Golden Goose

14 snips

Feb 17, 2023

Dive into a whimsical journey through the Golden Goose Awards, celebrating scientific breakthroughs that once seemed laughable. From the intriguing evolution of bladeless LASIK to the deadly yet fascinating cone snails, the narrative uncovers medical innovations hidden beneath the surface of a seemingly trivial childhood memory. Meet Toto, a lonely Filipino boy whose innocent discovery set off a chain reaction leading to life-changing medical advances. It's a vibrant blend of storytelling and science that redefines how we perceive research.

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ANECDOTE

Barnyard Riddle

The podcast starts with a riddle: a sheep provokes a goose, goes to rats and bees, and finally, a snail that eats fish.
This riddle introduces a journey through seemingly silly science with profound impacts.

ANECDOTE

Golden Fleece Award

Senator William Proxmire created the Golden Fleece Award to shame government-funded research he deemed wasteful.
He targeted projects like studying love, cooking times, and inmate escape motivations.

ANECDOTE

Misunderstood Research

Alan Leshner highlights that seemingly frivolous research, like studying alcoholic rats or the screw-worm's sex life, led to major breakthroughs.
Proxmire's Golden Fleece Awards often misrepresented the research and harmed scientists' careers.

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After years of being publicly shamed for “fleecing” the taxpayers with their frivolous and obscure studies, scientists decided to hit back with… an awards show?! This episode, we gate-crash the Grammys of government-funded research, A.K.A. the Golden Goose Awards. The twist of these awards is that they go to scientific research that at first sounds trivial or laughable but then turns out to change the world. We tell the story of one of the latest winners: a lonely Filipino boy who picked up an ice cream cone that was actually a covert vampire assassin. Decades later, that discovery leads to an even bigger one: an entire pharmacy's worth of new drugs hidden just below the surface of the ocean.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Reported by - Latif Nasser and Maria Paz Gutiérrezwith help from - Ekedi Fausther-KeeysProduced by - Maria Paz Gutiérrez and Matt Kieltywith help from Ekedi Fausther-KeeysOriginal music and sound design contributed by Matt Kieltywith mixing help from Arianne Wack. Fact-checking by Emily KriegerEditing by Soren Wheeler, who thought the whole episode should have been a little shorter.

Special thanks to Erin Heath, Haylie Swenson, Gwendolyn Bogard, Valeria Sabate and everyone else at AAAS who oversee the Golden Goose Awards. Also to Maggie Luddy, and former Congressman Jim Cooper, Terry Lee Merritt at University of Utah, Jim Tranquada, John McCormack, and the Cosman Shell Collection at Occidental College.

CITATIONS:

Videos -

Gorgeous slo mo video of cone snails hunting (https://zpr.io/uiWrS3J2BuZM).

A recent segment from our down-the-hall neighbors at On The Media (https://zpr.io/VZHSLPdkdAxH) about breakthrough science featuring the late Senator William Proxmire.

Check out dazzling documentary shorts on each of the Golden Goose Awards winners (https://zpr.io/Tpxxrzzuz6GS) on their website.

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.