The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean
A topsy-turvy science-y history podcast by Sam Kean. I examine overlooked stories from our past: the dental superiority of hunter-gatherers, the crooked Nazis who saved thousands of American lives, the American immigrants who developed the most successful cancer screening tool in history, the sex lives of dinosaurs, and much, much more. These are charming little tales that never made the history books, but these small moments can be surprisingly powerful. These are the cases where history gets inverted, where the footnote becomes the real story.
Tue, April 15, 2025
The Birds and the Bees and the Frogs
A young woman in the mid-1900s couldn’t take an at-home pregnancy test. Instead, she sent a vial of urine to a clinic, where a technician would, of all things, inject it into a frog, and hormones in the urine would cause the frog to lay eggs. This frog-based test was far faster, easier, and cleaner than any pregnancy test before, and it shifted power for family planning from doctors to women themselves. preorder hardcover copies of MY NEW BOOK, Dinner with King Tut , for a 20 percent discount at this link only: bit.ly/dinnerwithkingtut . Use offer code “spoon”. This offer will EXPIRE SOON, so take advantage today!
Tue, April 08, 2025
The Would-Be Saint's Battle over Down Syndrome
After scientists had a handle on how many chromosomes humans have, other researchers began exploring whether certain ailments might be caused by chromosomal abnormalities. To this end, a French cardiologist discovered that Down syndrome was caused by the presence of an extra chromosome in humans. But a colleague stole credit for her work, and the battle over their legacies continues to this day, in part because the colleague is on track to become a certified Catholic saint. preorder hardcover copies of MY NEW BOOK, Dinner with King Tut , for a 20 percent discount at this link only: bit.ly/dinnerwithkingtut . Use offer code “spoon”.
Tue, April 01, 2025
The Battle over Human Chromosomes
It seems like a simple question: how many chromosomes do human beings have? But getting an accurate count proved surprisingly hard for much of last century. In fact, virtually every textbook once cited an incorrect number, until in 1956, a fiery Indonesian scientist finally determined the true count—and had to battle his boss over who would receive credit for this legacy-making discovery. preorder hardcover copies of MY NEW BOOK, Dinner with King Tut , for a 20 percent discount at this link only: bit.ly/dinnerwithkingtut . Use offer code “spoon”.
Tue, March 25, 2025
The Halley's Comet Panic
The 1910 return of Halley’s comet was greeted with rapture around the world—at least at first. Due to irresponsible speculation by scientists about the theoretical dangers of a close encounter with a comet, many people grew terrified of Halley’s approach and took drastic measures. They fled their homes, hid out in wells or caves, even committed suicide. It’s a grave reminder of scientific communication gone very wrong. preorder hardcover copies of MY NEW BOOK, Dinner with King Tut , for a 20 percent discount at this link only: bit.ly/dinnerwithkingtut . Use offer code “spoon”. This offer will EXPIRE SOON, so take advantage today!
Tue, December 10, 2024
The Winter when People Ate Tulips
It’s the 80th anniversary of the Dutch Hongerwinter during World War II, which led to widespread starvation, and an inadvertent breakthrough in treating deadly celiac disease.
Tue, December 03, 2024
Why Keep a Diary of a Toxic Snakebite?
After 40 years of studying snakes, Karl Schmidt finally suffered his first bite. And when he did, he kept a gruesome diary to document the suffering and danger—right up to the edge of death...
Tue, November 19, 2024
Machiavellian Microbes
Parasites can force animals to do nefarious things by manipulating their minds—including, uncomfortably, the minds of human beings.
Tue, November 12, 2024
The Woman Who “Turned Back a Plague of Old Testament Proportions”
In refusing to approve the drug thalidomide, FDA scientist Frances Oldham Kelsey spared thousands of babies from deadly birth defects and revolutionized drug research. But was her legacy all good?
Mon, November 04, 2024
The Doom Lurking inside Trees
Japanese physicist Fusa Miyake has sparked a revolution in archaeology by studying radioactive tree rings—work that also terrifies astronomers, who fear it foretells doom for our civilization.
Tue, October 29, 2024
The Mona Lisa of the Seine
A woman who drowned in Paris became one of the most famous faces in the world as the model for CPR dummies, saving millions of lives and inspiring artists from Pablo Picasso to Michael Jackson—all while remaining completely unknown.
