Sam Kean
Sam Kean is the New York Times best-selling author of six books, including The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements; The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb; and The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science.
NPR’s “Science Friday,” the Royal Society, and The Guardian have each named different titles of Kean’s among their top books of the year. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate, and his work has been featured on NPR’s “Radiolab,” “All Things Considered,” and “Fresh Air.” His podcast, The Disappearing Spoon, debuted at No. 1 on the science podcasts chart on iTunes and is now hosted by the Science History Institute.
More from Sam Kean
The Comet Panic of 1910, Revisited
A recent discovery in a remote Puerto Rican cave sheds new light on the hysteria that greeted Halley’s Comet a century ago.
What Doomed Central Park’s Dinosaurs?
Historians unmask the villain who killed off New York’s Paleozoic Museum.
That Time Demons Possessed the Telegraph
Solar storms from long ago have become the delight of some scientists—and the dread of others.
Joe Hin Tjio Counts Chromosomes
A basic scientific error hid in plain sight for decades until an Indonesian geneticist spent Christmas break on a lab bender.
The Eclipse That Killed a King (and May Have Saved a Kingdom)
How the scientific prowess of King Mongkut of Siam helped stave off European incursion.
Valery Fabrikant and Science’s Ethical Limits
Is it right to publish research from an unrepentant murderer?
The Case Against Charles Darwin
How the investigation into a grisly murder shocked 19th-century France and framed the scientist as an accomplice.
The Real Tragedy of Robert Oppenheimer
Sam Kean examines the dark, restless side of the father of the atomic bomb.
The Rotten Science Behind the MSG Scare
How one doctor’s letter and a string of dodgy studies spurred a public health panic.
Diagnosing the Dead
Can scrutinizing the ailments of historical figures really teach us anything?