Distillations: Science + Culture + History

From our new podcast, the Disappearing Spoon: The so-called “Peking Man” fossils are some of the first ancient human remains discovered in mainland Asia. So when they disappeared during World War II, it was called one of the worst disasters in the history of archaeology. Now some archeologists claim to have tracked them down. The only problem is they’re underneath a parking lot. Credits Host: Sam Kean Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Original Music by Jonathan Pfeffer Wang Fan - Zero (from An Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music 1992-2008) Listening to the Pine-trees (from Chine / Musique Classique) Sarah Hennies – Fleas Wang Changcun - Through the Tide of Faces (from An Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music 1992-2008) Zhegu Fei (The Partridge) (from Chine / Musique Classique) All other music composed by Jonathan Pfeffer.

The Science History Institute has launched a second podcast! We've teamed up with New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean to bring you even more stories from our scientific past. Don’t worry, Distillations podcast isn’t going anywhere; we’re still producing the in-depth narrative-style episodes you know and love! We’ve just doubled your history of science listening pleasure. For the next 10 weeks we’ll bring you stories from the footnotes of the history of science, from the saga of the male birth control pill to this inaugural episode: how the smallpox vaccine made its way around the world before refrigeration. Amid all the logistical headaches of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, one huge challenge involves the cold chain. The cold chain is a network of freezers and refrigerators that keep vaccine doses at the consistently cold temperatures they need to stay viable. Though complicated, this is all doable in the 21st century. But how did the world’s very first vaccine, created for smallpox in 1796, make it ar

Did you know that Gandhi hated iodine? Or that Silicon Valley was almost called Germanium Valley? Our producer Rigoberto Hernandez talked about these stories and more with Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon, a book about the stories behind the periodic table. The New York Times best-selling author and regular Distillations magazine contributor described how Dmitri Mendeleev’s publisher accidentally shaped the periodic table, why gallium is a popular element for pranksters, and what inspired the title of his book. Kean, Sam. The Disappearing Spoon. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2010. Credits Host: Elisabeth Berry Drago & Alexis Pedrick Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Original music by Jonathan Pfeffer

Distillations is hard at work on our next season. It’s not quite ready, but we have a treat for you in the meantime. We interviewed Wendy Zukerman, the host and executive producer of one of our favorite podcasts, Science Vs. In normal times the show pits facts against fads—they talk about everything from detox diets to the supposed benefits of Cannabidiol, or CBD. Since early 2020, however, they’ve been reporting about the Coronavirus pandemic. But they actually started even earlier than that—in the fall of 2019 they coincidentally produced an episode all about global pandemics. We talked with Wendy about whether or not she's psychic, the challenges of pivoting to news reporting, and why it's so important for Science Vs. to tell history of science stories. The latest season of Science Vs. (which is not about COVID-19) just launched on March 4! Credits Host: Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Original music by Jonathan Pfeffer

As the pandemic began raging again this fall we talked with nurse Linda Ruggiero about what it's like to be on the front lines for a second wave. She talks about how treatment has changed, what we still don't know about the disease, and how every nurse she knows is suffering from PTSD.  Host: Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Photograph of Linda Ruggiero by Kyle Cassidy.

We've collaborated with Philadelphia photographer Kyle Cassidy to tell the stories of our city's essential workers. This fall his large-scale portraits of nurses, sanitation workers, Instacart shoppers, mask-makers, and delivery drivers will be on display on the exterior of the Science History Institute, in Old City Philadelphia. Find out more at sciencehistory.org/pandemic. Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Music by Blue Dot Sessions: "Arlan Vale," "Alum Drum," "Setting Pace," "Kalstead," "Drone Pine," and "Raskt Landsby."

Outer space is crowded. Satellites, pieces of rocket, and stuff that astronauts left behind, such as cameras and poop, are just floating around. This space junk can pose a threat to our communication systems. In this episode we talk with Lisa Ruth Rand, a fellow at the Science History Institute, about her upcoming book on space junk. She tells us how space weather—that’s right, there’s space weather—can have an effect on what falls on Earth. She also talks about how our views on space debris reveal our attitudes back on Earth and how space junk truly made the space age global. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Morrison Resource List Interview with Marie Ruman. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, January 24, 1978. Judd, Bridget. “NASA’s Skylab met its demise in Australia more than 40 years ago—but was it really an accident?” Australian Broadcasting Corporation, May 30, 2020.  The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, “Cosmos

Outer space belongs to everyone and no one, at least that’s what the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 says. On its face, this seems like an uncontroversial statement. But in the 1970s a group of equatorial countries challenged this idea. Only the richest and most powerful countries can afford to reach outer space in the first place, they argued, so in principle these nations controlled it. The protesting countries were ignored at the time, but to some their warnings seem more urgent now that it isn’t just wealthy nations with space programs, but also individual billionaires. Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Morrison Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Worldwide nearly 3 million workers die on the job each year. U.S. workers experience roughly that same number of injuries and illnesses each year. Work is hard and dangerous, and we have the data to prove it. But who started collecting that data? The answer takes us back to Paracelsus, an early modern physician and alchemist who noticed that the miners he lived among often became very ill or died. His inquiries laid the foundation for occupational health and the workplace safety standards we have today. Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Morrison

