The 3 Best Distillations | Science History Institute Podcast Episodes
1) The Fraud that Transformed Psychiatry
In 1973 a bombshell study appeared in the premier scientific journal Science. It was called “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” Its author, a Stanford psychology professor named David Rosenhan, claimed ...Show More
2) Sex(ism), Drugs, and Migraines
Egyptian scriptures from 1200 BCE describe painful, migraine-like headaches, so we know the disorder has afflicted people for at least three thousand years. Still, the condition continues to mystify u...Show More
3) Collecting Monstrosity
We’ve long been fascinated by the mysteries of reproduction. But that curiosity is piqued most intensely when something unexpected happens. The study of such “monstrous births,” as scientists once cal...Show More
4) Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment
Alexis Pedrick joins Katie Hafner to bring you an episode from The Lost Women of Science Initiative, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to telling the forgotten or untold stories of remar...Show More
5) The CRISPR Babies
In 2018 news broke that a Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had used CRISPR to edit human embryos, and twin girls had been born as a result. The story set off an explosive bioethical controversy. As gene...Show More
6) Humans and Monsters: An Interview with Surekha Davies
The fears about genetic engineering were stoked when experiments took off in the 1970s. From lab leaks to disease epidemics to the ability to make “Frankenstein creations,” many of those fears are sti...Show More
7) IVF: An Interview with Robin Marantz
Our producer Rigoberto Hernandez spoke with Robin Marantz, the author of Pandora’s Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution. She tells us about the history of IVF, from...Show More
8) Gene Therapy’s Families
When Rebekah and Evan Lockard’s daughter, Naomi, was diagnosed with a devastating ultra-rare genetic disease, they didn’t know where to turn. Then they found Terry Pirovolakis, an IT professional who ...Show More
9) Gene Therapy’s Dark Ages
Gene therapy is based on a simple-sounding, yet deceptively complicated premise: adding or replacing faulty genes to fix medical problems. A compelling idea that came out of breakthroughs in DNA resea...Show More
10) 'The Andromeda Strain': An Interview with Luis Campos
Producer Mariel Carr talks to historian of science and former Science History Institute fellow, Luis Campos, about his article “Strains of Andromeda: The Cosmic Potential Hazards of Genetic Engineerin...Show More