Tue, October 22, 2024
Savant Idiots
In the early 1800s, the first Egyptian mummies in Europe served as a crucial test for evolution—a test that, according to people then, evolution flunked.
Tue, October 15, 2024
When Mummymania Swept the World
In the 1800s, mummies found their way into everything from fertilizer to food, and were especially prized as medicine. Mummymania was a strange time...
Tue, October 08, 2024
The Sadder Side of the Nobel Prizes
How did a man who developed a Nobel Prize–worthy idea (green-fluorescing protein, GFP) end up driving a shuttle van for a living, and missing the Prize completely? Therein lies a sad story...
Mon, September 30, 2024
The Scientific Way to Fool a Nazi
Physicist Gyorgy Hevesy had a talent for tricks and stunts—including one that prevented Nazi stormtroopers from stealing a gold Nobel Prize.
Wed, June 26, 2024
The Mysterious Mote
A summer bonus episode: Russ Schnell's professors mocked him for believing that plants somehow caused hailstorms. He not only proved them wrong, but uncovered profound connections between life, earth, and the air above...
Tue, May 14, 2024
The Science of D-Day
Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, a look at the surprisingly important role science played in shaping—and remaking—an invasion that could have easily been a disaster...
Tue, May 07, 2024
Can Plastic Surgery Keep You out of Prison?
One doctor’s controversial crusade to keep men and women out of prison through nose jobs, eye lifts, and other plastic surgery.
Tue, April 30, 2024
The Russian Roswell
In 1959, nine Russian hikers mysteriously died on a trek through the snowy wilderness—fueling a half-century of hysterical conspiracies. Has science finally cracked the case?
Tue, April 23, 2024
When Tenure Means Life and Death
After a tenure dispute, mechanical engineer Valery Fabrikant murdered four colleagues in cold blood at his university in Montreal. So why is he still allowed to publish scientific papers?
Tue, April 16, 2024
A Deadly Soup for Babies
Chemist Justus von Liebig was perhaps the most famous scientist in the world in the mid-1800s—but quickly became infamous for his role in the killing of four starving infants.
Tue, April 09, 2024
How the “Worst Serial Killer in Holland’s History” Went Free
Patient after patient died under the care of a single nurse in Holland. So why did so many statisticians think Lucia de Berk was innocent?
Tue, April 02, 2024
The Eclipse that Killed a King
Rama IV of Siam (from the “King and I” musical) used an eclipse to save his kingdom from greedy colonial powers. But it cost him his own life in the end.
Tue, March 26, 2024
When Generosity Turns Pathological
One Brazilian man’s brain damage transformed him into a selfless giver. So why did he infuriate so many people—and what does his case say about the biological roots of generosity?
Tue, March 19, 2024
The Sex-Cult “Antichrist” Who Rocketed Us to Space (part 2)
Jack Parsons was a devil-worshipping FBI rat who led a sex cult and was bosom buddies with L. Ron Hubbard. He was also one of the most important rocket scientists in history. (Episode 2 of 2)
Tue, March 12, 2024
The Sex-Cult “Antichrist” Who Rocketed Us to Space (part 1)
Jack Parsons was a devil-worshiping FBI rat who led a sex cult and was bosom buddies with L. Ron Hubbard. He was also one of the most important rocket scientists in history. (Episode 1 of 2)
Tue, January 16, 2024
Don't Drink the Milk bonus episode - Milk: From mutations to mustaches
Who put the cheese in your stuffed-crust pizza? Or cows on a Caribbean island? And when more than half the world's population can't actually digest milk, is it really essential for a healthy diet? On a trip through time and taste—to dairy-obsessed Bulgaria, colonial Trinidad and Tobago and the ‘Got Milk?’ era—we explore humanity's millennia-long relationship with milk. Listen to Don't Drink the Milk wherever you get your podcasts! https://pod.link/1704462801 Also on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpBAZYDqAE8nzvIRx2dApgkDi3zkSe3GS
Tue, November 14, 2023
Was Darwin a Murderer?
In 1878, two Paris dandies murdered an old woman—and blamed Charles Darwin for their crime. But the wild scandal that followed only solidified Darwin as the greatest scientist of his age...
Tue, November 07, 2023
Mass Psychosis in Food Science
Americans happily ate monosodium glutamate for decades. Then one (possibly fake) letter sparked mass hysteria over “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”, and the bogus MSG scare was born...
Tue, October 31, 2023
Accounting for Taste
Scientists have confirmed five basic human tastes—sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami. But is that all? Debate now rages about adding a sixth or seventh or even eighth(!) to the Big Five...
Tue, October 24, 2023
If Indiana Jones Were a Swindler
James Mellaart discovered one of the most important archaeological sites ever, Çatalhöyük in Turkey. But his lust for treasure—and a penchant for fraud—led him to throw it all away...
Tue, October 17, 2023
The British Tobacco Empire
He helped launch the British Empire and spawned a public-health epidemic that killed hundreds of millions of people. Blame him for the lost colony of Roanoke, too. Thomas Harriot has a lot to answer for...
Tue, October 10, 2023
"Moldy Mary," The Forgotten Mother of Penicillin
She helped discover arguably the most important drug in history. And she got zero credit. They called her Moldy Mary—but she turned that insult into triumph...
Tue, October 03, 2023
The Most Exclusive Club in the World
As recent submersible tragedies reveal, it’s harder to reach extreme ocean depths than the Moon. Meet the people who got there first—and barely lived to tell to the tale...
Tue, September 26, 2023
Death-Defying Science at 75,000 Feet
You wouldn’t think a lanky, awkward balloon geek would inspire Hollywood. But the death-defying Auguste Piccard was a worthy namesake for Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek fame...
Wed, September 20, 2023
Proving Einstein Right
Albert Einstein’s relativity was just another theory at first, speculative and unproven—until Arthur Eddington and a special eclipse. Meet the weirdo scientist who made Einstein into *Einstein*...
Tue, September 12, 2023
Einstein's Golden Moment
It was the most powerful emotional moment of Albert Einstein’s life—the instant he knew he was a genius. But in confirming his theory of relativity, it also opened him up to attacks, sometimes rather vicious, from around the world...
Tue, July 11, 2023
Everything You Know About Phineas Gage Is Wrong
Despite what you’ve heard, neuroscience’s most famous patient did not turn into a lying, drunken psychopath. He’s actually an amazing example of resiliency and overcoming trauma...
Tue, June 27, 2023
Why Do We Obsess Over Charles Darwin’s Health?
Is it serious historical work? Respectable gossip? Blatantly prying into people’s lives? Retro-diagnosing historical celebrities like Darwin and Lincoln and Hitler and Poe is all of the above and more...
Tue, June 20, 2023
The Seeds of Starvation
During the Nazi invasion of Russia during World War II, nine Soviet scientists starved to death surrounded by millions of delicious fruits, seeds, and nuts. Were they mad? No. They wanted to save humankind from doomsday...
Tue, June 13, 2023
When Scientific Brilliance Isn’t Enough
William Halford thought he had a surefire vaccine to stop herpes. And he wasn’t going to let anything—laws, ethics, his patients’ well-being—stop him from saving the world...
Tue, June 06, 2023
The Curse of Knowing Too Much
Paul Stoutenburgh knew more atomic secrets than anyone on Earth. So was that why he killed himself? And if not, why was the government (seemingly) so uninterested in getting to the bottom of his death?
Tue, May 30, 2023
The Enigmas of Foreign Accent Syndrome
Can you really collapse and wake up speaking a totally new language? Not quite. But “foreign accent syndrome” is a real, frightening—and bizarre—neurological disorder...
Tue, May 23, 2023
The World’s Only Natural Nuclear Reactor
What a bizarre site in Africa—a 1.7-billion-year-old, completely natural nuclear reactor—says about the future of energy production on planet Earth...
Tue, May 16, 2023
How New DNA Sleuthing Can Expose Dangerous Killers—and You
Genetic genealogy can catch brutal killers. It can also unmask affairs, secret adoptions, and other dark secrets. As well as expose you—yes, you—to the unholy alliance of Big Tech and shady police work...
Tue, May 09, 2023
The Real Tragedy of Robert Oppenheimer
He coulda would shoulda been the next Einstein. Instead, Robert Oppenheimer fritted away his talents on trendy science and political gamesmanship—and it burned him deep in his soul...
Tue, May 02, 2023
The Brilliant, Groundbreaking, and Wildly Overrated Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was brilliant, groundbreaking—and especially with regard to his science—wildly overrated. All because he lacked one all-important quality: sitzfleisch...
