8:10

on your own, it's a unique experience

8:12

and I personally

8:14

love it. I remember

8:16

reading your being out there on

8:19

your own, nothing in sight when

8:21

your engine broke down. It even

8:24

caught fire, right? Yes. So

8:26

how did you get out of that

8:28

scrape? Well, the

8:31

captain I had on board was an

8:33

electrical engineer and we managed to get

8:35

the fire out quickly. It turned out

8:37

it was a fan

8:39

belt that was frozen and overheating and

8:41

we managed to have

8:44

some spare parts on the boat and spent

8:46

a few days fixing it out in the middle

8:48

of the ocean while we sailed on. So you

8:51

had sails, you could have sailed

8:54

out of it. Oh yeah, no,

8:56

we sailed almost 100% of

8:59

the time, sometimes augmented with

9:01

power from the auxiliary engine.

9:04

But it wasn't just the engines that gave

9:06

you trouble, you were arrested at least once.

9:09

Quite. What was that about? Well,

9:15

so you know when

9:17

Darwin made his discoveries in the

9:20

Galapagos, there were no

9:22

international laws or treaties. He

9:24

could go where he wanted and collect

9:26

samples and describe them and do what

9:28

he wanted with them. Now we're

9:32

subject to what's called the law of the sea. I

9:35

think it was developed initially to

9:37

protect countries fishing rights and then

9:39

extended from fishing rights to

9:42

genetic rights because

9:45

of the pharmaceutical

9:47

industry and people making discoveries that

9:49

led to new drugs. Everybody

9:52

believed that the ocean and the marine

9:54

forest were a

10:00

fortune waiting to be found. And

10:03

so the country started controlling

10:05

the ownership of

10:07

even the Chinese organisms they

10:10

didn't even know were there

10:12

through these new laws. So we had

10:14

to negotiate agreements with each country, with

10:16

each military, but we

10:19

still ran afoul over

10:21

international politics. For

10:23

example, we sailed from the

10:26

Galapagos to the Marquesias and

10:28

the French Polynesia. And

10:31

we arrived there's beautiful island

10:33

and as soon as we checked in, the

10:36

police told us we were under house

10:38

arrest and the French government indicated

10:41

that if we left harbor

10:44

they could not be responsible for our

10:46

safety, which was a not so veiled

10:48

threat that they would sink us. So

10:52

we got in the middle of

10:54

a dispute between the French

10:57

government in Paris and the

10:59

Tahitian government in Tahiti

11:01

as to who controlled the

11:04

sampling there. And it turns

11:07

out the French may have been nervous

11:09

that we would go and sample the

11:12

waters where they did all their nuclear

11:14

testing to show how much genetic damage

11:16

they caused. But

11:19

in fact there was too much radiation we didn't

11:21

want to go anywhere near there. But we had

11:23

to get the US Navy to intervene and let

11:27

the French military know that we were

11:29

a US research vessel and

11:31

under US military protection

11:33

and that got them to

11:35

back down. So that

11:37

was that was house arrest one.

11:39

The second one was a little bit more

11:41

dramatic. It happened in

11:44

the middle of the Indian Ocean. There's an island

11:46

chain there called the Chagos Islands. It's

11:48

where Diego Garcia is

11:50

one of the islands where the US

11:53

has the B-52 air base. And

11:57

we notified the State Department that we're going

11:59

to stop. at Chagos Island. It's one

12:01

of the most beautiful coral atolls

12:03

in the world. And that

12:06

we weren't going to sample there, but

12:08

as soon as we got

12:10

there, we got approached by a rib with

12:12

15 or so armed,

12:17

heavily armed people

12:19

on it with no insignias, no flags. We

12:21

didn't know if they were pirates or military.

12:24

Turns out they were British

12:27

military. And they came on

12:29

and held us a gunpoint,

12:31

took our passports, and

12:34

said that they could impound the boat

12:36

and arrest us. But

12:39

fortunately, I had a satellite phone in

12:41

my cabin. And I happened

12:44

to know Phil later, who

12:46

became the U.S. ambassador to the

12:48

UK. I called him up

12:50

and told him that we were aborted by these

12:53

armed troops and being held at gunpoint. And

12:56

he said to hold on and that he would call

12:58

me back. And so obviously, he went to the top

13:00

of the British government, called

13:03

back the next day. The troops arrived

13:06

back in force with

13:08

an agreement for me to sign. And the

13:10

agreement was that I had broken a law.

13:14

It turns out it was a law from the 1800s.

