The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean
A topsy-turvy science-y history podcast by Sam Kean. I examine overlooked stories from our past: the dental superiority of hunter-gatherers, the crooked Nazis who saved thousands of American lives, the American immigrants who developed the most successful cancer screening tool in history, the sex lives of dinosaurs, and much, much more. These are charming little tales that never made the history books, but these small moments can be surprisingly powerful. These are the cases where history gets inverted, where the footnote becomes the real story.
Latest episodes
Oct 1, 2020 • 21min
Vitamin G
How one heroic doctor, and his revolting experiments, singlehandedly ended the deadliest dietary epidemic disease in American history...
Sep 15, 2020 • 22min
The CIA’s Drug-Fueled Orgies and You
How the Central Intelligence Agency’s recklessly outrageous Operation Midnight Climax revealed some surprising psychological insights into sex, drugs, and human nature...
Sep 1, 2020 • 24min
From Siberia with (Manipulative) Love
How two Russian scientists defied death and imprisonment to run a top-secret genetics experiment, and what it revealed about how dogs, babies, and stuffed animals manipulate our minds...
Aug 17, 2020 • 19min
The Man Who Couldn’t Read Numbers
An Oliver-Sacks-like tale of a man with brain damage who can’t read numbers—even though he can still read words just fine! His amazing case could also shed light on the mysteries of human consciousness...
Aug 6, 2020 • 24min
The Teflon Bomb
How did the nonstick frying pan in your kitchen make the first atomic bomb possible? A story about the innocent-seeming Teflon for this week’s 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs...
Aug 1, 2020 • 24min
Chocolate Cake & Atomic Bombs
A story for the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs: How a now-forgotten teahouse in Los Alamos and its unlikely owners—the spitfire Edith Warner and the Pueblo builder Tilano Montoya—influenced Robert Oppenheimer and changed the face of the whole Manhattan Project...
Jul 14, 2020 • 24min
The Ice Island Murder
How one of the messiest homicides in history - when one scientist killed another scientist over a jug of raisin wine way up inside the Arctic Circle - foreshadows the first murder in outer space...
Jul 7, 2020 • 21min
Our Slimy Nazi Saviors
How two crooked Nazis—and one top-secret scientific mission—saved thousands of American lives during World War II...
Jun 23, 2020 • 23min
Are Braces a Health Disaster?
Why hunter-gatherers had perfect teeth, why modern humans rarely do, and the profound consequences for our health...
Jun 9, 2020 • 23min
The Science Immigrants Who Saved Millions
How two unlikely immigrants teamed up and saved millions of women's lives by developing the most successful cancer screening tool in history...
