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The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

Sam Kean

Arts Books

Latest episode

128 episodes

Charles Lindbergh, Lab Rat
07/04/2026 | 19 mins.
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...

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The Publicity Stunt that Sparked the Scopes Monkey Trial
16/12/2025 | 18 mins.
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...

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The Great Balloon Escape
09/12/2025 | 18 mins.
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...

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The Corny, Cringy, Very Bad Television Show that Just Might Save Your Life
02/12/2025 | 18 mins.
In the 1970s, paramedic units were illegal in the United States. One (very bad) television show, Emergency!, set out to change that—and saved tens of thousands of lives in the process.

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Bringing an Extinct Owl Back to Life
18/11/2025 | 19 mins.
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)

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About The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean

A topsy-turvy science-y history podcast by Sam Kean. I examine overlooked stories from our past: the dental superiority of hunter-gatherers, the crooked Nazis who saved thousands of American lives, the American immigrants who developed the most successful cancer screening tool in history, the sex lives of dinosaurs, and much, much more. These are charming little tales that never made the history books, but these small moments can be surprisingly powerful. These are the cases where history gets inverted, where the footnote becomes the real story.

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Arts Books History Science