Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Science history • Unusual stories • Forgotten moments • Historical frauds • Scientific controversies • Extraordinary individuals • Misunderstood discoveries • Biological mysteries • Cultural impact • Significant yet obscure events
This podcast, "The Disappearing Spoon," explores intriguing and often overlooked stories from the history of science and beyond. Hosted by Sam Kean, the show delves into fascinating anecdotes and scandals that have shaped scientific understanding and impacted historical events in unexpected ways. The podcast covers a wide range of topics, frequently revisiting themes of deception, scientific discovery, and historical intrigue.
Listeners will encounter tales of scientific fraud and the colorful lives of historical figures, such as ornithologists who influenced taxonomy through both brilliance and deceit. The show also examines the questionable decisions and ethical dilemmas that have emerged within the scientific community over time. Episodes often highlight instances where scientists, swindlers, and tricksters intersect, showcasing how these interactions have informed broader historical narratives.
Other recurring themes include the interplay between science and society, as well as the powerful effects of scientific communication or lack thereof—ranging from Nobel Prize controversies and the unintended consequences of scientific advancements to the cultural impacts of scientific phenomena like comet appearances and large-scale epidemics.
Each episode typically presents these explorations through storytelling that unravels complex historical and scientific details, offering listeners an opportunity to think about the human elements behind scientific endeavors. From the creative makings of pseudoscience and forgotten contributions to cautionary tales of hysteria and breakthroughs, this podcast provides a unique lens into the often untold tales that color our understanding of the past and influence the present narrative of science in society. Through engaging anecdotes, it aims to transform historical footnotes into compelling stories that resonate with today’s audiences.
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Episodes:
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The Publicity Stunt that Sparked the Scopes Monkey Trial
2025-Dec-16
18 minutes
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The Great Balloon Escape
2025-Dec-09
18 minutes
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The Corny, Cringy, Very Bad Television Show that Just Might Save Your Life
2025-Dec-02
18 minutes
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Bringing an Extinct Owl Back to Life
2025-Nov-18
19 minutes
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Trickster, Birder, Soldier, Spy
2025-Nov-11
18 minutes
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Why Not Just Rename the “Hitler Beetle”?
2025-Nov-04
19 minutes
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John James Fraudubon
2025-Oct-28
18 minutes
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The Bird that Made John James Audubon a Legend
2025-Oct-21
18 minutes
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The Dignity of the Ig Nobel Prizes
2025-Oct-14
18 minutes
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The Nobel Disease
2025-Oct-06
18 minutes
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Dinner with King Tut audiobook preview
2025-Jun-24
27 minutes
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Why Doctors and Scientists Embraced the Nazis
2025-May-27
21 minutes
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Hotter than the Dickens
2025-May-20
18 minutes
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Jake Leg Blues
2025-May-13
20 minutes
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The Worst of Times, the Asbestos Times
2025-May-06
17 minutes
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Human Photosynthesis
2025-Apr-29
18 minutes
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The Sad Story of Darwin’s Self-Procleimed “Stupidest” Child
2025-Apr-22
18 minutes
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The Birds and the Bees and the Frogs
2025-Apr-15
18 minutes
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The Would-Be Saint's Battle over Down Syndrome
2025-Apr-08
18 minutes
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The Battle over Human Chromosomes
2025-Apr-01
18 minutes
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The Halley's Comet Panic
2025-Mar-25
20 minutes
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The Winter when People Ate Tulips
2024-Dec-10
19 minutes
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Why Keep a Diary of a Toxic Snakebite?
2024-Dec-03
17 minutes
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Machiavellian Microbes
2024-Nov-19
18 minutes
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The Woman Who “Turned Back a Plague of Old Testament Proportions”
2024-Nov-12
19 minutes
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The Doom Lurking inside Trees
2024-Nov-04
17 minutes
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The Mona Lisa of the Seine
2024-Oct-29
18 minutes
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Savant Idiots
2024-Oct-22
17 minutes
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When Mummymania Swept the World
2024-Oct-15
17 minutes
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The Sadder Side of the Nobel Prizes
2024-Oct-08
18 minutes
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The Scientific Way to Fool a Nazi
2024-Sep-30
19 minutes
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The Mysterious Mote
2024-Jun-26
18 minutes
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The Science of D-Day
2024-May-14
19 minutes
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Can Plastic Surgery Keep You out of Prison?
