Plants, Quantum Sensors, and Predicting Cancer Evolution

Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode jumps from plant biochemistry to quantum metrology to a new oncology mapping tool. We start with a University of York breakthrough that solves a ~50-year mystery in alkaloid biosynthesis—finding the “missing” enzyme that performs a one-step, asymmetric reaction plants use to build powerful defensive (and pharmaceutically useful) molecules. Then, in the Rundown, we hit Artemis II delays, AI-discovered “second roars” in lions, a refined measurement of Jupiter’s size from Juno, and a RHIC swan-song result probing how hadrons form from the quantum vacuum. Finally, we go deep on quantum sensing with entangled atomic clouds—and close with ALFA-K, a tool that builds local fitness landscapes to predict how aneuploid cancers may evolve under treatment.