Science History Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Today I speak with Steve Fetter about his work on a variety of nuclear disarmament efforts, including the Black Sea Experiment, nuclear archeology, the risks associated with a single person having the ability to start a nuclear war, ballistic missile defense, the weaponization of space, nuclear energy, and climate change. Steve received an SB in physics from MIT in 1981 and a PhD in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985. Steve has been a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland since 1988. Steve also served in government, including five years in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration, where he led the national security and international affairs division and the environment and energy division. Steve is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a recipient of their Leo Szilard Lectureship Award, as well as the Joseph A. Burton Forum Award, the Federation of American Scientists' Hans Bethe Science in the Public Service award, and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

Today we focus on the Soviet nuclear program with Thomas Cochran. Tom directed nuclear disarmament projects at the Natural Resources Defense Council from 1973 until his retirement in 2016. He has received numerous awards for his work on nuclear disarmament, including the public service award from the Federation of American Scientists and the Szilard Award from the American Physical Society, both in 1987. Tom was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1989, and, due to his work, the Natural Resources Defense Council received the AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award that same year. Today we discuss the Soviet nuclear weapons program, from Stalin finding out about the bomb to Gorbachev’s unilateral test moratorium. Tom played key roles in the seismic monitoring experiment, visits by US Congressional delegations to sensitive Soviet military installations, the Black Sea experiment, and other adventures in nuclear de-escalation.

A retrospective on the Franck-Hertz experiment, which resulted in James Franck and Gustav Hertz receiving the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Image credit: By Infoczo - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35281920

A retrospective on James Franck, recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The ability to extract DNA from ancient fragments of biological material has revolutionized our understanding of recent evolutionary history, including human evolution and phylogeography. Analysis of ancient DNA in tandem with radiocarbon dating, along with traditional archeological techniques, has led to a flurry of discoveries. With us to discuss this research is Maanasa Raghavan. Maanasa is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. 

The world just experienced a devastating pandemic, yet in the context of historical pandemics, COVID-19 was a relatively minor event in the history of disease. What do we know about the history of pandemics, including before written records, and what can we learn from this history? With us to answer these and other questions about the origins of epidemics and pandemics is Leslie Reperant. Leslie graduated with a doctorate of veterinary medicine at the National Veterinary School of Lyon, France in 2004 and obtained a PhD at Princeton University in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2010. Leslie's doctoral and post-doctoral studies focused on the interplay between the pathogenesis and evolution of influenza viruses, and on factors driving pathogen emergence and spread. Leslie is the author of Fatal Jump: Tracking the Origins of Pandemics, published in 2023 by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Before the advent of the germ theory of disease in the 1870s, quarantine provided one of the few effective means to prevent or alleviate epidemics. The Lazaretto quarantine station in Philadelphia illustrates the history of quarantine both before and after the discovery of pathogenic microbes. With us to explore the history of 18th and 19th century quarantine in Philadelphia, and what it meant for public health, is David Barnes. David teaches the history of medicine and public health at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is an Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science. David received a BA in history from Yale in 1984 and a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. His books include The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century France (University of California Press, 1995), The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth-Century Struggle against Filth and Germs (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), and Lazaretto: How Philadelphia Used an Unpopular Quarantine Based on Disputed Science to Accommodate Immigrants and Prevent Epidemics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023).

What are the commonalities between scaling the world's highest peaks and tackling the most challenging pollution problems? What was it like to enter the worlds of climbing and chemistry as a woman in the 1960s and 70s? With us to answer these questions is Arlene Blum. Arlene completed a bachelor's degree at Reed College in 1966 and a PhD in biophysical chemistry at Berkeley in 1971. She was a pioneering alpinist early in her career and a founder of the Green Science Policy Institute later in her career. She is the author of Annapurna - A Woman's Place, published by Counterpoint in 1980, and Breaking Trail, A Climbing Life, published by Harcourt in 2005.

Any intellectual endeavor runs the risk of bias. Today we explore ways in which political ideology interferes with scholarship, particularly in the social sciences, with a focus on social psychology. My guest is Lee Jussim, a distinguished professor of social psychology and the leader of the Social Perception Laboratory at Rutgers University. Lee is a prolific author and studies stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination; political radicalization; and other problems that impede science and society. Lee's books include Social Perception and Social Reality, which received the American Association of Publishers award for best book in psychology, as well as the edited volumes The Social Psychology of Morality, The Politics of Social Psychology, and Research Integrity. Lee is also a founding member of the Heterodox Academy, the Academic Freedom Alliance, and the Society for Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences.

The world's environmental problems demand solutions for the common good, which in turn necessitate environmental diplomacy. With us to untangle the messy history of environmental diplomacy is Mark Lytle. In addition to his long tenure as a professor at Bard College, Mark has taught at Yale, Vassar, and University College Dublin. Mark's books include The Origins of the Iranian-American Alliance, 1941-1953, America’s Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon, The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement, and The All-Consuming Nation: Pursuing the American Dream Since World War II.