2024-May-07
20 minutes
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The Russian Roswell
2024-Apr-30
21 minutes
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When Tenure Means Life and Death
2024-Apr-23
20 minutes
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A Deadly Soup for Babies
2024-Apr-16
20 minutes
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How the “Worst Serial Killer in Holland’s History” Went Free
2024-Apr-09
20 minutes
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The Eclipse that Killed a King
2024-Apr-02
19 minutes
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When Generosity Turns Pathological
2024-Mar-26
18 minutes
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The Sex-Cult “Antichrist” Who Rocketed Us to Space (part 2)
2024-Mar-19
21 minutes
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The Sex-Cult “Antichrist” Who Rocketed Us to Space (part 1)
2024-Mar-12
19 minutes
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Don't Drink the Milk bonus episode - Milk: From mutations to mustaches
2024-Jan-16
46 minutes
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Was Darwin a Murderer?
2023-Nov-14
21 minutes
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Mass Psychosis in Food Science
2023-Nov-07
23 minutes
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Accounting for Taste
2023-Oct-31
21 minutes
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If Indiana Jones Were a Swindler
2023-Oct-24
23 minutes
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The British Tobacco Empire
2023-Oct-17
23 minutes
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"Moldy Mary," The Forgotten Mother of Penicillin
2023-Oct-10
25 minutes
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The Most Exclusive Club in the World
2023-Oct-03
23 minutes
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Death-Defying Science at 75,000 Feet
2023-Sep-26
24 minutes
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Proving Einstein Right
2023-Sep-20
23 minutes
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Einstein's Golden Moment
2023-Sep-12
23 minutes
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Everything You Know About Phineas Gage Is Wrong
2023-Jul-11
24 minutes
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Why Do We Obsess Over Charles Darwin’s Health?
2023-Jun-27
24 minutes
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The Seeds of Starvation
2023-Jun-20
24 minutes
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When Scientific Brilliance Isn’t Enough
2023-Jun-13
23 minutes
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The Curse of Knowing Too Much
2023-Jun-06
22 minutes
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The Enigmas of Foreign Accent Syndrome
2023-May-30
21 minutes
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The World’s Only Natural Nuclear Reactor
2023-May-23
23 minutes
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How New DNA Sleuthing Can Expose Dangerous Killers—and You
2023-May-16
21 minutes
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The Real Tragedy of Robert Oppenheimer
2023-May-09
22 minutes
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The Brilliant, Groundbreaking, and Wildly Overrated Leonardo da Vinci
2023-May-02
24 minutes
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Spring update and "Innate" trailer
2023-Feb-06
7 minutes
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Death Squared
2022-Nov-29
24 minutes
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Death by Nutrition
2022-Nov-22
23 minutes
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The Roadside Apocalypse
2022-Nov-15
24 minutes
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The Blind Visionary
2022-Nov-08
23 minutes
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The Scariest Paradise on Earth
2022-Nov-01
20 minutes
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The Naked Shibboleth
2022-Oct-25
22 minutes
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The Debaucherous Legacy of Johnny Appleseed
2022-Oct-18
23 minutes
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The Most Evil Molecule
2022-Oct-11
20 minutes
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The Life-Saving Rat Poison
2022-Oct-04
22 minutes
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The Making of a Lobotomist
2022-Sep-27
20 minutes
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Icepick Surgeon bonus excerpt on the making of the Unabomber
2022-Jul-12
24 minutes
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The Murderer Who Made Movies Possible
2022-May-10
22 minutes
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Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and the Irish Giant
2022-May-03
20 minutes
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The Screwiest—and Perhaps Most Original—Idea of the 20th Century
2022-Apr-26
22 minutes
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The Bird with Four Sexes
2022-Apr-19
24 minutes
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When the Brain Deceives Itself
2022-Apr-12
21 minutes
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Stephen Hawking and the Black Hole Mistake that Made His Career
2022-Apr-05
21 minutes
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Albert Einstein and the Worst Prediction in the History of Science
2022-Mar-29
20 minutes
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How to Be Smarter than Isaac Newton
2022-Mar-22
19 minutes
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Claude Monet and Bee Purple
2022-Mar-15
20 minutes
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The Unsung Heroes of Darwin’s Evolution
2022-Mar-08
25 minutes
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The Sinister Angel Singers of Rome
2021-Dec-07
20 minutes
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The Murderous Origins of the American Medical Association
2021-Nov-30
21 minutes
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The Big ‘What If’ of Cancer
2021-Nov-23
21 minutes
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The Harvard Medical School Janitor Who Solved a Murder
2021-Nov-16
25 minutes
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Burn After Watching
2021-Nov-09
24 minutes
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History’s First Car Crash Victim
2021-Nov-02
19 minutes
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Real Life Zombies
2021-Oct-26
21 minutes
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How Climate Change Will Remake the Human Body
2021-Oct-19
23 minutes
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The ‘Mary Poppins’ Cancer
2021-Oct-12
22 minutes
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Kangaroo (and Pig and Monkey and Dog and Donkey) Courts
2021-Oct-05
20 minutes
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Icepick Surgeon audiobook excerpt
2021-Jul-13
22 minutes
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The Anatomy Riots
2021-Jun-01
21 minutes
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When a Hole in the Head Is Good for You
2021-May-25
19 minutes
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When Mosquitos Cured Insanity
2021-May-18
21 minutes
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The Death of the Lord God Bird
2021-May-11
23 minutes
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Chewing it Over—and Over and Over and Over
2021-May-04
22 minutes
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What's the Longest Word in the English Language?
2021-Apr-27
22 minutes
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Why Don't We Have a Male Birth Control Pill Yet?
2021-Apr-20
22 minutes
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Bonus interview with WNYC's Science Diction
2021-Apr-16
30 minutes
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Marie Curie's (Nearly Disastrous) Trip to America
2021-Apr-13
20 minutes
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The Most Important Lost Fossils in History
2021-Apr-06
23 minutes
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The World’s First Global Vaccine Supply Chain Was Orphan Children
2021-Mar-30
25 minutes
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The Joys, and Pains, of Operating on Yourself
2020-Nov-30
18 minutes
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A School Shooting for Science
2020-Nov-13
20 minutes
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Star Wars, Death Rays, and Donald Trump
2020-Oct-15
20 minutes
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Vitamin G
2020-Oct-01
21 minutes
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The CIA’s Drug-Fueled Orgies and You
2020-Sep-15
22 minutes
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From Siberia with (Manipulative) Love
2020-Sep-01
23 minutes
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The Man Who Couldn’t Read Numbers
2020-Aug-17
18 minutes
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The Teflon Bomb
2020-Aug-06
24 minutes
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Chocolate Cake & Atomic Bombs
2020-Aug-01
23 minutes
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The Ice Island Murder
2020-Jul-14
23 minutes
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Our Slimy Nazi Saviors
2020-Jul-07
21 minutes
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Are Braces a Health Disaster?
2020-Jun-23
22 minutes
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The Science Immigrants Who Saved Millions
2020-Jun-09
23 minutes
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Tyrannosaurus sex
2020-Jun-02
21 minutes
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The Lost Dinosaurs of Central Park
2020-May-22
22 minutes
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Exposing Nazi Medical Atrocities
2020-May-11
23 minutes
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Glove at First Sight
2020-Apr-27
20 minutes
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Galileo and Art, part 2
2020-Apr-20
18 minutes
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Galileo and Art, part 1
2020-Apr-20
21 minutes
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Tea Test Tempest
2019-Oct-26
15 minutes
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