The Disappearing Spoon podcast

The forest owlet was declared extinct in 1972, but after Richard Meinertzhagen’s vast fraud was exposed, ornithologists wondered if they got it wrong.

What does the inspiration for the character of James Bond have to do with a bird specimen scandal?

Changing the name of the Anophthalmus hitleri seems like an easy call, but taxonomists have resisted for complicated reasons.

The Bird of Washington catapulted John Audubon into fame and fortune. The only problem? It was a complete fraud.

The discovery of the Bird of Washington made John James Audubon into the most famous naturalist in American history.

Winning an Ig Nobel Prize is largely considered a joke, but its benefits are no laughing matter.

Winning a Nobel Prize is considered the pinnacle of scientific achievement. So why have so many past winners turned to pseudoscience?

Nazism was a society-wide catastrophe, so why did so many people in technical fields in Germany embrace it?

Charles Darwin’s work was misused by social Darwinists to justify inequality—work that received significant support from a surprising source: his own son. 

A breakthrough proved that people with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome; it also led to a battle with a would-be saint that raises questions about how scientists determine who gets credit.

How did the simple act of counting human chromosomes become a saga that destroyed a friendship and started a battle over the cause of Down syndrome?

After 40 years of studying snakes, Karl Schmidt suffered his first bite. And when he did, he kept a gruesome diary to document the danger—right to the edge of death.

FDA scientist Frances Oldham Kelsey spared thousands of babies from deadly birth defects and revolutionized drug research. But was her legacy all good? It’s a complicated story.

In the early 1800s, the first Egyptian mummies in Europe served as a crucial test for evolution—a test that, according to people then, evolution flunked.

How did a scientist who developed a Nobel Prize–worthy idea end up driving a shuttle van for a living and miss the award completely?

Physicist György Hevesy had a talent for tricks and stunts—including one that prevented Nazi storm troopers from stealing a Nobel Prize.

To mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings during WWII, we look at the surprisingly important role science played.

One doctor’s controversial crusade to keep people out of prison through nose jobs, eye lifts, and other plastic surgery.