Science History Podcast

Today we explore the history of plutonium with Frank von Hippel, a retired but always active professor at Princeton University, where, in 1975, he co-founded Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In the 1980s, Frank was the chairman of the Federation of American Scientists, and in the Clinton Administration he was the Assistant Director for National Security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Frank has worked on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation since the 1980s, and received many awards for this work, including a MacArthur Fellowship. Frank received his B.S. in physics at MIT in 1959 and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Oxford in 1962, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Frank is also a co-author of the forthcoming book, “Plutonium: How nuclear power’s dream fuel became a nightmare.” We discuss the history of all things nuclear – the development of the bomb, the attacks on Hiroshima

We explore the history of the discovery of gravitational waves with Rai Weiss, including the relevance to special and general relativity, pulsars, supernovae, merging and binary black holes, space and time, neutron star collisions, dark matter, cosmic background radiation, gamma ray bursts, and even the viscosity of neutrinos. We also discuss really small numbers, the origin of the NSF and NASA, the LIGO scientific collaboration, the politics of science, and what all this has to do with Albert Einstein. Rai received his PhD at MIT in 1962, and taught at Tufts University and Princeton before returning to MIT. Among Rai’s many distinguished awards is the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, which he received along with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.”

In this supplemental episode with Matthew Meselson, I accepted his invitation to visit him in his office at Harvard, where we discussed yellow rain incidents in Southeast Asia. Meselson received his appointment as an Associate Professor of biology at Harvard in 1960 and his full professorship in 1964. He has been at Harvard ever since. Meselson has received many prominent awards throughout his career, including from the National Academy of Sciences, the Federation of American Scientists, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Genetics Society of America, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship and MacArthur Fellows Program Genius Award. 

Matthew Meselson organized the Herbicide Assessment Commission in 1970, which investigated the use of Agent Orange and other defoliants in Vietnam. The work of the commission helped to end Operation Ranch Hand, in which the United States sprayed nearly 20 million gallons – about 73 million liters - of herbicides and defoliants over the rainforest and mangrove forest canopies of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I called Meselson to ask about his role in the Herbicide Assessment Commission, along with a host of other fascinating investigations to do with chemical and biological weapons, such as the anthrax accident in the Soviet Union and the yellow rain incident in Laos.  I also asked him about the U.S. Army’s insane plan in 1969 to ship 800 railroad cars filled with 27,000 tons of poison-gas weapons from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal to New Jersey for disposal at sea. Meselson completed his Ph.D. in 1957 under Linus Pauling at CalTech.  In 1958, in a classic experiment, he and Frank Stahl showed that DNA is replicate

We live in a surreal and dangerous time – autocrats are on the rise and societies are regressing toward ethnic competition. Given this political moment, I decided to dedicate an episode of the podcast to the history of research on cooperation. My guest, Robert Axelrod, has been a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Michigan since 1974.  Prior to that, he was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, among many other awards. Pertinent to today’s episode, he received the 1990 National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. He also received the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama. Axelrod is the author of seminal books in the field, such as The Evolution of Cooperation, published in 1984. In this episode, we discuss the famous computer competition on the prisoner’s dilemma that Axelrod

How did modern molecular biology become an integral component of forensic science? My guest, Bruce Budowle, played key roles in the development of genetic and microbial forensics, and he explains significant events in forensic science over the past four decades. Bruce joined the research unit of the FBI Laboratory Division in 1983 and rose in the ranks to become the Chief of the Forensic Science Research Unit and the Senior Scientist for the Laboratory Division. In 2009, Bruce left the FBI to become the Executive Director of the Institute of Applied Genomics at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Bruce directs the Center for Human Identification and he is the Vice Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Genetics. He has published about 500 scientific articles and testified in over 250 criminal cases. Bruce and I discuss the missing children of Argentina’s Dirty War, the O.J. Simpson trial, the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center, the subsequent anthrax letter attacks

Shortly after the al-Qaida terror attacks of September 11, 2001, a second wave of terror swept the United States – this time bioterrorism with anthrax mailed in letters as the weapon. Today my guest is Paul Keim, the scientist who conducted the genetic sleuthing and tracked down the source of the anthrax. Paul is the recipient of numerous scientific honors, and he is a professor of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University, where he directs the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute. In addition to the anthrax terror attacks, in today’s episode we discuss the Soviet and Iraqi anthrax weapons programs, the Haitian cholera outbreak sourced to Nepalese peacekeepers, virulent avian influenza, Scottish heroin addicts, and the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.

One of the greatest mysteries in biology, until 1991, was how water moves across cell membranes. Today’s episode focuses on the history of the discovery of aquaporins, or proteins that act as water channels in cell membranes. My guest is Peter Agre, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of aquaporins. Among many other honors and leadership roles across his career, Peter became a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2000 and served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from 2009-2010. He is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology and in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Peter is also the Director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.

In 1854, in the Soho district of London, cholera swept through the population. The physician John Snow investigated the cause of the outbreak and hypothesized that it was due to contaminated water. So began the field of epidemiology. Today’s episode focuses on water quality, sanitation and disease. My guest is Dennis Warner, who has worked for forty years in the field of water supply and sanitation, including for Catholic Relief Services, the Peace Corps, the University of Dar es Salaam, Duke University, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development.

The effects of human induced climate change, predicted over a century ago, are already with us. My guest, John Matthews, is the coordinator at the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation, which is a network of water and climate professionals working towards solutions for sustainable water resources management on both technical and policy fronts. In today’s episode, we look back at some of the history of climate change research and water resources management, and peer a little into the future of a changing world.