13:17

And they said if I

13:19

didn't sign it, that they would come back in

13:21

a week. And they

13:23

would keep coming back once a week until I

13:25

agreed to sign it. So

13:28

I said, Mr. Ambassador, I'm going to sign

13:30

this agreement, but I'm signing it

13:32

under duress. And

13:35

the head of the military group didn't know

13:37

what that meant. So they gave us back

13:39

our passports, told us we were free to

13:42

leave. We pulled

13:44

up anchor and got about a

13:46

mile outside the atoll. My

13:49

satellite phone rang and it was

13:51

the ambassador. And he said, stop

13:53

immediately or they'll sink you. I

14:00

said, why, for God's sake,

14:02

would that happen? And he

14:04

said, the British government won't

14:06

accept an agreement signed under

14:08

duress. She goes,

14:10

I want you to think very carefully, take

14:12

your time before you answer this question. He

14:15

said, were you under duress

14:17

when you signed that agreement? And

14:21

my personal thought was, well, I'm

14:23

really fucking under duress now. But

14:29

I said, Mr. Ambassador, I was not

14:31

under duress when I signed the agreement.

14:34

And he said, that's the answer I

14:36

was hoping for. You're now

14:38

free to go. Happy

14:40

sailing. What is it, Tory? Nothing

14:43

to do with science whatsoever. I was

14:45

going to say, it's hard enough to

14:47

do science. Yeah. They were afraid

14:50

that my notoriety and all the attention that

14:52

my expedition was getting would

14:54

bring attention to the Chagos Islands and

14:56

the fact that the British had

14:59

removed all the natives and that they were

15:01

suing in World Court to

15:03

get their homeland back. But the

15:06

British won't give it to them as long

15:08

as they need it for military purposes. And

15:10

the US is leasing Diego

15:12

Garcia for B-52s. So

15:15

they're probably not going to get their homeland back

15:17

for some time. But somehow they

15:20

thought by arresting me, that would bring less

15:22

attention than me just sailing through. Overall,

15:25

in your work, in your science,

15:28

you really do seem to be a risk taker.

15:30

Is that the secret to your success? I

15:33

think it's one of the secrets. And

15:37

one of my most

15:39

favorite TV shows is

15:42

your show, MASH, because

15:44

I lived it in reality in

15:47

Vietnam. I was a hospital

15:49

corpsman in Vietnam.

15:52

And I had to deal with the

15:54

deaths of a large number of young

15:56

men my age and younger. It's

16:00

our way. They get an

16:02

education. Ah, but I learned.

16:05

That the only thing I had to

16:08

fear was losing my life. And.

16:11

So my plan was to

16:13

go into medicine but I

16:15

got introduced to high in

16:17

science. It is Rusty California

16:19

made an early discovery and

16:21

just love basic science and

16:23

switch my direction. But.

16:25

I was not afraid to take

16:27

risk. Some people are afraid of sell

16:30

your summer, afraid of success. I'm

16:32

an experimental scientists said you know

16:34

I got there and do the experiment

16:36

Than that I didn't The interview recently

16:38

with Nature Magazine about the book

16:40

and know that women interviewing me

16:42

said that it seems like you had

16:45

a lot of near death experiences on

16:47

this trip. I will. I did

16:49

but they weren't plan to be

16:51

that. When

16:58

we come back, them are break. Craig

17:00

Venter tells me about his hopes that

17:02

his discoveries will not only lead to

17:04

medical breakthroughs, but also the slowing climate

17:06

change. This.

17:12

Program is sponsored by

17:14

the Coddling Foundation, dedicated

17:16

to advancing science for

17:18

the benefit of humanity.

17:20

The Foundations mission is

17:22

to stimulate scientific research

17:24

in Astrophysics, theoretical physics,

17:26

nano science, and neuroscience,

17:28

to strengthen the relationship

17:30

between science and society

17:32

and wander scientific discoveries

17:34

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18:10

They say plants like music. Yeah, no, like

18:12

really, they respond to the vibrations of it,

18:14

which means that this playlist you're listening to,

18:16

the plants are too. You

18:19

know what else plants like? Organic soil

18:21

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18:25

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18:27

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18:32

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18:34

you on your iffy playlist. Hear that,

18:36

plants? So go ahead and give them

18:39

Miracle-Gro. This

18:43

is Clear and Vivid, and now back to

18:45

my conversation with Craig Venter. Scientists

18:49

tell me that doing

18:51

their work involves one failure after

18:53

another, that there are more failures

18:55

than success. But

18:57

even in your book, when you talk about how

18:59

you went up a blind alley and how to

19:01

change your planet, it doesn't sound like it seems

19:04

like a failure to you. It just sounds like

19:06

it's one of the steps along the

19:08

way. Yeah. Well,

19:10

sailing, as you know, you can't

19:12

sail directly upwind with a sailboat.

