When Antonie van Leeuwenhoek devised his microscope in 1676, it was not to study bacteria, says this microbiologist: “He designed it so he could look at thread; he was a draper.” Thus an amateur – a tailor – sparked a scientific revolution. A conversation with a champion of citizen scientists at KGB’s Red Room, produced … Continue reading »
Category Archives: Science & Medicine
Episode 266: Robert Fullilove
As a college kid in 1964, he went to Mississippi for Freedom Summer. Later he began working with the Bard Prison Initiative, and he’s now a dean at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. In a sense, his work remains the same: the pursuit of of social justice. Music from Valerie and Ben Turner: Piedmont Bluz. Continue reading »
Episode 262: Einat Lev
Is scientific thought regional? Do people in Iceland devise different ideas from people in India? No, says geophysicist Einat Lev: science is science around the world. Yet she’s visited 40 countries, most with no volcano. Paradox or pleasure? A conversation at KGB’s Red Room, produced with Lori Schwarz and 500 Women Scientists. Music from Francois … Continue reading »
Episode 257: Charles Branas
The Senate and the Supreme Court thwart meaningful action on gun violence, but the chair of the epidemiology department at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health asserts that his field offers a way forward. Ignorant despair (mine) versus sophisticated hopefulness (his). Music from Lily Henley and Duncan Wickel. Photo by Michel DiVito. Continue reading »
Episode 254: Sarah Pearson
Doing pure is science akin to doing art, says astrophysicist Sarah Pearson: both lack obvious utility; both enable us to see the world in new ways. The first in our women scientists series, produced with Lori Schwarz at KGB’s Red Room and 500 Women Scientists. Music from Miss Maybell and Charlie Judkins. Continue reading »
Episode 237: Blanche Pitt
ICAP at Columbia University sees its international public health work as part of broad commitment to social justice. Nobody personifies those values more than Blanche Pitt, who directs ICAP’s projects in South Africa. With music from Kevin Nathaniel Hylton. Person: Mark Heywood Place:: Joseph Stone Auditorium Thing: South African Constitution Randy’s People: Gilbert & … Continue reading »
Episode 232: Steven Hamburg
The head scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, he knows the literature thoroughly and yet asserts, “The tension between what I read and what I observed was the area where I made my biggest contribution.” Science and the creative process. Plus another sort of creativity from musician Hannah Read. Photo by Leslie Von Pless. Person: … Continue reading »
Episode 222: Harriet Washington
Decades ago she was aiming for med school until she read the college catalogs. “Some of them were polite and said, ‘Not accepting negro students at this time,’” she recalls. “I guess come back in twenty years.” I’d have plunged into rage and despair; she became a first-rate science writer. A conversation at Columbia … Continue reading »
Episode 219: Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr
She has been fighting HIV-AIDS around the world for 3 decades and believes that her patients and their supporters offer broader lessons: “People who are affected by cancer, for example, have learned a lot from the HIV movement.” Broader still, the public health efforts she champions are a model for democratic governance – egalitarian, … Continue reading »
Episode 218: Dr. Lucy Kalanithi
When a beloved spouse dies, we confront profound questions and also mundane matters. “Do you keep wearing your ring? When do you take it off?” asks Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi who wrote When Breath Becomes Air. She faces both with grace and insight. A surprisingly hopeful – joyful – conversation … Continue reading »
Episode 213: Mandë Holford, Mercer R. Brugler
The 19th century biologist Ernst Haechel had flamboyantly false ideas about race but discovered thousands of species and coined the terms ecology, phylum, and stem cell. How do we reconcile his errors and his contributions? A conversation with two marine scientists at the American Museum of Natural History about being wrong. Music from Robert Duncan … Continue reading »
Episode 207: Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez
A face transplant is disturbing in a way that a kidney or heart transplant is not. Is it because our face is so key to our identity? Nobody has thought more about this than surgeon Eduardo Rodriguez, an authority on the procedure. Plus music from Solange Prat and Gregorio Uribe. Surgery and song. PERSON: … Continue reading »