The Disappearing Spoon podcast
Darwin’s Self-Proclaimed ‘Stupidest’ Child
Charles Darwin’s work was misused by social Darwinists to justify inequality—work that received significant support from a surprising source: his own son.
The Disappearing Spoon is Distillations’ sister podcast, hosted by best-selling author Sam Kean. The show examines overlooked stories from our past, such as the dental superiority of hunter-gatherers, the sex lives of dinosaurs, and many more moments that never made the history books. When the footnote becomes the real story, small moments become surprisingly powerful.
The Birds and the Bees and the Frogs
In the mid-1900s, the science of pregnancy prediction had a surprising helper: the Xenopus frog.
The Battle Over the Cause of Down Syndrome
A breakthrough proved that people with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome; it also led to a battle with a would-be saint that raises questions about how scientists determine who gets credit.
The Art of Counting Chromosomes
How did the simple act of counting human chromosomes become a saga that destroyed a friendship and started a battle over the cause of Down syndrome?
Comet Madness
Comets were long seen as portents of doom, but the spectrograph changed all of that. So why did everyone panic when Halley’s Comet returned in 1910?
The Winter When People Ate Tulips
It’s the 80th anniversary of the Dutch Hongerwinter during World War II, which led to widespread starvation and an inadvertent breakthrough in treating deadly celiac disease.
Why Keep a Diary of a Toxic Snakebite?
After 40 years of studying snakes, Karl Schmidt suffered his first bite. And when he did, he kept a gruesome diary to document the danger—right to the edge of death.
Machiavellian Microbes
Parasites can force animals to do nefarious things by manipulating their minds—including, uncomfortably, the minds of human beings.
The Woman Who ‘Turned Back a Plague of Old Testament Proportions’
FDA scientist Frances Oldham Kelsey spared thousands of babies from deadly birth defects and revolutionized drug research. But was her legacy all good? It’s a complicated story.
The Doom Lurking Inside Trees
Japanese physicist Fusa Miyake has sparked a revolution in archaeology by studying radioactive tree rings—work that also terrifies astronomers, who fear it foretells doom for our civilization.
The Mona Lisa of the Seine
A woman who drowned in Paris became one of the most famous faces in the world as the model for CPR dummies, saving millions of lives while remaining completely unknown.
Savant Idiots
In the early 1800s, the first Egyptian mummies in Europe served as a crucial test for evolution—a test that, according to people then, evolution flunked.
When Mummy Mania Swept the World
In the 1800s, mummies found their way into everything from fertilizer to food, and were especially prized as medicine. Mummy mania was a strange time.
The Sadder Side of the Nobel Prizes
How did a scientist who developed a Nobel Prize–worthy idea end up driving a shuttle van for a living and miss the award completely?
The Scientific Way to Fool a Nazi
Physicist György Hevesy had a talent for tricks and stunts—including one that prevented Nazi storm troopers from stealing a Nobel Prize.
The Mysterious Mote
This bonus episode highlights an excerpt from Ferris Jabr’s book Becoming Earth.
The Science of D-Day
To mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings during WWII, we look at the surprisingly important role science played.
Can Plastic Surgery Keep You Out of Prison?
One doctor’s controversial crusade to keep people out of prison through nose jobs, eye lifts, and other plastic surgery.
The Russian Roswell
In 1959, nine Russian hikers mysteriously died on a snowy trek known as the Dyatlov Pass incident. Has science finally cracked the case?