The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

You wouldn’t think a lanky, awkward balloon geek would inspire Hollywood. But the death-defying Auguste Piccard was a worthy namesake for Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek fame...

Albert Einstein’s relativity was just another theory at first, speculative and unproven—until Arthur Eddington and a special eclipse. Meet the weirdo scientist who made Einstein into *Einstein*...

This podcast explores Albert Einstein's confirmation of his theory of relativity, the failed attempts to find the hypothetical planet Vulcan, the experiment that challenged Newton's laws of motion, Einstein's revolutionary contributions to science, and his emotional experience while solving the mystery of Mercury's orbit.

Phineas Gage's story challenges misconceptions as he demonstrates resiliency and overcomes trauma. The podcast explores his life in Chile, his declining health and behavioral changes, and his lasting impact on neuroscience and the understanding of the brain's connection to personality and self-identity.

Is it serious historical work? Respectable gossip? Blatantly prying into people’s lives? Retro-diagnosing historical celebrities like Darwin and Lincoln and Hitler and Poe is all of the above and more...

During the Nazi invasion of Russia during World War II, nine Soviet scientists starved to death surrounded by millions of delicious fruits, seeds, and nuts. Were they mad? No. They wanted to save humankind from doomsday...

William Halford thought he had a surefire vaccine to stop herpes. And he wasn’t going to let anything—laws, ethics, his patients’ well-being—stop him from saving the world...

Paul Stoutenburgh knew more atomic secrets than anyone on Earth. So was that why he killed himself? And if not, why was the government (seemingly) so uninterested in getting to the bottom of his death?

Can you really collapse and wake up speaking a totally new language? Not quite. But “foreign accent syndrome” is a real, frightening—and bizarre—neurological disorder...

What a bizarre site in Africa—a 1.7-billion-year-old, completely natural nuclear reactor—says about the future of energy production on planet Earth...