On todays episode of Modern Notion Daily, our guest is Taylor Downing, author of Secret Warriors: The Spies, Scientists and Code Breakers of World War I (Pegasus, April 2015). Downings book shifts the focus away from the trenches and bloody battlefields to the scientific innovations that made World War I different from any previous war. The war, despite all of its death and destruction, presented an opportunity to improve the technology involved in aviation, medicine, cryptography, and many other fields.

Later in the hour, contributing editor Erin Blakemore tells the story of one of the greatest sprinters of all time, Wilma Rudolph.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Private Hurricane (Instrumental Version)” by Josh Woodward, from the album Breadcrumbs

This hour, our guest is Nancy Goldstone, author of The Rival Queens: Catherine de Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal That Ignited a Kingdom (Little, Brown and Company, June 2015). These werent just any 16th-century queens; these women engaged in love affairs, group sex, killing sprees, and much, much more. Goldstone researched these royal families exhaustively and boiled it down to a book that reads like a transcript of the latest season of Real Housewives.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

Entrance to the Queen of Sheba for Two Oboes, Strings, and Continuo allegro by George Frideric Handel, performed by Advent Chamber Orchestra

This hour, were talking with Philip Ball, author of Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen (University of Chicago Press, April 2015). Ball takes a look back at human fascination with invisibility throughout history, from Plato to the present. And it turns out, science is getting closer to solving the invisibility problem—but if we do figure it out, does that take the magic out of it? Later in the hour, we learn why Ave Maria has such a calming power over us—but only when its sung in Latin.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

Superconductivity by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel

On todays show, we have two guests. The first is Caitlin Davies, author of Downstream: A History and Celebration of Swimming the River Thames (Aurum Press, June 2015). The River Thames has the same mythic status in England as the Mississippi River has in the United States, and Davies undertook a project to research the history of swimming in it—which, not unsurprisingly, led her to take a few dips herself. Our second guest is Chris Woodford, author of Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Surprising Science Hidden in Your Home (Bloomsbury USA, May 2015). Woodford uses everyday examples to get us excited about science and how things work. And he also tells us about the Victorian plans for cell phones.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Take Me Higher” by Jahzzar, from the album Tumbling Dishes Like Old-Man’s Wishes

On todays show, were talking to author Brandon Brown about his new book, Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War (Oxford University Press, June 2015). Max Planck was the German physicist who created quantum physics, and he acted as a mentor to the likes of Albert Einstein and Lise Meitner. But as an elderly man, he became caught up in Nazi Germany, eventually meeting with Hitler and witnessing his sons execution at Hitlers hands. Later this hour, Josh Hrala tells us why Schrodingers cat is still alive, and how researchers recently uncovered a tomb with 8 million mummified dogs.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

Flutter by Jahzzar, from the album Onus

On this hour of Modern Notion Daily, were talking with Adam Benforado, a lawyer and law professor who just published Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice (Crown, June 2015). Benforado uncovers the hidden biases at play within our criminal justice system, which affect everyone from jurors to judges to first responders to lawyers.

Music this hour:

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

Theme M by Steve Combs andamp; Delta Is, from the album Themes (Vol. 1)

On todays show, our guest is Stephen Witt, author of How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy (Viking, June 2015). Witt traces the lives of three men on all different sides of the music industry: the creator of the mp3, a music industry executive, and a factory worker who pirated more than 2,000 albums in the (relatively) early days of the Internet. Later in the hour, we talk to staff writer Josh Hrala about why its so hard—actually, impossible—to remember dreams.

Music this hour:

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“get out” by Jahzzar, from the album Sketches

On this hour of Modern Notion Daily, our guest is Nick Broomfield, director of the HBO documentary, Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2015). Broomfield and his son, Barney, went to the mostly-black South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles to tell the story of a serial killer dubbed the Grim Sleeper. The Grim Sleeper is accused of murdering at least 10 women, and possibly many more, over the course of 23 years. But the focus of Broomfields documentary becomes why it took so long to investigate these crimes fully, and why the media neglected the story until relatively recently.

Later in the hour, Mark Hay tells the story of leopard men in Africa, and Kristen Majewski talks about the first cockroach to conceive in space.

Warning: This episode contains some graphic detail about medical procedures, violence, and sex.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“wherever” by Jahzzar, from the album Sketches

“Private Hurricane (Instrumental Version)” by Josh Woodward, from the album Breadcrumbs

“Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod, from the album Global Sampler

On this hour of Modern Notion Daily, we welcome guest Sam Kean, author of The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery (Basic Books, June 2015 paperback). Kean set out to find the boundary between brain and mind, using anecdotes about various brain abnormalities throughout history.

Later in the hour, Gabe Bullard brings us a cultural history of the banjo, and contributing editor Emma Bryce tells us about the man who brings back words from the dead—and she introduces us to some of those resurrected words.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

On todays show, our guest is Jacky Colliss Harvey, author of Red: A History of the Redhead (Black Dog andamp; Leventhal, June 2015). As a redhead herself, Harvey wanted to research the unique experience of being a ginger, from the science behind it to representations of redhead in art throughout history. In the process, she found herself at Redhead Days, a festival in the Netherlands that draws redheads from around the world. We also talk to contributing editor Emma Bryce about how prank calls helped spread awareness about Ebola in West Africa. Plus, staff writer Josh Hrala discusses sex in Germany and sex in space.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Take Me Higher” by Jahzzar, from the album Tumbling Dishes Like Old-Man’s Wishes