The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean
Arts
History
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.
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.Our Sponsors:*
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21:0310/05/2022
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.Our Sponsors:*
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18:3203/05/2022
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.Our Sponsors:*
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20:3926/04/2022
The Bird with Four Sexes
What a strange little sparrow can teach us about love, sex, human biology, and a whole lot more...Our Sponsors:*
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19:5819/04/2022
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...Our Sponsors:*
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18:1112/04/2022
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...Our Sponsors:*
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20:0305/04/2022
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!)Our Sponsors:*
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18:5029/03/2022
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...Our Sponsors:*
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17:3022/03/2022
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...Our Sponsors:*
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19:2015/03/2022
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...Our Sponsors:*
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20:4208/03/2022
The Sinister Angel Singers of Rome
How a simple operation—castrating little boys—produced the greatest singers the world has ever known...Our Sponsors:*
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18:4007/12/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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20:2130/11/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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20:1123/11/2021
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?Our Sponsors:*
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21:2716/11/2021
Burn After Watching
The world’s first plastic made Hollywood possible—and killed thousands of people along the way...Our Sponsors:*
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20:0209/11/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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14:5602/11/2021
Real Life Zombies
What a bizarre psychological disorder can teach us about memory, human nature, and our sense of who we areOur Sponsors:*
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17:3326/10/2021
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?Our Sponsors:*
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19:0019/10/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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18:5912/10/2021
Kangaroo (and Pig and Monkey and Dog and Donkey) Courts
The long, wacky, and surprisingly thought-provoking history of trying animals in human courts...Our Sponsors:*
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19:2205/10/2021
Icepick Surgeon audiobook excerpt
The prologue and introduction to the book The Icepick Surgeon. Written by Sam Kean, read by Ben Sullivan.Our Sponsors:*
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18:3613/07/2021
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!)Our Sponsors:*
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17:0901/06/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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16:1625/05/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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17:1718/05/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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19:3011/05/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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17:5204/05/2021
What's the Longest Word in the English Language?
How the unique properties of carbon produced a 1,185-letter word...Our Sponsors:*
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18:3727/04/2021
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/disappearingspoonOur Sponsors:*
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17:5720/04/2021
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.Our Sponsors:*
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26:1516/04/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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17:0813/04/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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19:2106/04/2021
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...Our Sponsors:*
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20:2630/03/2021
The Joys, and Pains, of Operating on Yourself
Why otherwise sane and rational doctors love experimenting on themselves—up to and including self-surgery...Our Sponsors:*
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17:1530/11/2020
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...Our Sponsors:*
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18:3913/11/2020
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 TrumpOur Sponsors:*
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19:0915/10/2020
Vitamin G
How one heroic doctor, and his revolting experiments, singlehandedly ended the deadliest dietary epidemic disease in American history...
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19:4101/10/2020
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...
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18:0715/09/2020
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...
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19:3201/09/2020
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...
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14:5017/08/2020
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...
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19:4206/08/2020
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...
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19:3201/08/2020
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...
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19:3314/07/2020
Our Slimy Nazi Saviors
How two crooked Nazis—and one top-secret scientific mission—saved thousands of American lives during World War II...
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16:5807/07/2020
Are Braces a Health Disaster?
Why hunter-gatherers had perfect teeth, why modern humans rarely do, and the profound consequences for our health...
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19:2823/06/2020
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...
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19:3109/06/2020
Tyrannosaurus sex
How a man who hated dinosaurs ended up revolutionizing our understanding of them, including dinosaur beauty and dinosaur sex...
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18:3802/06/2020
The Lost Dinosaurs of Central Park
How a New York mob boss destroyed what would have been greatest dinosaur museum in the world...
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18:1222/05/2020
Exposing Nazi Medical Atrocities
How one Jewish doctor, Leo Alexander, single-handedly exposed the worst Nazi medical atrocities of World War II...
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19:1911/05/2020
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...
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18:4027/04/2020
Galileo and Art, part 2
How Galileo’s training in art helped topple the ancient Greek dogma about the moon...
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17:2420/04/2020