Mon, February 06, 2023
Spring update and "Innate" trailer
An update on the spring season of Disappearing Spoon (early episodes for Patreon subscribers!), plus a trailer for the new "Innate" series from the great people behind the Science History Institute's "Distillations podcast"
Tue, November 29, 2022
Death Squared
The “mouse utopia” experiment showed just how quickly animal heaven can turn into animal hell—and revealed how eager human beings are to interpret science through the lens of extremist politics...
Tue, November 22, 2022
Death by Nutrition
Polar explorer Douglas Mawson made several mistakes on his harrowing journey across Antarctica. But the biggest blunder involved eating animal livers oversaturated with vitamin A, a sure death sentence...
Tue, November 15, 2022
The Roadside Apocalypse
Automobiles kill several million animals every single day. Scientists are still coming to grips with the carnage...
Tue, November 08, 2022
The Blind Visionary
Thomas Schall was first blind member of Congress. There, he envisioned a better, smarter, more efficient world—brought about by his radical new calendar. Too bad the rest of us couldn’t see the future as clearly as he did...
Tue, November 01, 2022
The Scariest Paradise on Earth
The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Korea is a place of guns and heartache and anger—and also one of the most thriving natural wildlife habitats on Earth...
Tue, October 25, 2022
The Naked Shibboleth
Naked mole-rats are medical marvels—impervious to cancer and immune to old age. Too bad they’re also vicious murderers...
Tue, October 18, 2022
The Debaucherous Legacy of Johnny Appleseed
The Johnny Appleseed of Disney fame was complete bunk. He brought not wholesome apples to people, but liquor—and lots of it, all thanks to the bizarre biology of this misunderstood fruit...
Tue, October 11, 2022
The Most Evil Molecule
It fueled slavery, as well as the Nazi death machine. It kills millions of people every year through cancer and heart disease. And you almost certainly have some in your home. That’s the legacy of sugar...
Tue, October 04, 2022
The Life-Saving Rat Poison
Warfarin was the best rat poison in history. It’s also, now, one of the most important, life-saving—and freakishly unlikely—drugs in the history of medicine...
Tue, September 27, 2022
The Making of a Lobotomist
Dr. Walter Freeman blamed himself for the death of his favorite son. But instead of reflecting or growing personally, he used that death to become the most notorious lobotomist in the history of medicine...
Tue, July 12, 2022
Icepick Surgeon bonus excerpt on the making of the Unabomber
A bonus excerpt from my book The Icepick Surgeon on the making of the Unabomber, through a cruel, unethical psychology experiment at Harvard University...
Tue, May 10, 2022
The Murderer Who Made Movies Possible
Like Leonardo and Albrecht Dürer before him, photographer Eadweard Muybridge was a legendary pioneer in both art and science. He was also a cold-blooded murderer.
Tue, May 03, 2022
Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and the Irish Giant
Charles Byrne was an eight-foot Irish giant ️who loved a beer or 3 with the lads. His funeral became a legendary party—as well as one of biggest scandals in science history, when a famous anatomist named John Hunter stole his body for dissection.
Tue, April 26, 2022
The Screwiest—and Perhaps Most Original—Idea of the 20th Century
The New York Times one credited biologist Edward Knipling with “the most original idea of the 20th century.” What was it? A way to fight the screwworm, the vilest parasite on earth—and maybe stop malaria, the deadliest disease in human history, too.
Tue, April 19, 2022
The Bird with Four Sexes
What a strange little sparrow can teach us about love, sex, human biology, and a whole lot more...
Tue, April 12, 2022
When the Brain Deceives Itself
Can we ever truly lie to ourselves? Actually, yes—just ask Woodrow Wilson and William O. Douglas. They’re two famous examples of a bizarrely common neurological disorder. One that you might have fallen victim to yourself...
Tue, April 05, 2022
Stephen Hawking and the Black Hole Mistake that Made His Career
In 1971, Stephen Hawking made a hasty, emotional mistake in a paper about black holes—and it turned out to be the smartest thing he ever did. Sometimes in science, big blunders are the best way forward...
Tue, March 29, 2022
Albert Einstein and the Worst Prediction in the History of Science
Albert Einstein’s self-proclaimed “biggest blunder”—the cosmological constant in his theory of relativity—turned out to not be blunder at all. In fact, it might hold the key to the future of physics. (Now that’s genius!)
