Neil and Katy Discuss Fingerprints and Individuality | StarTalk

2m read

·Nov 11, 2024

Why are there seven million people? And why do each one of us have our own fingerprint? Even twins have different fingerprints, who are otherwise genetically identical. Why would you rather we were all the same? No, I'm not. Why is that more odd to you than the fact that we all have different personalities? We have different talents.

But personalities can be based on what you learn, environment—not sure—and not just nature, right? So I thought about that the other day, and it like kind of made me spin. It's just like we all have different fingerprints. Okay, I get it. Grand design. Well, so it's an intriguing fact.

But here's something that may relate: most people who could be born will never be born. Will never even exist. So the fact that sperm—okay, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah—one gets 98, science the rest don't. So where do they go? Yeah, they're part of the number of human beings that will never ever be born.

So the fuel—because there's not enough souls. That would be something! If you ran out of souls, what would a soulless person look like? Do you believe you have a soul? I don't know what a soul is. I know there's—what? Here's something that freaks me out.

Every day, every morning, I wake up, and I say, "How is it that every morning I wake up as me and not as someone else?" Oh yeah, yeah. This is weird—being me! What is it like being you, right? What's something it's like? Why am I me every day? Wow. How does that happen?

We have these electro-chemicals in our head, and somehow that's me. And on me every day, as far as I know, as far as now. I wonder if I woke up as a different person each day—would I know it?

15 Deals That Made Billionaires

2015 AP Biology free response 6

View All

Predatory Shark Attacks | When Sharks Attack

When a shark bites a human, they never get the same taste, let’s say, as they would by biting a fish. So generally, they will release us and swim away. These incidents were totally different. The shark came in, attacked the victim, and came back and attac…

Greening of Pittsburgh | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic

Hi, I’m Davar Ardelon of Overheard, and this week we have something new for you: the story of three climate change problem solvers in the city of Pittsburgh. Today’s episode comes by way of storyteller Matt Scott of Project Drawdown. His reporting in the …

The Longest-Running Evolution Experiment

These are bacteria growing into increasingly concentrated antibiotics. The bacteria stop growing when they hit the first antibiotic strip, but then a mutant appears capable of surviving in the antibiotic. Then another mutation occurs and now the bacteria …

Analyzing unbounded limits: rational function | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

Let f of x be equal to negative 1 over x minus 1 squared. Select the correct description of the one-sided limits of f at x equals 1. And so we can see we have a bunch of choices where we’re approaching x from the right-hand side and we’re approaching x f…

Invalid conclusions from studies example | Study design | AP Statistics | Khan Academy

Jerry was reading about a study that looked at the connection between smartphone usage and happiness. Based on data from approximately 5,000 randomly selected teenagers, the study found that, on average, the teens who spent more time on smartphones were s…

Worked examples: Definite integral properties 1 | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

We want to evaluate the definite integral from 3 to 3 of f of x dx. We’re given the graph of f of x and of y equals f of x, and the area between f of x and the x-axis over different intervals. Well, when you look at this, you actually don’t even have to …

Neil and Katy Discuss Fingerprints and Individuality | StarTalk

More Articles