David Leigh & Tim Blais: Nanobots and Creativity | Science Life

Talking tiny machines with a literal chemistry magician! Science Life on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/science-life/id1230957504 Subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=acapellascience Science Life on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/science-life-podcast Support A Capella Science on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/acapellascience David Leigh's website: http://catenane.net For the revival of the podcast, we have the nanobot man himself, Professor David Leigh of Manchester University! I was pleasantly surprised by the camaraderie we developed over this conversation. We start off trying to explain some of the trickier mechanisms that showed up in the "Nanobot" video, like what the heck is a rotaxane and a Brownian ratchet? There's some really cool physics going on stemming from the fact that the nano-world is controlled by very different kinds of forces than our big world. From there we talk about creativity and where ideas come from as a scientist or artist, how to build connections between scientific disciplines, how to tell a good story with science, and of course everyone's favourite question: WILL THE NANOBOTS KILL US ALL??? I had a great time in this conversation, so I hope you enjoy it and here's to many more!