Tue, March 22, 2022
How to Be Smarter than Isaac Newton
You think Isaac Newton was smart? Not so fast. He made one mistake so dumb that scholars still shake their heads over it. Find out how to avoid this mistake—and be smarter than Newton—in this episode...
Tue, March 15, 2022
Claude Monet and Bee Purple
When Impressionist painter Claude Monet developed cataracts, he thought his painting career was over. Hardly. He actually developed a human superpower—the ability to see, like bees do, a much wider range of colors...
Tue, March 08, 2022
The Unsung Heroes of Darwin’s Evolution
Charles Darwin didn’t give a crap about Galápagos finches, despite what you maybe heard. So what animals did light his fire while forming his theory of evolution? Pigeons, worms, and especially a despised marine pest—the lowly barnacle...
Tue, December 07, 2021
The Sinister Angel Singers of Rome
How a simple operation—castrating little boys—produced the greatest singers the world has ever known...
Tue, November 30, 2021
The Murderous Origins of the American Medical Association
How a bloody gun duel between two doctors in Transylvania sparked a frenzy of outrage—as well as the American Medical Association...
Tue, November 23, 2021
The Big ‘What If’ of Cancer
How a feisty, suicidal Nobel laureate infuriated both Hitler and Stalin, and stalled cancer research for fifty years along the way...
Tue, November 16, 2021
The Harvard Medical School Janitor Who Solved a Murder
In a building full of dead bodies, how can you tell a murder victim from an unlucky stiff?
Tue, November 09, 2021
Burn After Watching
The world’s first plastic made Hollywood possible—and killed thousands of people along the way...
Tue, November 02, 2021
History’s First Car Crash Victim
How a steam-powered automobile in 1869 snuffed out the life of the brilliant female naturalist and astronomer Mary Ward...
Tue, October 26, 2021
Real Life Zombies
What a bizarre psychological disorder can teach us about memory, human nature, and our sense of who we are
Tue, October 19, 2021
How Climate Change Will Remake the Human Body
Scientists know how other animals’ bodies will change in warmer climates, but how will human beings respond?
Tue, October 12, 2021
The ‘Mary Poppins’ Cancer
The life of chimneysweeps was nasty, poor, brutish, filthy dirty, and usually short, thanks to a rare cancer of the genitals...
Tue, October 05, 2021
Kangaroo (and Pig and Monkey and Dog and Donkey) Courts
The long, wacky, and surprisingly thought-provoking history of trying animals in human courts...
Tue, July 13, 2021
Icepick Surgeon audiobook excerpt
The prologue and introduction to the book The Icepick Surgeon. Written by Sam Kean, read by Ben Sullivan.
Tue, June 01, 2021
The Anatomy Riots
How early anatomists provoked some of the strangest riots in history, over stolen corpses (plus, bonus preview of my new book, The Icepick Surgeon!)
Tue, May 25, 2021
When a Hole in the Head Is Good for You
How a rogue archaeologist in Peru—and a stolen skull—provided the first real evidence that ancient people practiced neurosurgery...
Tue, May 18, 2021
When Mosquitos Cured Insanity
How one doctor in the early 1900s risked the lives of patients by pitting one ancient scourge (malaria) against another (syphilis)—and won a Nobel Prize in the process...
Tue, May 11, 2021
The Death of the Lord God Bird
How greed, and a group of Nazi prisoners, killed off one of the most iconic birds in American history, the ivory-billed woodpecker...
Tue, May 04, 2021
Chewing it Over—and Over and Over and Over
How a weird “scientific” diet fad conquered America in the early 1900s—and easily could have lost World War One for the Allies...
Tue, April 27, 2021
What's the Longest Word in the English Language?
How the unique properties of carbon produced a 1,185-letter word...
Tue, April 20, 2021
Why Don't We Have a Male Birth Control Pill Yet?
How a bottle of prison hooch doomed the most promising candidate in history for a male birth-control pill, and why scientists still can't make one today... https://www.patreon.com/disappearingspoon
Bonus · Fri, April 16, 2021
Bonus interview with WNYC's Science Diction
A two-fer: (1) A bonus interview with me about the orphan vaccine episode, from a great WNYC podcast called Science Diction. (2) A short episode of Science Diction on Edward Jenner and the very first vaccines.
