The Disappearing Spoon podcast
Health & Medicine
Bodies, minds, and the things that help and harm them
The Enigmas of Foreign Accent Syndrome
Can you really collapse and wake up speaking a totally new language?
Death by Nutrition
How an antarctic scientific expedition turned deadly thanks to an unlikely source: dog liver.
The Lifesaving Rat Poison
Follow blood thinner warfarin’s unlikely journey from moldy clover and cow killer to lifesaving drug.
When the Brain Deceives Itself
Learn what two famous neurological traumas—one involving a U.S. president, the other a Supreme Court justice—can teach us about how our own brains perceive reality.
Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by Our Genetic Code
An interview with Sam Kean about his book ‘The Violinist’s Thumb.’
The Murderous Origins of the American Medical Association
How a bloody gun duel between two doctors in Transylvania sparked a frenzy of outrage—and helped create the American Medical Association.
The Harvard Medical School Janitor Who Solved a Murder
In a building full of dead bodies, how can you tell a murder victim from an unlucky stiff?
Real-Life Zombies
What a bizarre psychological disorder can teach us about memory, human nature, and our sense of who we are.
The ‘Mary Poppins’ Cancer
The life of chimney sweeps was nasty, poor, brutish, filthy dirty, and usually short, thanks to a rare cancer of the genitals.
The Anatomy Riots
How early anatomists provoked some of the strangest riots in history by stealing the dead bodies of the poor.
When Mosquitoes Cured Insanity
How an early 20th-century doctor pitted one scourge (malaria) against another (syphilis).
Chewing It Over—and Over and Over and Over
How a weird “scientific” diet fad conquered America in the early 1900s.
Why Don’t We Have a Male Birth Control Pill Yet?
Scientists created an effective male birth control pill in the 1950s, but it had one undesirable side effect.
Orphan Vaccines
When the global vaccine supply chain depended on children.