Skip to content
HomeVideosBooksBlogsPodcasts
EpisodesShowsTopics

HistoryListsWatch laterLiked videosFollowing

The videos, books, blogs and podcasts Hacker News keeps recommending, all in one place.

VideosBooksBlogsPodcastsAboutPrivacySettings

Data from Hacker News, HackerTube, HackerBooks, HackerBlogs and Open Library. Credits · Not affiliated with Y Combinator.

HomeVideosBooksBlogsPodcasts
Ctrl K
    Artwork for Radiolab
    Episode

    The Spark of Life

    Radiolab · Sep 19, 2025 · 36 min
    Episode page

    In the 1920s, a Russian biologist studying onion roots made a surprising discovery: underground, down in the darkness, it seemed like the cells inside the onion roots were making their own … light. The “onion root experiment” went on to become something of a cult classic in science, and eventually the biologically-made light was dubbed “biophotons.” In the ensuing century, biophoton discoveries…

    Related

    • Mingzhen Lu on The Evolution of Root Systems & Biogeochemical Cycling

      COMPLEXITY • Mar 26, 2022 • 54 min
    • Episode 115 - Digital Lifeforms

      Advent of Computing • Aug 27, 2023 • 1 h 08 min
    • 152. Hunting for the Origins of Life

      People I (Mostly) Admire • Mar 1, 2025 • 47 min
    • Mark Ritchie on A New Thermodynamics of Biochemistry, Part 1

      COMPLEXITY • Jun 17, 2021 • 41 min
    • Mark Ritchie on A New Thermodynamics of Biochemistry, Part 2

      COMPLEXITY • Jul 1, 2021 • 46 min