19:15

So you have to tack back and forth

19:17

sailing either side of the wind, then you

19:20

go so far, and then you have to

19:22

change directions. So as a

19:24

sailor, you get used to tacking and

19:26

changing directions to meet

19:29

what the conditions are. And

19:32

it also helps that I'm

19:34

an internal optimist. I

19:38

believe in the future, I believe in my

19:40

ideas. Fortunately,

19:44

it's not been a misfounded

19:46

belief. I have a

19:48

unique brain condition called

19:50

aphantasia where I

19:52

don't see any pictures at all if I close

19:54

my eyes. So everything I do,

19:57

I think in the concepts and I have good

19:59

intuition. And the

20:01

only time I get into trouble is when I

20:03

ignore that intuition. So I've

20:06

had a great internal compass that's

20:09

guided me through all this. If

20:11

you don't see images, what do you

20:14

experience when you get a

20:16

new idea? An idea that seems stimulating

20:18

and possible, even

20:21

if crazy? You don't see any part

20:23

of it. Do you hear something? Do you sense? What

20:25

do you sense? I mean,

20:27

it's all conceptual to me. I close

20:29

my eyes, it's just black. It's a

20:31

black world. It's hard to describe

20:34

if you're so used to seeing

20:36

in pictures like so many people are. It's

20:39

just an idea that's in your

20:41

head. And I can deal with

20:44

multiple complex concepts simultaneously, which by

20:46

the use, attributed greatly

20:48

to my success. So I have the

20:50

exact opposite of a photographic memory. What

20:52

do you dream in FM radio? What

20:55

are your dreams like? It's

20:57

really interesting because I get asked that

20:59

all the time. And I

21:02

have very vivid dreams, but

21:04

I'd like to wake up in the middle

21:06

to see if I'm seeing pictures or not.

21:08

I can't tell because my imagination

21:11

is so great that the

21:13

intellectual concept paints me a

21:16

unique view of everything. So

21:18

I experience emotions, I experience all

21:22

kinds of sensory perception. But

21:25

as far as I can tell, I don't dream

21:27

in pictures. Something

21:32

I wanted to ask you about, one of

21:34

the breakthroughs you made, an extremely

21:36

important one, and not

21:38

one that I can say I

21:40

really understand, the shotgun technique for

21:42

analyzing the microbes. I

21:45

have to tell you, if you can

21:47

explain it to me, you saved

21:49

me a lot of sleep. Last night, knowing

21:51

I was going to talk to you, I

21:54

dreamt about

21:56

what you probably meant by the shotgun

21:58

technique. I

22:01

have a long dream

22:03

scripted that probably has nothing

22:05

to do with what you have to tell me. How

22:07

does the shotgun technique work? What does it solve and how

22:09

does it work? So

22:12

it's actually very simple in

22:14

concept. So DNA molecules like

22:17

the human genome are extremely large.

22:19

So we have six

22:21

billion chemical letters of

22:23

genetic code. And

22:26

the technology for reading

22:28

DNA sequence, it's

22:31

getting longer and longer, but it's mostly 500 to a

22:33

few thousand letters at a time. So

22:40

my idea was, imagine taking the

22:43

Sunday New York Times and

22:47

taking 50 copies of it and putting it

22:49

through a paper shredder. So

22:53

that's shotgunning, turning it apart. And

22:57

then we developed new mathematical

22:59

algorithms and fairly

23:01

large computers for

23:03

taking all those scraps and fragments

23:07

and reassembling them in the right order. And

23:10

one of the biggest discoveries that's

23:13

affected how I operate then allowed

23:16

us to do the complex world

23:18

of the human microbiome as well

23:20

as the environmental microbiome is

23:23

each species has a unique

23:25

mathematical solution for its

23:28

genetic code. Your genetic code is enough

23:30

different from mine. We

23:33

could mathematically assemble your genome

23:37

versus my genome. And

23:40

that's an idea that most scientists

23:43

today still don't totally grasp,

23:46

but it's the key to

23:48

our success. We shred the

23:50

DNA and then we sequence lots of

23:53

tiny fragments for sequencing

23:55

the human genome. We had to

23:57

sequence 25 million little

23:59

segments of DNA. DNA. And so it

24:02

took a massive compute

24:04

to realign by just

24:06

looking at overlaps and matching sequence.

