Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchDavid J. Helfand, "The Universal Timekeepers: Reconstructing History Atom by Atom" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Episode 6
Atoms are unfathomably tiny. It takes fifteen million trillion of them to make up a single poppy seed—give or take a few billion. And there’s hardly …
10 months, 3 weeks ago
On Bullshit in AI
Today we’re continuing our series on Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit. I have the privilege to speak with Arvind Narayanan co-author of th…
10 months, 4 weeks ago
Anil Ananthaswamy, "Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI" (Dutton, 2024)
Episode 90
Machine learning systems are making life-altering decisions for us: approving mortgage loans, determining whether a tumor is cancerous, or deciding i…
10 months, 4 weeks ago
Book Talk 67 : The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science
Episode 141
What is reliable knowledge? Listen to philosopher Michael Strevens, author of The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science, to und…
10 months, 4 weeks ago
Kurt D. Fausch, "A Reverence for Rivers: Imagining an Ethic for Running Waters" (OSU Press, 2025)
In A Reverence for Rivers: Imagining an Ethic for Running Waters (OSU Press, 2025), Kurt Fausch draws on his experience as a stream ecologist, his i…
11 months ago
Rene Almeling, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, Brian T. Nguyen eds., "Seminal: On Sperm, Health, and Politics" (NYU Press, 2025)
In Seminal: On Sperm, Health, and Politics, Rene Almeling, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, and Brian T. Nguyen come together across disciplines to offer a kal…
11 months ago
Robert N. Spengler, "Nature's Greatest Success: How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity" (Univ of California Press, 2025)
The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labor force--and the science behind it.
Domesticated crops were not huma…
11 months ago
Paul Sen, "Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe" (Scribner, 2021)
Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe (Scribner, 2021) tells the incredible epic story of the scientists w…
11 months, 1 week ago
Savannah Mandel on an Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration
Episode 100
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with space anthropologist, writer, and Virginia Tech doctoral candidate, Savannah Mandel, about her book, Gr…
11 months, 2 weeks ago
Kevin J. Tracey, "The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes" (Penguin, 2025)
The vagus nerve is fundamental to our health and vitality, coordinating critical functions from the precise heartbeat we need to exercise or rest to …
11 months, 2 weeks ago