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The Rest Is Science

Michael Discovered A New Way To Make Twins

5/31/202648 min

Is there a new way to make twins? If there is, Michael's might just have discovered it. And hint: it's going to hard work. From Hannah’s twin-like sister to the most famous cells in human history, in this episode Hannah and Michael continue to explore whether we truly own of ourselves, this time at a microscopic level. From our genome, to our cells and even our personalities, what happens in a future where cloning is the norm? Where Zygotes might be used to create mini-Michaels? And where reproduction as we know it now is...optional.

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Clips

Fifty-Million-Ton Woman
Cloning Is Barely Illegal
Seventy Trillion Siblings
Seven-Generation Vanishing Act
You Own Publicity, Not DNA

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Hannah Fry· Host0:01

    Welcome to The Rest is Science. I'm Hannah Fry.

  2. Michael Stevens· Host0:02

    And I'm Michael Stevens. Today, I wanna tell you about something I've discovered.

  3. Hannah Fry· Host0:06

    Go on.

  4. Michael Stevens· Host0:07

    A new way to make twins.

  5. Hannah Fry· Host0:09

    Is it ethical?

  6. Michael Stevens· Host0:12

    Oh, it's ethical. It's not easy.

  7. Hannah Fry· Host0:14

    Okay. [laughs] All right.

  8. Michael Stevens· Host0:16

    There's two ways to make twins.

  9. Hannah Fry· Host0:17

    Yeah.

  10. Michael Stevens· Host0:18

    And the first way is the normal way. You and your partner just really hope that that zygote splits into two babies.

  11. Hannah Fry· Host0:26

    Genetically identical.

  12. Michael Stevens· Host0:27

    Genetically identical individuals. The second way is for you and your partner to have about 70 trillion children.

  13. Hannah Fry· Host0:35

    Okay. That- that sounds like quite a lot of work.

  14. Michael Stevens· Host0:37

    It's not that bad. All it requires is birthing 70,000 children a second.

  15. Hannah Fry· Host0:43

    [laughs] What, for your, your entire fertile life?

  16. Michael Stevens· Host0:46

    Well, I mean, uh, for, for your entire fertile life. [laughs] Not mine, my partner's, uh, luckily.

  17. Hannah Fry· Host0:51

    You're, uh... You're not gonna get much else done.

  18. Michael Stevens· Host0:53

    [laughs] No, no. But wouldn't it be cool? I'll talk about how this works in a moment.

  19. Hannah Fry· Host0:58

    [Instrumental music] This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK.

  20. Michael Stevens· Host1:06

    Here's something strange. Your DNA contains more ancient viral fragments than genes. The genes that build our cells make up only 2% of our DNA, and for years, that is what scientists focused on. They treated the rest, the ancient viruses and stuff, as junk.

  21. Hannah Fry· Host1:26

    But now we know that that hidden majority, sometimes

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