Earning a PhD can be grueling for the healthiest student. But what is it like for a student with widespread pain and fatigue? Is it even possible? Marine geologist and geophysicist Gabriela Serrato Marks tells us that academia was not set up for people like her, and she wants to change that. Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Original Music by Zach Young

There’s a common assumption that to be a scientist you must also be a genius, someone who excelled at school and learns easily and quickly. But are these really the qualities necessary to produce new scientific knowledge? Collin Diedrich is a research scientist with a doctorate in molecular virology and microbiology. On paper he might seem to be the archetypal smart scientist, but the reality is more complicated. Collin has multiple learning disabilities, and he has struggled to overcome the stigma that comes with them for his entire life. In this episode we explore how our narrow definition of intelligence not only holds back people such as Collin, but also prevents the creation of new scientific knowledge that benefits us all. This is the second of two episodes about science and disability and was produced in collaboration with the Science and Disability oral history project at the Science History Institute. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigob

July 26th, 2020 marked the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the history of disability in the United States goes back much further. Historian Kim Nielsen tells us that disability has always been part of American life, from precolonial times to today. Our producer Rigoberto Hernandez talked with Nielsen about her book A Disability History of the United States.  

Everyone knows that observation is a key part of the scientific method, but what does that mean for scientists who can’t see? Judith Summers-Gates is a successful, visually impaired chemist who uses a telescope to read street signs. If the thought of a blind scientist gives you pause, you’re not alone. But stop and ask yourself why. What assumptions do we make about how knowledge is produced? And who gets to produce it? And who gets to participate in science? In this episode we go deep into the history of how vision came to dominate scientific observation and how blind scientists challenge our assumptions. This is the first of two episodes about science and disability and was produced in collaboration with the Science and Disability oral history project at the Science History Institute. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Morrison Resource List Lemonick, Sam. “Artificial intelligence tools could benefit chemis

We’ve long been fascinated by the mysteries of reproduction. But that curiosity is piqued most intensely when something unexpected happens. The study of such “monstrous births,” as scientists once called them, propelled forward our understanding of how embryos and fetuses develop. And the key to unlocking this knowledge was found gathering dust in the basement of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a macabre collection assembled by Czar Peter the Great. The story behind this collection reveals a little-known corner of the history of the life sciences and raises some big questions, like how do bodies we see as abnormal inform and define what we see as normal? And how does this influence how we think about disability today? Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Morrison Music by Blue Dot Sessions: "When in the West," "Calisson," "Entwined Oddity," "Stately Shadows," "Louver," "Tuck and Point," "Our Only Lark." Add

Our new season starts August 4th! 

Over the past few weeks Distillations has been talking to people who have special insight into the coronavirus crisis—biomedical researchers, physicians, public health experts, and historians. In this episode we talk with Magda Marquet, a biochemical engineer and an entrepreneur. Marquet has spent decades working on DNA vaccines, one of the many techniques being used to create a vaccine for Covid-19. She also sits on the board of Arcturus Therapeutics, which is developing a vaccine for the disease. She tells us about how a company she cofounded, AltheaDx, is taking on the mental health crisis, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. And she discusses her hopes that the lessons learned during the pandemic might change society for the better.  Credits  |  Transcript Credits Host: Lisa Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr  Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Researcher: Jessica Wade Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Original music by Zach Young.

We talk about COVID-19 with Robert Langer, a chemical engineer and an entrepreneur, who runs the largest biomedical engineering research laboratory in the world at MIT. He has also started numerous biotech companies, including Moderna Therapeutics, a company that’s been making headlines for the COVID-19 vaccine they’re developing. Langer told us about his work with the Gates Foundation to develop a way for vaccines to self-boost in the body, his work with the sneaker company New Balance to create masks, and his thoughts about how diagnostic testing could be better. Credits Host: Alexis Pedrick Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Researcher: Jessica Wade Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Original music composed by Zach Young.  

Over the next several weeks Distillations will be talking to people who have special insight into the coronavirus crisis—biomedical researchers, physicians, public health experts, and historians. In this episode we talk to Mark Stevenson, the chief operating officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific, an instrumentation company that has designed a diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus. The company is also working on a serology test, which will determine who has already had the virus. He tells us how the company developed those tests and the role they play in managing this pandemic. Credits Host: Alexis Pedrick Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Researcher: Jessica Wade Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer

Our senior producer, Mariel Carr, talks with John Maraganore, the CEO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a company developing an antiviral medication for COVID-19. When news broke in January about the new coronavirus, John Maraganore made the decision to pause other drugs in development and pivot to working on an antiviral medication for this new and alarmingly infectious virus. He says it was a difficult decision, but this virus had all the ingredients to become a pandemic. “And when you have a public health crisis like this, that’s what you do.”

Over the next several weeks Distillations will be talking to people who have special insight into the coronavirus crisis—biomedical researchers, physicians, public health experts, and historians. In this episode our producer Rigberto Hernandez talks with Katrine Bosley, who has worked in the biotech industry for more than 30 years. Until recently she was the CEO of Editas Medicine, a company that focuses on a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. She’s now on the board of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital and is advising the facility on its quest to create a COVID-19 vaccine. She tells us how CRISPR can be used to make faster diagnostic tests and how the hospital in Boston is creating a vaccine using a gene therapy method.  “One of the things that’s important for all of us competing against this virus is to have a lot of technologically different strategies to try to make a vaccine.” Credits Hosts: Elisabeth Berry Drago, Alexis Pedrick  Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Resear