When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted in 1999 that they had discriminated against women on its faculty, it sent shockwaves throughout institutions of higher learning across the country. In this TPWKY book club episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kate Zernike joins us to discuss her book The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fig ... Show More
May 26
Ep 211 Motion Sickness: It comes in waves
It comes on sneakily. You become aware of your stomach. You break out in a cold sweat. Your mouth fills with saliva. And before you know it, you’re leaning over the side of the boat (or out of the car, or into the airplane sick bag), barfing up your breakfast. Motion sickness. We ... Show More
1h 16m
May 19
Ep 210 Histoplasmosis: Bats, birds, and budding yeast
Once thought to be a rare, always fatal disease, histoplasmosis is now recognized as one of the most prevalent fungal infections in North America. It infects hundreds of thousands of people every year, and its distribution is growing. In this episode, we dissect this abundant fun ... Show More
1h 18m
Jul 2024
Lost Women of Science Conversations: The Exceptions
<p>Dr. Nancy Hopkins, a molecular biologist who made major discoveries in cancer genetics, became an unlikely activist in her early fifties. She had always believed that if you did great science, you would get the recognition you deserved. But after years of humiliations — being ... Show More
34m 59s
Jul 2018
3 | Alice Dreger on Sexuality, Truth, and Justice
The human mind loves nothing more than to build mental boxes -- categories -- and put things into them, then refuse to accept it when something doesn't fit. Nowhere is this more clear than in the idea that there are men, and there are women, and that's it. Alice Dreger is an hist ... Show More
1h 20m
Dec 2024
Mysteries we can’t stop thinking about
The wildest stories that never made it into our episodes. Until now.
Guests: Amy Boddy, anthropological scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Jayme Locke, transplant surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; Jonathan Jiang, research scientist at the ... Show More
25m 38s
Feb 2025
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
<p>Today, a story that starts small and private, with one woman alone in her bathroom, as she makes a quiet, startling discovery about her own body. But that small, private moment grows and grows, and pretty soon it becomes something so big that it has impacted the life of every ... Show More
34m 45s
Oct 2024
Consciousness and the limits of science PART 2 | Sean Carroll, Ellen Langer, and Tamar Gendler
<p><strong>Mind, matter, and everything - PART TWO</strong></p><p>Can science ever solve the problem of consciousness? Do our methods look for answers in all the wrong places? Join Sean Carroll, Ellen Langer, and Tamar Gendler as they debate the possibility of science providing a ... Show More
27m 34s
<p>Scientist Leona Zacharias was a rare woman. She graduated from <a href="http://www.barnard.edu" title="Barnard College" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Barnard College </a>in 1927 with a degree in biology, followed by a Ph.D. from <a href="http://www.columbia.edu" title="Columb ... Show More
