logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2024
49m 13s

How a Nuclear Lab Helped Catch a Serial ...

SPOTIFY STUDIOS
About this episode
It’s the 1990s at a medical center in California, and patients are dying. At first, this doesn’t seem strange — it’s a hospital, and deaths happen. But then rumors start to circulate about a particular health care worker: Difficult or needy patients in his care are ending up dead. The cops get involved, but there’s a huge problem: There’s no hard evidence. U ... Show More
Up next
Jun 11
The Woman Who Felt No Fear
A group of scientists meet a very unusual woman. A key part of her brain isn’t working: the amygdala. This is the part of the brain that we think is responsible for feeling fear. And in fact, this woman does seem pretty fearless. Researchers test her fear response using some very ... Show More
43m 11s
Jun 4
Peptides: The Ultimate Body Hack?
Peptides are huge right now. Influencers are telling us they can work wonders for all sorts of stuff. Struggling with an annoying injury that won't heal?? Belly fat that's pissing you off? Low energy? Gut issues?? There’s a peptide out there for you. People are buying peptides of ... Show More
38m 11s
May 28
How Toxic Is the Air You Breathe?
The Trump administration is rolling back restrictions on air pollution in the U.S., and some experts say this could affect the health of millions of people. And what makes air pollution especially dangerous is that we often can’t see it at all. So today, we’re going back to the s ... Show More
40m 41s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2024
Holiday Break: How a Nuclear Lab Helped Catch a Serial Killer
Happy holidays, listeners! We're starting off our winter break by bringing you an episode from our colleagues at Science Vs about how a notorious murder case was solved with help from an unlikely source: a nuclear weapons lab. It’s the 1990s at a medical center in California, and ... Show More
51m 42s
Aug 2025
The Medical Matchmaking Machine
<p>As he finished his medical school exam, David Fajgenbaum felt off.  He walked down to the ER and checked himself in.  Soon he was in the ICU with multiple organ failure.  The only drug for his condition didn’t work. He had months to live, if that.  If he was going to survive, ... Show More
1h 1m
Aug 2024
Up in Smoke
<p>Two scenes. In the first, a doctor gets a call — the hospital she works at is having an outbreak of unknown origin, in the middle of the worst wildfire season on record. In the second, an ecologist stands in a forest, watching it burn. Through very different circumstances, the ... Show More
27m 23s
Aug 2024
ENCORE: Even Psychopaths Suffer Burnout with Candice DeLong
🔪🔪🔪 This week, one of Paul and Stephen’s favorite Chinwags: Killer Psyche podcast host, Candice DeLong. Candice spent two decades in the FBI as a criminal profiler tracking serial killers and working such notorious cases as the Unabomber and the Chicago Tylenol Murders. Paul a ... Show More
54m 33s
Aug 2024
Uneasy as ABC
<p>February 1976. A flight out of California turned catastrophic when it crashed into a farm in rural Nebraska. What happened that night at the local hospital, and crucially, what went wrong, would inspire a global sea-change in how emergency rooms operate and fundamentally alter ... Show More
34m 38s
Jun 2025
The Elixir of Life
<p>Doctor and special correspondent, Avir Mitra takes Lulu on an epic journey live on stage at a little basement club called Caveat, here in New York. Starting with an ingredient in breastmilk that babies can’t digest, a global hunt that takes us from Bangladesh to the Mennonite ... Show More
50m 59s
Jul 2025
Introducing ... The Lab Detective
Introducing...The Lab DetectiveKathleen Folbigg was known as ‘Australia's worst female serial killer’ - she’d lost all four of her infant children and was convicted for killing them.Until, after spending decades in jail, a scientist working in a lab uncovered the truth behind the ... Show More
40m 35s
Feb 2025
Exploring the Hidden Life in the Air around Us with Carl Zimmer
Scientists now agree that COVID spreads via airborne transmission. But during the early days of the disease, public health officials suggested that it mainly did so via close contact. The subsequent back-and-forth over how COVID spread brought science journalist Carl Zimmer into ... Show More
16m 47s
Jul 2024
A dumpster full of mercury and other things to avoid: lab closures made simple
In the fifth episode of this six-part podcast series about the late career stage, physicist María Teresa Dova outlines how she is preparing colleagues years in advance to ensure a smooth handover of her lab at the University of La Plata, in Argentina.But in the United States, whe ... Show More
23m 2s
Jun 2020
Forensic Genealogy: Solving One of America's Oldest Cold Cases
On this special episode of The Fall Line, we speak with friend of the show Anthony Redgrave. If you keep up with true-crime news, you've likely seen Anthony on television. He was a lead researcher in the oldest doe case solved by forensic genealogists working for law enforcement. ... Show More
49m 14s