The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

The Smyth Report is the strangest book ever written on atomic bombs—as well as highly effective science propaganda, warping our view of everything from the Manhattan Project to Robert Oppenheimer.

There’s only one thing Dr. John Haldane loved more than running dangerous experiments on himself—running them on his son Jack. But the duo would revolutionize our understanding of the human body.

When Charles Lindbergh's sister-in-law developed heart trouble, he teamed up with a Nobel-Prize-winning doctor to save her. He had no idea the dark paths his work would lead him down, including Nazi politics and eugenics...

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 genuine hero...

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 shoot him as a spy if he dared try...

The work of Richard Meinertzhagen helped convince biologists that the Forest Owlet of India had gone extinct. But after Meinertzhagen’s frauds were exposed, one biologist grew obsessed with finding out whether it just might be alive still. (Part 2 of 2)

He was a brilliant ornithologist—and a spy so colorful that James Bond was based on him. Richard Meinertzhagen was also a liar and a thief, and perpetrated the biggest fraud in biology history. Episode below!

Taxonomy has a sadly ugly history of naming species after despicable people—even Adolf Hitler. Given the controversy these names generate, there have been many calls to drop them. But taxonomists have so far resisted most of these efforts, for reasons both good and bad...

The eagle that made John James Audubon famous, the Bird of Washington was nothing but an elaborate lie. Fawning biographers have suppressed this fact for years, but careful historical work has unraveled the Audubon legend, and shown that much of his life, and work, was built on deceit. (Part 2 of 2)

After several heartbreaking setbacks, John James Audubon’s career was in ruins—until he hatched a desperate plan to win new patrons. It involved a rare American eagle, the Bird of Washington. And when the gamble paid off, it made Audubon the most famous ornithologist in history...

The Ig Nobel Prize is the bizarro cousin of the Nobel Prize—awarded for odd or unusual research “that first makes you laugh, then makes you think.” Some scientists hate them, and have refused to accept the award. But they’ve grown into a beloved institution—and one with some surprising benefits to science.