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 »
Category Archives: Science & Medicine
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 »
Episode 199: Peter Staley
Relationships can begin with affection and end in misery. The divorce courts abound with examples. The opposite vector is less typical. When AIDS activist Peter Staley encountered Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Staley says that he and his cohort “put a bullseye on him, and we … Continue reading »
Episode 196: Dr. Mary Travis Bassett
She is New York City’s health commissioner, and she sees her work as part of a broader fight for social justice, not surprising given her family history: her parents are lifelong activists who met at a demonstration against a segregated restaurant, my idea of a love story. We spoke at the Van Alen Institute … Continue reading »
Episode 185: Dr. Richard Besser
He trained in pediatrics, was the acting head of the CDC, the chief medical editor for ABC News, and is now the CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Some people just can’t hold a job. Along the way, he’s had a run-in with deadly tainted apple cider and courteous but critical Diane Sawyer. … Continue reading »
Episode 170: Siri Hustvedt
Much admired for her novels, essays, and poems, she currently lectures in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. During our conversation at the Brooklyn Historical Society, she spoke about “the Invisible College,” the mind-body problem, and her love of Virginia Woolf, despite Woolf’s lamentable ignorance of 17th century science. With music from Niall Connolly. … Continue reading »
Episode 156: Max Krohn
Among life’s most liberating experiences is finding yourself unambiguously wrong: your mind is cleared of cant, and the world is transformed. (This requires the wit to perceive your error and the courage to acknowledge it, apparently not presidential qualities.) Max Krohn, a cofounder of SparkNotes and OKCupid, had such an experience as an undergrad … Continue reading »
Episode 123: Dr. Thomas Farley
The commissioner of health for New York City under Mayor Bloomberg, he battled cigarettes, transfats, and the fifty gallon vats of cola traditionally sold at movie theaters. He is the author of Saving Gotham and recently became the health commissioner of Philadelphia. We convened at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health with musician Kevin … Continue reading »