Hosted by Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary, this episode runs from the deep math of string theory to the biology of sleep—then out to a starless “ghost cloud” that may be a naked dark-matter halo. We open with a Nature paper showing that physical networks in nature (brains, blood vessels, fungal networks) appear to organize like energy-minimizing surfaces—spitting out the same branching rules you see in soap films and (surprisingly) in the mathematics behind string theory. Then we hit a neuroscience twist: even simple jellyfish need sleep—and the evidence points to sleep as a repair cycle for DNA damage. We close with Cloud9, a newly characterized, starless gas cloud that could be a rare “reionization-limited” RELHIC—potentially exposing a dark matter halo without the glare of stars.

Summary

• String theory… in your body? Why real-world transport networks converge toward minimal-energy geometry—and what that has to do with string-theory math and 120° branching angles.

• Jellyfish need sleep (and it’s not optional): Evidence that sleep pressure tracks cellular stress and DNA damage repair—even in a brainless animal.

• Cloud9: A nearby starless cloud that may be a dark matter halo in plain sight—plus what it implies about “missing” galaxies and the post-reionization universe.

• The Rundown: iron asteroids, artificial metabolism (ReForm), scalable helper T-cells from stem cells, and NASA’s Pandora exoplanet mission.

Show Notes

• Physical networks / string-theory-like math (Nature)
• Jellyfish sleep & DNA repair (Nature Communications)
• Cloud9 (Astrophysical Journal Letters)