The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

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About

A topsy-turvy science-y history podcast by Sam Kean. I examine overlooked stories from our past: the dental superiority of hunter-gatherers, the crooked Nazis who saved thousands of American lives, the American immigrants who developed the most successful cancer screening tool in history, the sex lives of dinosaurs, and much, much more. These are charming little tales that never made the history books, but these small moments can be surprisingly powerful. These are the cases where history gets inverted, where the footnote becomes the real story.

Creator

Sam Kean, Bleav

host

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Episodes(3)

10

The Publicity Stunt that Sparked the Scopes Monkey Trial

Dec 16, 202518 min

Exactly a century ago, teacher John Scopes was charged with the “crime” of teaching evolution. But Scopes was hardly a defiant Galileo, nobly standing up for truth. In fact, he never even taught evolution. (Really.) But despite the unseemly origins of the Monkey Trial, Scopes proved himself a genuin

9

The Great Balloon Escape

Dec 9, 202518 min

Astronomer Jules Janssen was desperate to escape the siege of Paris in 1870 and observe an eclipse in Africa—work that he hoped would confirm his discovery of a brand new element in the Sun, helium. So he devised a plan to escape the city in a hot-air balloon, despite promises by the German army to

8

The Corny, Cringy, Very Bad Television Show that Just Might Save Your Life

Dec 2, 202518 min

In the 1970s, paramedic units were illegal in the United States. One (very bad) television show, Emergency!, set out to change that—and saved tens of thousands of lives in the process.