Winston Churchill’s outsized role and oratory in wartime, from the Great Boer War at the turn of the century to World War II, are well known. Beyond politics and battle, Churchill also displayed a keen interest in technological development and scientific advancement, the subject of today’s podcast, which is part 2 of a two-part series. To explore Churchill’s connection to science and technology, I interviewed Jim Muller. Jim is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Winston Churchill as well as the academic chairman of the Churchill Centre and the author of many works on Churchill.

The 20th century was a time of unparalleled advancement in science and technology, along with the associated destruction caused by two world wars.  I think the most important person to positively influence the 20th century was Winston Churchill.  His importance was especially pronounced during World War II, in which his leadership may well have saved the world from long-term Nazi tyranny.  But Churchill played key roles in many realms of life, and especially in literature.  Indeed, Churchill was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize for literature, which is certainly not the typical achievement of a politician.  Churchill also displayed a keen interest in technological development and scientific advancement, the subject of today’s podcast, which is part 1 of a two-part episode.  To explore Churchill’s connection to science and technology, I interviewed Jim Muller.  Jim is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage.  He is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Winston

The Natural History Museum in London houses the greatest collection of natural history specimens in the world, collected for centuries by British explorers and scientists.  In Part 2 of this episode on British explorers, my guests Andrea Hart and Max Barclay explain the role that these specimens and associated artwork played in the development of major scientific advances.  Foremost among these specimens are the beetles, which held an outsized role in the history of evolutionary biology as well as in the childhood pursuits of collectors such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace.  Andrea is the Head of Special Collections at the Natural History Museum, and Max is the Senior Curator in Charge of the beetle collection.  So let’s travel the world, from Africa to the Amazon to Australia and learn about the wonderful diversity of beetles, the eccentric people who collected them, and how their ideas changed the world.  We’ll do all this surrounded by annotated manuscripts, natural history drawings and specim

The Natural History Museum in London houses the greatest collection of natural history specimens in the world, collected for centuries by British explorers and scientists.  From Captain Cook’s discovery of Australia and Charles Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle to the doomed Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica led by Robert Scott, a steady stream of invaluable specimens has traversed the globe in order to be archived and studied.  Taking us through this history is my guest, Ian Owens, the Director of Science at the museum.  Ian is also a Professor at Imperial College London, and he specializes on research in the areas of biodiversity, ecology, genetics and evolution of birds.

For over half a century, innovative scientists have tested the abilities of animals to learn to communicate using human systems, such as American Sign Language with chimps and gorillas.  One could go back even farther in time, to the start of the 20th century, when the German mathematics teacher Wilhelm von Osten trained his Russian trotting horse Hans to answer questions, do simple math, and discriminate consonant vs. dissonant musical chords, all by nodding his head, tapping a hoof, pointing his nose, or picking up objects in his mouth.  More recently, one of the most remarkable of such animal communication programs is that run by Irene Pepperberg.  Irene has spent the past four decades teaching African grey parrots to talk – and not just to talk, but also to answer complex questions about the nature and number of objects.  Irene’s purpose is to test the limits of communication between humans and animals.  Irene is the author of many articles and several books, including the New York Times best-seller “Alex

The obesity epidemic has spread throughout much of the world and is one of the leading drivers of impaired health and skyrocketing healthcare costs.  In today’s episode, we are focusing on a neglected aspect of the obesity epidemic – the role played by exposure to toxic chemicals in our food, water, and the environment.  Walking us through the history of this new field of research – investigations on obesogenic chemicals – is one of the leading researchers of the field, Bruce Blumberg.  Bruce is a professor in the Departments of Developmental and Cell Biology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  This episode is also coincident with the publication of Bruce’s new book, The Obesogen Effect.

Today we are exploring natural history investigations in the Hawaiian archipelago. My guest, Dan Lewis, is a research professor of history at Claremont Graduate University and the Dibner Senior Curator of the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library. Today’s podcast is coincident with the publication of Dan’s new book, entitled: Belonging on an Island. Birds, Extinction, and Evolution in Hawaii, published by Yale University Press.

The discovery and subsequent study of Pluto has captivated the public for nearly a century.  Even the question of whether Pluto should be categorized as a planet or a dwarf planet has stirred passionate debate, but the implications of discoveries related to Pluto go far beyond the identification of an icy world at the outer edge of the solar system.  My guests today are Kevin Schindler and Will Grundy, both of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where Pluto was discovered.  Kevin is a historian and Will is a planetary scientist, and the release of this episode of the Science History Podcast coincides with the publication of their new book entitled, Pluto and Lowell Observatory: A History of Discovery at Flagstaff, published by the History Press.

Attacks on science and scientists have been a hallmark of the Trump administration, but such attacks emanating from the U.S. federal government are not new, nor are they restricted to one political party or one branch of government.  The best known of such attacks came from Bill Proxmire, who served in the Senate as a Democrat representing the state of Wisconsin from 1957-1989.  Proxmire achieved national recognition with his monthly Golden Fleece Awards, in which he mocked what he considered to be wasteful government spending.  After Proxmire retired from the Senate, other members of Congress took over the job of calling out what they saw as wasteful government spending on science in their own so-called wastebooks. My first guest is Melinda Baldwin, who comments on the history of the Golden Fleece Award and subsequent wastebooks.  My second guest is Josh Shiode, who comments on the history of an award designed to celebrate science - the Golden Goose Award.

The possibility that world annihilation rests with the twitching fingertips of a dictator in North Korea and a narcissist in Washington motivated me to focus the second science history podcast on nuclear disarmament.  As a bonus, we also discuss renewable energy, another fitting topic at a time when the United States stands alone as the only country in the world that is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.  My first guest is Jose Goldemberg, a physicist who has played a central role in the development of Brazilian science and policy for half a century.  Jose’s comments are put into the historical perspective of Cold War events by my second guest, Frank N. von Hippel, a professor and co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.