24:09

Like imagine taking that New York Times, you

24:11

find a sentence that part

24:14

of it overlapped with another shredded piece.

24:17

And that's how the computer puts it all back

24:19

together again, just by looking at little

24:22

overlaps and in the shredded

24:24

DNA. So has

24:27

that technique been adopted

24:29

now by other researchers?

24:32

Yes. So we sequenced the very first

24:34

genome of a living species in 1995

24:38

and then went on to use that same technique

24:40

for the human genome. Since

24:43

we did it with the human genome, it's

24:45

been the technique that every scientist around

24:48

the world is used for sequencing genomes.

24:54

So with regard to the diversity

24:57

of microbial life in the oceans,

24:59

what's come of that so far?

25:01

Anything that has been useful to

25:03

us as humans? Well,

25:05

understanding the diversity and understanding

25:09

that 50% of the

25:11

oxygen we breathe comes from these organisms.

25:14

They actually affect the weather by the

25:16

density of things in the ocean with

25:19

El Nino and El Nino. I

25:21

think it helps put us in

25:24

intellectual context of

25:26

how much diversity there is. This is somebody

25:30

at one of my book events said, you've

25:33

proven that there's so

25:35

much we didn't know. He goes, what

25:37

else don't we know? And I said, well, that's

25:41

not a question I can answer, but scientists

25:43

can only answer it by going out like

25:45

I did and asking unique questions with

25:48

new tools of the world. It's

25:50

striking to me that you talk about

25:53

these microbes supplying us with

25:56

half of the oxygen that we breathe. And

25:58

yet There's. The relationship

26:00

doesn't seem reciprocal. Because

26:03

I've I've heard you say that. Global.

26:05

Warming. Is changing

26:07

the microbial content of the oceans? What

26:10

it? What are the implications of that

26:12

to? was. Well. One I

26:14

give you one example unless you've

26:16

ever been to the Seychelles, but

26:19

they have this beautiful white sandy

26:21

beaches. But. Those

26:23

Beaches team as a result

26:25

of a one degrees centigrade

26:28

the increase in temperature in

26:30

the Indian Ocean. That.

26:33

Increase in temperature. Killed.

26:35

Off a t My pro that

26:37

was the Sunday on ah with

26:39

the corals at Help Keep the

26:41

Coral Alliance. Ah, what

26:44

The temperature change? Forget coral

26:46

bleaching, all the coral animals

26:48

died and and end up

26:50

but beautiful white sandy beaches

26:53

but at the expense of

26:55

one of the largest living

26:57

organisms on our planet so

26:59

it doesn't take drastic changes

27:01

on some cases. Ah, just

27:03

a one degrees centigrade Saints.

27:07

So we're slowly. Destroying.

27:09

Our environment and were causing that the

27:11

chains I think even. Probably.

27:14

The the most to intellectually you

27:16

a reluctant people are starting to

27:19

recognize the weather's stated they may

27:21

not the a intellectually to the

27:23

cause of it yet the been

27:25

themselves on the rest of us

27:28

but we have to do something.

27:30

Know we're gonna wipe out our

27:32

own life support system. Was

27:35

speaking from the optimistic side of you

27:37

which. Seems. To dominate your.

27:40

Approach to the world. Synthetic.

27:43

Life You created Synthetic life. What

27:45

does that mean? How. So

27:47

we actually wrote to genetic

27:49

code sorry was four bottles

27:52

of chemicals her one for

27:54

a one for Cg and

27:56

T and initially we replicated

27:59

the genome. The an existing

28:01

bacteria and we found a

28:03

way to boot that up

28:05

third to create a new

28:07

cell and then we went

28:09

on to design. A.

28:11

Totally new genome. For.

28:15

A minimal bacteria. Back at

28:17

basically bacteria with the smallest

28:19

genome ah known and created

28:22

a totally new species. That's

28:24

just a wonderful research tool

28:26

for understanding of a loose

28:28

so you can make all

28:30

kinds of bacteria had of

28:33

this. If you're lucky, create

28:35

something that replaces oil. That's.

28:38

Certainly the hope In a word.