Tue, April 13, 2021
Marie Curie's (Nearly Disastrous) Trip to America
How the women of America, exactly 100 years ago, scrimped and saved and sacrificed to secure a vital gram of radium for their scientific hero, Marie Curie...
Tue, April 06, 2021
The Most Important Lost Fossils in History
How the legendary Peking Man fossils from China disappeared in the 1940s, and why archaeologists think that maybe—just maybe—they now know where to find them...
Tue, March 30, 2021
The World’s First Global Vaccine Supply Chain Was Orphan Children
How did they spread vaccines around the world in the early 1800s? By injecting orphans and forcing them onto a ship...
Mon, November 30, 2020
The Joys, and Pains, of Operating on Yourself
Why otherwise sane and rational doctors love experimenting on themselves—up to and including self-surgery...
Fri, November 13, 2020
A School Shooting for Science
When a crank scientist needed to get the attention of Einstein and others for his crazy physics theory, there was only one sure way he knew to get publicity: murder...
Thu, October 15, 2020
Star Wars, Death Rays, and Donald Trump
How the brilliant geek Nikola Tesla grew obsessed with an outlandish “death ray,” and the ray’s surprising connection to Donald Trump
Thu, October 01, 2020
Vitamin G
How one heroic doctor, and his revolting experiments, singlehandedly ended the deadliest dietary epidemic disease in American history...
Tue, September 15, 2020
The CIA’s Drug-Fueled Orgies and You
How the Central Intelligence Agency’s recklessly outrageous Operation Midnight Climax revealed some surprising psychological insights into sex, drugs, and human nature...
Tue, September 01, 2020
From Siberia with (Manipulative) Love
How two Russian scientists defied death and imprisonment to run a top-secret genetics experiment, and what it revealed about how dogs, babies, and stuffed animals manipulate our minds...
Mon, August 17, 2020
The Man Who Couldn’t Read Numbers
An Oliver-Sacks-like tale of a man with brain damage who can’t read numbers—even though he can still read words just fine! His amazing case could also shed light on the mysteries of human consciousness...
Thu, August 06, 2020
The Teflon Bomb
How did the nonstick frying pan in your kitchen make the first atomic bomb possible? A story about the innocent-seeming Teflon for this week’s 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs...
Sat, August 01, 2020
Chocolate Cake & Atomic Bombs
A story for the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs: How a now-forgotten teahouse in Los Alamos and its unlikely owners—the spitfire Edith Warner and the Pueblo builder Tilano Montoya—influenced Robert Oppenheimer and changed the face of the whole Manhattan Project...
Tue, July 14, 2020
The Ice Island Murder
How one of the messiest homicides in history - when one scientist killed another scientist over a jug of raisin wine way up inside the Arctic Circle - foreshadows the first murder in outer space...
Tue, July 07, 2020
Our Slimy Nazi Saviors
How two crooked Nazis—and one top-secret scientific mission—saved thousands of American lives during World War II...
Tue, June 23, 2020
Are Braces a Health Disaster?
Why hunter-gatherers had perfect teeth, why modern humans rarely do, and the profound consequences for our health...
Tue, June 09, 2020
The Science Immigrants Who Saved Millions
How two unlikely immigrants teamed up and saved millions of women's lives by developing the most successful cancer screening tool in history...
Tue, June 02, 2020
Tyrannosaurus sex
How a man who hated dinosaurs ended up revolutionizing our understanding of them, including dinosaur beauty and dinosaur sex...
Fri, May 22, 2020
The Lost Dinosaurs of Central Park
How a New York mob boss destroyed what would have been greatest dinosaur museum in the world...
Mon, May 11, 2020
Exposing Nazi Medical Atrocities
How one Jewish doctor, Leo Alexander, single-handedly exposed the worst Nazi medical atrocities of World War II...
Mon, April 27, 2020
Glove at First Sight
How a long-forgotten woman pioneered the first personal protective equipment (PPE) in history, rubber gloves for surgery, equipment that has been vital in fighting infections and pandemics ever since...
Mon, April 20, 2020
Galileo and Art, part 2
How Galileo’s training in art helped topple the ancient Greek dogma about the moon...
Mon, April 20, 2020
Galileo and Art, part 1
How a nasty Renaissance spat toppled 2,000 years of Pythagoras...
Sat, October 26, 2019
Tea Test Tempest
How a not-so-friendly bet over afternoon tea revolutionized modern science...
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