The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

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!

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! 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.

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. 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!

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... 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!

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. 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!

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. 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!

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. 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!

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!

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”.

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”.

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!

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: Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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... Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Parasites can force animals to do nefarious things by manipulating their minds—including, uncomfortably, the minds of human beings. Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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? Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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. Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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. Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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. Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In the 1800s, mummies found their way into everything from fertilizer to food, and were especially prized as medicine. Mummymania was a strange time... Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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... Our Sponsors: * Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/SPOON Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy