Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Choosing Science: Stories of Perseverance, Humanity, and Success
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prof. Dr. Mario Capecchi or how to go from being a homeless child to Nobel Prize winner | 26 Jul 2025 | 00:20:12 | |
Mario Capecchi was one of the 3 scientists who were awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells”. However, him winning the most prestigious prize in science was not the most impressive thing he did in his life. For reference in terms of level of difficulty, it is somewhere above winning a Nobel prize and below surviving academic politics. He overcame abject poverty and homelessness as a child, with his earliest memory of his mother being arrested by the Nazis, and became a well rounded and kind scientist and person.
| |||
| Mice as discovery driver or how to be small, but help achieve great things | 28 Apr 2024 | 00:19:11 | |
Mice (17th century- current) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00849-x https://www.labome.com/method/Laboratory-Mice-and-Rats.html https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128165737000067 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3790571/ Cool facts: https://www.yourgenome.org/facts/why-use-the-mouse-in-research Video: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/science/optogenetics-brain-social-behavior.html Example failed animal trial: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964774/ Micronucleus test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronucleus_test
| |||
| Sir John Bertrand Gurdon (or how to succeed at proving people wrong) | 03 Oct 2021 | 00:36:14 | |
For the pilot episode of Choosing Science, we are going to learn about a Nobel Prize winner in Medicine who by all accounts of his school teachers shouldn't have even be able to pass a science test. He is a great example of inspiring rebellion and wholesome self acceptance, combined with pure curiosity and scientific passion.
| |||
| Prof. Rita Levi-Montalcini or how to create a completely new science field in one's bedroom | 20 Apr 2024 | 00:32:16 | |
Professor Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012) https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1302413110 “Rita Levi-Montalcini and the discovery of NGf, the first nerve cell growth factor” - Luigi ALOE, Archives Italiennes de Biologie, 149: 175-181, 2011. DOI: 10.4449/aib.v149i2.1377 http://www.architalbiol.org/index.php/aib/article/view/149175/21701989 In praise of imperfection : my life and work. Levi-Montalcini, Rita. 1988 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1986/levi-montalcini/lecture/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3612637/
| |||
| Williamina Paton Fleming or how to go from being a maid to changing astronomy forever | 02 Jul 2023 | 00:28:45 | |
Fleming, Williamina Paton (1857–1911)
| |||
| Prof. Dr. Frits Zernike or how the Nazis did something good by mistake | 12 Mar 2023 | 00:30:25 | |
Frits Zernike Although he spent his whole life from birth to retirement in the cities of Amsterdam and then Groningen, his life was far from ordinary. Incredibly intelligent and gifted, having the rare combination of simultaneously being a fine theoretician and skilled experimentalist, Frits Zernike started his scientific journey in astronomy and then applied his findings in microscopy. Before his discovery was recognised and awarded a Nobel prize, the Nazis were the first to see the potential in Zernike’s achievement and popularized it, altough it was made public for more than a decade. This is the story of the man that made it possible to see what couldn’t be seen ever before.
| |||
| Prof. Dr. Lynn Margulis or how to be so good you get to use swearwords in your scientific titles | 19 Dec 2022 | 00:46:03 | |
Although now Lynn Margulis is as the historian Jan Sapp has said "as synonymous with symbiosis as Charles Darwin's is with evolution", she faced intense criticism in her lifetime. At the beginning her ideas elicited responses such as, "Your research is crap. Don't ever bother to apply again" and has been intitally rejected by 15 journals, in the end her passion and stubbornness prevailed. Strong in her opinions and unbothered by other people's vitriolic attitudes, she was also soft at heart and left a lasting mark on many lives. Lynn lived on one speed only, trailblazing and revolutionizing science and how modern scientist think about the basic biological unit of the eukaryotic cell and its origins. May we all have half of the fate she had in her ideas! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlhW12dGfFk https://www.thoughtco.com/about-lynn-margulis-1224847 https://www.nature.com/articles/480458a https://www.edge.org/conversation/lynn_margulis-lynn-margulis-1938-2011-gaia-is-a-tough-bitch Email: choosingscience@gmail.com
| |||
| Dr. Walle Nauta or how to stick it to the Nazis while revolutionising neuroscience | 19 Jun 2022 | 00:20:51 | |
Dr. Walle Nauta was not only a brilliant neuroanatomist and scientist of the 20th century, but also a selfless, brave soul. He revolutionised research tools in neuroscience, making it possible to better understand one of the biggest mysteries of humankind, our brain. Exigent, but kind, intuitive, but rigorous, and most of all, humble, he lived a life to remember. Brady, Boyd Campbell, Sven Ebbesson, Ford Ebner, Michael Fuortes, Robert Galambos, William Hodos, David Hubel, Harvey Karten, JacSue Kehoe, John Mason, William Mehler, James Petras, George Moushegian, Enrique Ramón- Moliner, Felix Strumwasser, and Eliot Valenstein. http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/nauta-walle-j-h.pdf https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=6748569&ind=NaN
| |||
| Dr. Hilde Mangold or how to live your life on fast forward | 01 Apr 2022 | 00:27:36 | |
The short but fruitful life of Hilde Mangold produced one of the few doctoral dissertation that has ever been directly linked to a Nobel prize. 2. https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/jax-blog/2016/october/women-in-science-hilde-mangold# 3. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1935/spemann/lecture/ 4. Hilde Mangold (1898-1924) and Spemann's organizer: achievement and tragedy Peter E. Fiissler*, Klaus Sander Institut ftir Biologie I (Zoologie) der Albert-Ludwigs-Universit~it, Albertstrasse 21 a, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany 5. Hilde Mangold, Co-Discoverer of the Organizer VIKTOR HAMBURGER 6. https://veteriankey.com/development-of-important-model-species-ii-vertebrates/
| |||
| Dr. George Washington Carver or how to have God as your lab assistant | 30 Jan 2022 | 00:31:09 | |
Born just as slavery was abolished, Dr. George Washington Carver has managed to change the agricultural landscape of America through pure empiricism and perseverance and was one of the first African-American pioneers and inventors who rose all by himself to popularity and international recognition. 2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Washington-Carver 3. https://blackiowa.org/?s=carver 4. https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/famous-inventors/george-washington-carvers-inventions.htm
| |||
| Dr. Eng. Eliza Leonida-Zamfirescu (or how to crush your oposition with an ungodly amount of patience and work) | 14 Nov 2021 | 00:17:26 | |
Have you ever asked yourself who were the first women that had the courage to go against society's expectations and pursue "unfeminine" careers such as engineering? (the only answer accepted here is "yes", sorry).
| |||