Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchPaul A. Offit, "You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation" (Basic Book, 2021)
Episode 143
Every medical decision—whether to have chemotherapy, an X-ray, or surgery—is a risk, no matter which way you choose. In You Bet Your Life: From Blood…
4 years, 4 months ago
Emily Levesque, "The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers" (Sourcebooks, 2021)
Episode 113
Humans from the earliest civilizations through today have craned their necks each night, using the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange w…
4 years, 4 months ago
Renny Thomas, "Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment" (Routledge, 2021)
Episode 168
Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (Routledge, 2021) provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context…
4 years, 4 months ago
Lina Zeldovich, "The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste Into Wealth and Health" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
Episode 112
The average person produces about four hundred pounds of excrement a year. More than seven billion people live on this planet. Holy crap!
Because of t…
4 years, 4 months ago
Leonard Mlodinow, "Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking" (Pantheon, 2022)
Episode 91
Today I talked to Leonard Mdlodinow about his new book Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking (Pantheon, 2022).
"On or around December 1910, human…
4 years, 4 months ago
Walter R. Tschinkel, "Ant Architecture: The Wonder, Beauty, and Science of Underground Nests" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Episode 111
Walter Tschinkel has spent much of his career investigating the hidden subterranean realm of ant nests. This wonderfully illustrated book takes you i…
4 years, 4 months ago
Christopher Kemp, "Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation" (Norton, 2022)
Episode 14
Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have…
4 years, 5 months ago
Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani, "Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors" (PublicAffairs, 2021)
Episode 93
Human-made climate change may have begun in the last two hundred years, but our species has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results h…
4 years, 5 months ago
Speaking Bones: Unearthing Ancient Stories of Illness and Disease
Episode 49
From mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to chronic bacterial infections such as yaws, Southeast Asia is home to a wide range of tropi…
4 years, 5 months ago
John Cardina, "Lives of Weeds: Opportunism, Resistance, Folly" (Cornell UP, 2021)
Episode 110
Lives of Weeds: Opportunism, Resistance, Folly (Cornell UP, 2021) explores the tangled history of weeds and their relationship to humans. Through eig…
4 years, 5 months ago