Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchGiorgio Vallortigara, "Born Knowing: Imprinting and the Origins of Knowledge" (MIT Press, 2021)
Episode 76
Why do newborns show a preference for a face (or something that resembles a face) over a nonface-like object? Why do baby chicks prefer a moving obje…
4 years, 9 months ago
Eric. S. Hintz, "American Independent Inventors in an Era of Corporate R&D" (MIT Press, 2021)
Episode 2
Wonder how America's individual inventors persisted alongside corporate R&D labs as an important source of inventions beginning at the turn of the ea…
4 years, 9 months ago
Lisa T. Sarasohn, "Getting Under Our Skin: The Cultural and Social History of Vermin" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
Episode 90
For most of our time on this planet, vermin were considered humanity's common inheritance. Fleas, lice, bedbugs, and rats were universal scourges, as…
4 years, 9 months ago
Samuel Gershman, "What Makes Us Smart: The Computational Logic of Human Cognition" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Episode 142
At the heart of human intelligence rests a fundamental puzzle: How are we incredibly smart and stupid at the same time? No existing machine can match…
4 years, 9 months ago
Jonathan Rees, "The Chemistry of Fear: Harvey Wiley's Fight for Pure Food" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
Episode 89
Though trained as a medical doctor, chemist Harvey Wiley spent most of his professional life advocating for "pure food"—food free of both adulterants…
4 years, 9 months ago
Chris Bleakley, "Poems That Solve Puzzles: The History and Science of Algorithms" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Episode 67
As algorithms become ever more significant to and embedded in our everyday lives, ever more accessible introductions to them are needed. While severa…
4 years, 9 months ago
Tony Leggett, “The Problems of Physics, Reconsidered” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Episode 56
The Problems of Physics, Reconsidered is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Physics Nobel Laureate Tony Leggett. The …
4 years, 9 months ago
Bob Quinn and Liz Carlisle, "Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food" (Island Press, 2019)
Episode 79
How can farmers adapt to climate changes? How can regenerative farmers have livelihoods that nourish themselves and their communities? How can we bre…
4 years, 9 months ago
Nick Lane, “A Matter of Energy: Biology From First Principles” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Episode 55
A Matter of Energy: Biology From First Principles is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Nick Lane, Professor of Evolu…
4 years, 9 months ago
Allan V. Horwitz, "DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
Episode 88
Over the past seventy years, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, has evolved from a virtually unknown and little-used …
4 years, 9 months ago