28:40

The early stages of this were

28:42

the only ones on the planet

28:44

thus far to make a synthetic

28:46

chromosome and booted up to create

28:49

a totally new life form. but

28:51

technologies improve. He nods to enable

28:53

that though they ten times faster

28:55

pace, so we hope that's gonna

28:57

lead. Basically. To

28:59

a new industrial revolution

29:01

using Ah biological cells

29:04

to do all our

29:06

manufacturing. Those chemicals that

29:08

are the building blocks

29:10

for either manufacturing or

29:12

for medicine. On. The

29:14

human genome side, the. I.

29:17

Started as a unique approach of

29:19

instead of just looking at the

29:21

human genome. Of measuring

29:23

all the. Scene. It's

29:26

a big characteristics of humans

29:28

along with her genome and

29:30

we started the screening people

29:32

that they were self described

29:34

as healthy. And

29:37

the but what we found as

29:39

over fifty percent of these individuals

29:41

who have done over seven thousand

29:43

now. Had. A

29:45

major disease that they were completely

29:47

unaware of. So.

29:49

While five percent of everybody over

29:52

age fifty. Ah, we

29:54

found a major tumor that they had

29:56

no idea that the ad but we

29:58

find them at stake zero and

30:00

stage one, so they're treatable and

30:03

curable. 1%

30:05

of the whole population has a brain

30:07

aneurysm. We all

30:09

know people that have died from brain aneurysms.

30:12

They're now treatable if you know you have

30:14

one in 15 minutes

30:16

as an outpatient. So my

30:19

view is, you know, pre-symptomatic testing and

30:21

something the medical community doesn't do, they

30:24

wait till you have symptoms, but

30:27

quite often by the time you have

30:29

symptoms, it's too late to cure the

30:31

disease, particularly with a late

30:33

stage cancer. We find

30:36

by screening people before they're

30:38

aware that they

30:40

have these diseases, they

30:44

can do something about it. It saved my own

30:46

life, it saved the lives of

30:48

hundreds of people here in San Diego.

30:51

And it's a new approach to

30:53

medicine because we have new

30:55

tools that didn't exist before. I

31:02

wish we could talk longer, but we're running out of

31:04

time and we always end our shows with

31:06

seven quick questions, which

31:08

are harmless, but interesting. And I

31:11

think I'll learn a little bit more

31:14

about you, which I look forward to from

31:16

these questions. First question is,

31:18

of all the things there are to understand, what

31:22

do you wish you really understood? In

31:26

science, you're discovering all the things that

31:28

you don't know and you're ignorant. Even

31:33

though it's 25 years later, we're

31:35

still at the earliest stages

31:38

of understanding the human

31:40

genome and how it leads

31:42

to us as a complex species enough

31:45

to begin thinking

31:47

of how to intelligently change it. So

31:49

I'm worried

31:52

that in my lifetime, we won't have

31:54

a very complete understanding of it. So

31:58

that's going to have to wait for future. scientists.

32:02

Next question, how

32:04

do you tell someone they have their

32:06

facts wrong? It's something

32:08

they do frequently. So how

32:11

do you do? Probably in

32:14

my case with not enough humility.

32:16

Since I was there I found

32:18

I learned something about you. What's

32:21

the strangest question anyone has ever asked

32:24

you? I get a

32:26

lot of strange ones but I

32:28

started an interview a little

32:30

over a year ago and they really threw

32:32

me off by wanting to

32:34

know why I tried to

32:37

commit suicide in Vietnam and it was

32:39

just a result of

32:41

being a young

32:43

man. I turned 21 in Vietnam and the constant exposure

32:45

to death

32:50

and the situation there became

32:53

briefly unbearable to me but I

32:57

always get caught off guard by people

32:59

asking that question. Well I'm

33:01

sorry to hear it and I'm glad that you fended

33:04

off the impulse. Next

33:07

question, how do you

33:09

deal with a compulsive talker? Not

33:12

well. I'm

33:17

trying to find a way to distract them

33:19

or get them

33:22

to stop and think briefly

33:24

by giving them

33:26

challenging questions or I get

33:29

out of there as quickly as I can. Let's

33:33

say you're at a dinner table sitting next to someone

33:35

you've never met. How

33:37

do you start up a genuine conversation?

33:40

Well it's not hard particularly.

33:45

People are fascinated with science and scientists

33:47

when it comes down to it and

33:51

everybody I've encountered in

33:53

my life almost every

33:55

one of them wants to know more

33:57

about their own lives, about our

34:00

lives. lives, about their chemistry, about

34:02

how discoveries are made, what the

34:04

future is. So

34:07

I think once people discover that

34:10

whether I'm a sailor or

34:13

a scientist, usually

34:15

there's no

34:17

lack of good follow-up conversation.

