Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchAnna-Luna Post, "Galileo’s Fame: Science, Credibility, and Memory in the Seventeenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)
From the beginning of Galileo’s career, well before the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, his contemporaries took pains to shape his reputation an…
4 months ago
Robert Endres, "The Unreasonable Likelihood of Being: Origin of Life, Terraforming, and AI" (arXiv, 2025)
In this episode we discuss the paper "The Unreasonable Likelihood of Being: Origin of Life, Terraforming, and AI" (arXiv, 2025) with Robert Endres.
P…
4 months ago
Vanessa Rampton, "Making Medical Progress: History of a Contested Idea" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Answers to the question 'what is medical progress?' have always been contested, and any one response is always bound up with contextual ideas of pers…
4 months, 1 week ago
Tom Bolton, "Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain’s Nuclear Power Stations" (Strange Attractor, 2025)
The United Kingdom has sixteen nuclear power stations. Most go under the radar, but their presence is enormous, both physically and culturally. They …
4 months, 2 weeks ago
Oren Harman, "Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History" (Basic Books, 2025)
A search for the meaning of one of nature's greatest riddles: why do so many creatures transform?
“How many creatures walking on this earth / Have th…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
Tom Griffiths, "The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind" (Henry Holt and Co., 2026)
The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind (Henry Holt and Co., 2026) is an exploration of the quest to use mathematics to…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
Jennifer Vail, "Friction: A Biography" (Harvard UP, 2026)
Friction, the force that resists motion, is synonymous with difficulty and complication. If you’ve ever replaced tires worn smooth by the road or rea…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
John L. Rudolph, "Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Episode 129
Today I talked to John L. Rudolph about his book Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should) (Oxford UP, 2023).
Few people question the importance of sci…
4 months, 4 weeks ago
Max Telford, "The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
Are humans really fish? Why are we the only animals with chins? How much of our DNA do we share with the trillions of bacteria in our bodies? For cen…
4 months, 4 weeks ago
Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, "The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
A bold reimagining of life that bridges science, philosophy, cybernetics, and the complexities of biological existence
The Organism Is a Theory: Gius…
5 months, 1 week ago