Undiscovered - Spontaneous Generation

These days, biologists believe all living things come from other living things. But for a long time, people believed that life would, from time to time, spontaneously pop into existence more often—and not just that one time at the base of the evolutionary tree. Even the likes of Aristotle believed in the “spontaneous generation” of life until Louis Pasteur debunked the theory—or so the story goes. 

The Nod - Lady Sings the Blues w/ Bassey Ikpi

This week, Brittany gets personal as she sits down with author and poet Bassey Ikpi to talk about her new book, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying. In the book Bassey re-examines her life through the lens of her mental health and diagnosis of bipolar II.*


This episode of The Nod contains mentions of suicide and serious mental health issues, and may not be suitable for all of our listeners.

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Sewing machine

Women's lives were transformed by sewing machines, which made a "never-ending, ever-beginning task" far less arduous and time-consuming. But Isaac Singer, who made his fortune from these devices, was far from a champion of women's rights. Tim Harford tells a story of how self-interest can sometimes be a powerful driver for social change.

Undiscovered - Into The Ether

In 1880, scientist Albert Michelson set out to build a device to measure something every 19th century physicist knew just had to be there. The “luminiferous ether” was invisible and pervaded all of space. It helped explain how light traveled, and how electromagnetic waves waved. Ether theory even underpinned Maxwell’s famous equations! One problem: When Alfred Michaelson ran his machine, the ether wasn’t there. 

Science historian David Kaiser walks Annie and Science Friday host Ira Flatow through Michaelson’s famous experiment, and explains how a wrong idea led to some very real scientific breakthroughs.

This story first aired on Science Friday.

 

GUEST

David Kaiser, Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science, Professor of Physics, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

FOOTNOTES

Find out more about the Michelson-Morley experiment on APS Physics. 

Read an archival article from the New York Times about the physicists’ experimental “failure.”

 

CREDITS

This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Annie Minoff and Christopher Intagliata. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud

Agnus: The Late Antique, Medieval, and Byzantine Podcast - Glenn McDorman on Bishops During the Fall of Rome

Glenn shares a little of his own research this episode.

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Check out Elder Sign: A Weird Fiction Podcast for the exciting adventures of scholars saving the universe from scary monsters.

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