We’re sure you’ve heard of the Nobel Prize although it’s hard to make the case Beth has since she mispronounces it quite a bit in this episode. But have you heard of Nobel Disease? It’s when people are labeled geniuses and go on to embrace some whackadoodle pseudoscience. In today’s Strange Country episode, Beth and Kelly discuss Kary Mullis, the only Nobel winner to be referred to as “generally barking mad.” He discovered the polymerase chain reaction, which we all regularly employed when we wanted to make dang certain it wasn’t covid.
Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands
Cite your sources:
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Guo, Jerry. “A Little Off the Top for History.” The New York Times, 13 July 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/fashion/13hair.html. Accessed 9 October 2023.
Jarry, Jonathan. “The Man Who Photocopied DNA and Also Saw a Talking Fluorescent Raccoon.” McGill University, 15 August 2019, https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/technology-history/man-who-photocopied-dna-and-also-saw-talking-fluorescent-raccoon. Accessed 9 October 2023.
Joseph, Pat. “Intolerable Genius: Berkeley's Most Controversial Nobel Laureate.” Cal Alumni Association, 12 December 2019, https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/winter-2019/intolerable-genius-berkeleys-most-controversial-nobel-laureate/. Accessed 8 October 2023.
Loeb, Dylan. “Kary B. Mullis, 74, Dies; Found a Way to Analyze DNA and Won Nobel (Published 2019).” The New York Times, 15 August 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/science/kary-b-mullis-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1. Accessed 9 October 2023.
Markel, Howard. “How the talented Oscar Levant broke taboos by talking about mental health.” PBS, 14 August 2021, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-the-talented-oscar-levant-broke-taboos-by-talking-about-mental-health. Accessed 9 October 2023.
“Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Fact Sheet.” National Human Genome Research Institute, 17 August 2020, https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Polymerase-Chain-Reaction-Fact-Sheet. Accessed 9 October 2023.
Schreiber, Dan. The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird. HarperCollins Publishers, 2023.
Thielking, Megan. “How Linus Pauling duped America into believing vitamin C cures colds.” Vox, 27 February 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7547741/vitamin-c-myth-pauling. Accessed 9 October 2023.