34:21

Okay, next to last. You've got

34:23

a lot of this. The question is, what

34:25

gives you confidence? So

34:29

I think it was

34:31

early on in high school

34:33

where I didn't have a lot

34:35

of confidence because I was a

34:37

poor student. I built

34:39

boats and did everything except study.

34:42

But I tried out for the swim team

34:45

and I learned by applying myself that

34:49

I could become a champion. I had an

34:51

American record in high school and sports

34:53

give a lot of people a lot of inward confidence

34:57

since what first gave me confidence

35:00

that I could apply myself and

35:03

make something unique happen.

35:06

So it may

35:08

be interesting that as a scientist it

35:10

was early sports activity that gave me

35:12

the best boost. Okay,

35:15

last question. What

35:17

book changed your life? I

35:20

would say Edward

35:22

Shortinger's book that he

35:24

wrote in 1944 called What is Life? And

35:31

that's affected a lot of scientific

35:33

careers. Shortinger, as you

35:35

probably know, was a famous physicist.

35:39

And he tried to describe

35:41

life from the point

35:43

of view as a physicist of what the

35:45

components could be. He would

35:48

have been fascinated by

35:50

our development of synthetic cells

35:52

and synthetic life forms. But

35:56

based on a lot of the fun stuff, I

35:59

think it was a great question. fundamental concepts that he

36:01

put forth that have challenged

36:03

biologists. I was

36:05

born in 1946, so this was two years before

36:08

I was born. Well,

36:10

this has been a fascinating conversation.

36:12

We met briefly once or twice

36:15

before, but I'm

36:17

glad to have had this conversation in

36:19

depth with you. It really has been

36:22

really, really interesting. Thank you so much,

36:24

Craig. Well,

36:26

I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you, and thanks for

36:29

taking the time and including me on your show.

36:56

His voyages in the Sorcerer 2

36:59

Global Expedition led to the discovery

37:01

of more than 60 million new

37:03

genes. His book describing

37:05

his adventures along the way is

37:07

called The Voyage of Sorcerer 2. This

37:11

episode was edited and produced by

37:14

our executive producer Graham Shedd with

37:16

help from our associate producer Jean

37:18

Chamais. Our publicist is

37:21

Sarah Hill. Our researcher

37:23

is Elizabeth Ohini, and

37:25

the sound engineer is Erica Hwang. The

37:28

music is courtesy of the Stefan-Kernig

37:30

Trio. Next

37:40

in our series of conversations, I talk

37:42

with two men who were once sworn

37:44

enemies. Fred Gutenberg's daughter

37:47

was killed in the 2018 Parkland

37:50

school shooting, and

37:52

Joe Walsh is an outspoken defender of

37:54

the Second Amendment. The

37:56

day after my daughter was killed, I

37:58

walked in my house and I saw her. I'm

38:00

going to break the effing gun

38:02

lobby and everybody associated with it.

38:05

And I saw Joe as somebody

38:07

who I needed to tear apart

38:09

and demonize. I was the political

38:12

asshole. I was the face

38:14

of the Tea Party, big gun

38:16

guy. I was Charlton Heston. You'll

38:18

get this gun from my cold,

38:20

dead hands. He and

38:22

I would go at each other on Twitter

38:24

and at each other on TV arguing

38:27

and fighting about guns and it would get

38:29

personal until Joe did something

38:31

different. And he said,

38:33

you know, we'd probably disagree on everything, but I

38:35

respect the hell out of what you're trying to do. And

38:39

it wasn't until we started to talk

38:41

privately that I realized Fred doesn't want

38:43

to take away my guns. But

38:45

I want to work with people like

38:47

Joe to tell this

38:49

story so that we can go

38:51

out together and publicly share.

38:54

There's a lot of things this gun

38:56

owner and this gun safety guy agree

38:59

upon that can save lives. Today,

39:02

Fred Gutenberg and Joe Walsh

39:04

toured the country billed as

39:06

two dads defending democracy. They

39:10

might just have come up with a cure for

39:12

our current pandemic of otherness. Next

39:14

time on Clear and Vivid. For

39:17

more details about Clear and Vivid and to

39:19

sign up for my newsletter, please

39:22

visit alanalda.com. And

39:24

you can also find us on Facebook

39:26

and Instagram at Clear and Vivid. Thanks

39:29

for listening. Bye bye. It's that time

39:32

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39:43

vacation is coming up. You

39:48

can already hear the beach wave. Feel

39:50

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39:54

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39:56

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39:58

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