The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

Exactly a century ago, teacher John Scopes was charged with the “crime” of teaching evolution. But Scopes was hardly a defiant Galileo, nobly standing up for truth. In fact, he never even taught evolution. (Really.) But despite the unseemly origins of the Monkey Trial, Scopes proved himself a genuine hero... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Astronomer Jules Janssen was desperate to escape the siege of Paris in 1870 and observe an eclipse in Africa—work that he hoped would confirm his discovery of a brand new element in the Sun, helium. So he devised a plan to escape the city in a hot-air balloon, despite promises by the German army to shoot him as a spy if he dared try... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In the 1970s, paramedic units were illegal in the United States. One (very bad) television show, Emergency!, set out to change that—and saved tens of thousands of lives in the process. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The work of Richard Meinertzhagen helped convince biologists that the Forest Owlet of India had gone extinct. But after Meinertzhagen’s frauds were exposed, one biologist grew obsessed with finding out whether it just might be alive still. (Part 2 of 2) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

He was a brilliant ornithologist—and a spy so colorful that James Bond was based on him. Richard Meinertzhagen was also a liar and a thief, and perpetrated the biggest fraud in biology history. Episode below! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Taxonomy has a sadly ugly history of naming species after despicable people—even Adolf Hitler. Given the controversy these names generate, there have been many calls to drop them. But taxonomists have so far resisted most of these efforts, for reasons both good and bad... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The eagle that made John James Audubon famous, the Bird of Washington was nothing but an elaborate lie. Fawning biographers have suppressed this fact for years, but careful historical work has unraveled the Audubon legend, and shown that much of his life, and work, was built on deceit. (Part 2 of 2) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

After several heartbreaking setbacks, John James Audubon’s career was in ruins—until he hatched a desperate plan to win new patrons. It involved a rare American eagle, the Bird of Washington. And when the gamble paid off, it made Audubon the most famous ornithologist in history... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

The Ig Nobel Prize is the bizarro cousin of the Nobel Prize—awarded for odd or unusual research “that first makes you laugh, then makes you think.” Some scientists hate them, and have refused to accept the award. But they’ve grown into a beloved institution—and one with some surprising benefits to science. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Winning a Nobel Prize is a good thing—mostly. But surprisingly often, Nobel laureates go kooky and start promoting bizarre things like homeopathy, ESP, AIDS denialism, and worse. Psychologists are starting to understand why... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

A preview of my brand new book, Dinner with King Tut! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Nazism was a society-wide catastrophe for Germany, but some professions deserve more blame than others. In particular, there was a surprisingly large percentage of doctors and engineers among the Nazis. Sociologists and historians have now worked out why. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

When Charles Dickens published Bleak House in 1852, he included a scene where one character spontaneously combusts. 🔥 🔥 🔥 Readers loved it, but one of Dickens’s good friends—a former scientist—blasted Dickens for his scientific ignorance. It ignited one of the strangest controversies in literary history. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

It was one the largest epidemics in American history: 30,000 people paralyzed over a few months in 1930. A dogged epidemiologist eventually traced the cause to adulterated bottles of an illegal liquor/medicine called “jake.” Yet the epidemic is almost completely forgotten. About the only place it survived was in blues songs... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Asbestos was once considered a miracle substance—a wonder of the modern age, due to its role in stopping the fires that once plagued every major city. Unfortunately, it also shreds people’s lungs. Most countries were willing to live with that trade-off, until a crusading doctor named Irving Selikoff made it his life's mission to get asbestos banned. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Rickets was once a devastating disease: up to 90 percent of the children showed symptoms in some cities, including bent spines and bowed legs, and it resulted in many women dying during childbirth. The search for the cause of rickets took decades, and ended with a startling discovery—that much like plants, human beings had the ability to photosynthesize. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Leonard Darwin had a lot to live up to. He was the son of the legendary Charles, and several siblings proved to be brilliant scientists as well. But Leonard never quite measured up as a mediocre military officer and two-bit politician. In his fifties, he pronounced his life a “failure.” But in his sixties, he finally found his calling—the dark pseudoscience of eugenics, a field he embraced in part to prove that he wasn’t the failure he imagined. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Podcast season finale below Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Parasites can force animals to do nefarious things by manipulating their minds—including, uncomfortably, the minds of human beings. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In the 1800s, mummies found their way into everything from fertilizer to food, and were especially prized as medicine. Mummymania was a strange time... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Physicist Gyorgy Hevesy had a talent for tricks and stunts—including one that prevented Nazi stormtroopers from stealing a gold Nobel Prize. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

One doctor’s controversial crusade to keep men and women out of prison through nose jobs, eye lifts, and other plastic surgery. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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*... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Leonardo da Vinci was brilliant, groundbreaking—and especially with regard to his science—wildly overrated. All because he lacked one all-important quality: sitzfleisch... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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" Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Automobiles kill several million animals every single day. Scientists are still coming to grips with the carnage... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Naked mole-rats are medical marvels—impervious to cancer and immune to old age. Too bad they’re also vicious murderers... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

A bonus excerpt from my book The Icepick Surgeon on the making of the Unabomber, through a cruel, unethical psychology experiment at Harvard University... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

What a strange little sparrow can teach us about love, sex, human biology, and a whole lot more... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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!) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

How a simple operation—castrating little boys—produced the greatest singers the world has ever known... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

How a bloody gun duel between two doctors in Transylvania sparked a frenzy of outrage—as well as the American Medical Association... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

How a feisty, suicidal Nobel laureate infuriated both Hitler and Stalin, and stalled cancer research for fifty years along the way... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In a building full of dead bodies, how can you tell a murder victim from an unlucky stiff? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands