The Constant: A History of Getting Things Wrong

A scandal-plagued Brooklyn coroner, a suspicious death during surgery, and allegations of abortion, fraud, and revenge set the stage for a revolutionary reform. Follow the tangled history of coroners, from medieval England to Massachusetts, where political corruption and disputed medical evidence inspire the creation of the world’s first medical examiner system.

An AI confidently invents corruption scandals, prompting a deep dive into why fluent machines can sound intelligent without understanding truth or context. The story travels from ELIZA and the Turing test to Deep Blue, Watson, AlphaGo, symbolic AI, and the elusive dream of artificial general intelligence. Along the way, it examines embodiment, intuition, and the risks of another AI bubble.

A mechanical chess-playing automaton that amazed European courts and baffled skeptics. The story follows the machine’s clever hidden workings and the people who built, toured, and profited from it. Anecdotes include royal matches, public exposés, and the device’s surprising influence on early computing and industrial inventions.

A metric-imperial mix-up turns a passenger jet into the Gimli Glider. Oil drops, overlooked researchers, and scientific prestige complicate the measurement of an electron’s charge. False particle sightings, faster-than-light neutrinos, and a loose fiber-optic cable reveal how tiny errors can shake physics. John Quincy Adams makes a final attempt to standardize American measurements.

A lively romp through the history of how people tried to standardize measurement. It follows perilous surveys from Dunkirk to Barcelona and the making of the original meter and kilogram artifacts. It traces scientific sleuthing that exposed tiny errors and mysterious mass drift. The story ends with a modern shift from metal standards to constants like the speed of light and Planck’s constant.

A scandalous oil heiress and the marble statue that echoed her life take center stage. Wealth, public outrage, and a marriage that shocked a town ripple through high society and small-town drama. Theft, disappearance, and a long search add mystery. A hidden sculpture is later recovered and restored, tying the strange saga together.

A remake dives into a messy 1980s movie about a brontosaurus and the strange true story behind it. The narrator traces a scientist's slide from respected researcher into cryptozoology and Congo expeditions chasing sauropod legends. Newspapers, explorers, questionable interviews, and creationist co-option of the myths all get roasted along the way.

A weird 18th-century alchemy tale about creating tiny humanlike creatures in jars and burying them in manure. Discussions cover secret societies, arcane lab rituals, and a mysterious ledger that records the care and calamities of these homunculi. The story traces earlier magical recipes, Islamic and Paracelsian techniques, and debates whether the whole thing was science, superstition, or a hoax.

A peek into subscriber-only bonus material about vintage marketing stunts like Quaker Oats' tiny land giveaways and the Klondike Big Inch campaign. A dive into scientific controversy over the platypus, from odd anatomy to the discovery of egg-laying. A dramatic 1930s Chicago baby-swap saga with media frenzy, legal battles, and a public reunion.

A brutal historical fight against Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and the scientists who risked everything. Conflicting strategies—dipping cattle, culling wildlife, and grazing bans—sparked legal battles and rancher sabotage. Dangerous lab experiments, accidental infections, and a makeshift vaccine trial change the course of the outbreak. The story traces program collapse, federal return, and the heavy human cost of scientific progress.