The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean – Details, episodes & analysis

A summer bonus episode: Russ Schnell's professors mocked him for believing that plants somehow caused hailstorms. He not only proved them wrong, but uncovered profound connections between life, earth, and the air above...

Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, a look at the surprisingly important role science played in shaping—and remaking—an invasion that could have easily been a disaster...

Jack Parsons was a devil-worshiping FBI rat who led a sex cult and was bosom buddies with L. Ron Hubbard. He was also one of the most important rocket scientists in history. (Episode 1 of 2)

Who put the cheese in your stuffed-crust pizza? Or cows on a Caribbean island? And when more than half the world's population can't actually digest milk, is it really essential for a healthy diet? On a trip through time and taste—to dairy-obsessed Bulgaria, colonial Trinidad and Tobago and the ‘Got Milk?’ era—we explore humanity's millennia-long relationship with milk.

Listen to Don't Drink the Milk wherever you get your podcasts! https://pod.link/1704462801

Also on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpBAZYDqAE8nzvIRx2dApgkDi3zkSe3GS

In 1878, two Paris dandies murdered an old woman—and blamed Charles Darwin for their crime. But the wild scandal that followed only solidified Darwin as the greatest scientist of his age...

Americans happily ate monosodium glutamate for decades. Then one (possibly fake) letter sparked mass hysteria over “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”, and the bogus MSG scare was born...

Scientists have confirmed five basic human tastes—sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami. But is that all? Debate now rages about adding a sixth or seventh or even eighth(!) to the Big Five...

James Mellaart discovered one of the most important archaeological sites ever, Çatalhöyük in Turkey. But his lust for treasure—and a penchant for fraud—led him to throw it all away...

He helped launch the British Empire and spawned a public-health epidemic that killed hundreds of millions of people. Blame him for the lost colony of Roanoke, too. Thomas Harriot has a lot to answer for...

She helped discover arguably the most important drug in history. And she got zero credit. They called her Moldy Mary—but she turned that insult into triumph...