Sci-why

If you want something done, do it yourself. That was the approach of the scientists from this episode. Eight strange scientists (and a few more) who went the extra mile to prove their hypothesis, and crossed the final frontier: experimenting on themselves. -- Sources: Enrique Chaves-Carballo (2005): Carlos Finlay and yellow fever: triumph over adversity. Military Medicine / HFW Wulf (1998): The centennial of spinal anesthesia. Anesthesiology / RF Mould (2007): Pierre Curie, 1859–1906. Current Oncology / Veena Rao (2015): JBS Haldane, an Indian scientist of British origin. Current Science / JM Siegel: A tribute to Nathaniel Kleitman. Psychiatry and Brain Research Institute. University of California, Los Angeles / Dieter Hagenbach; Lucius Werthmüller; Stanislav Grof (2013): Mystic Chemist: The Life of Albert Hofmann and His Discovery of LSD. Santa Fe, NM: Synergetic Press / "The Doctor Who Drank Infectious Broth, Gave Himself an Ulcer, and Solved a Medical Mystery". Discover Magazine / Elisabeth Svoboda (2008): The Worms Crawl In. TheNew York Times.

The Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II only let the slaves go free after facing God´s wrath in the form of ten Plagues, right? But, did you know that there is a scientific explanaiton for those Plagues? Join us in this episode to learn how the ten Plagues actually could have occurred and the chain of events that triggered each one of them. -- Sources: Stephen Mortlock (2019): "The Plagues of Egypt”. The Biomedical Scientist. / Khamesipour, F. (2018): "A systematic review of human pathogens carried by the housefly (Musca domestica L.)" BMC public health. / Marr JS and Malloy CD (1996): "An epidemiologic analysis of the ten plagues of Egypt". Caduceus (Springfield, Ill.) / Walsby AE Schanz F and Schmid M (2005): "The Burgundy-blood phenomenon: A model of buoyancy change explains autumnal water-blooms by Planktothrix rubescens in Lake Zürich". New Phytologist.

Spooky season hangover! To say farewell to Halloween, we have chosen a creepy experiment that has been a protagonist of many horror stories. In this episode we talk about the dreadful lobotomy, its inventor, and a man who became so obsessed with it that he could have been his own patient. -- Sources: German E. Berrios (1997): The origins of psychosurgery: Shaw, Burckhardt and Moniz. History of Psychiatry. / Jack El-Hai (2005): The Lobotomist / Hugh Levinson (2011): "The strange and curious history of lobotomy“, BBC News.

Spooky season! For this Halloween special episode we talk about 6 creepy experiements performed in the name of science. Hear about two-headed monsters, zombie dogs, the horrors of war, and much more that will sure give you the chills. -- Sources: Williams, Peter, and Wallace, David (1989). Unit 731. Grafton Books. / Elisabeth Nix (2020): Tuskegee Experiment: The Infamous Syphilis Study, History Magazine. / Transplanted Head (1955), Time Magazine. / Ethan Blue (2009): The Strange Career of Leo Stanley: Remaking Manhood and Medicine at San Quentin State Penitentiary, 1913-1951, Pacific Historical Review. / Haney, C.; Banks, W. C.; Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). "A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison". Naval Research Review. / Konstantinov, Igor; Alexi-Meskishvili, Vladimir (2000). "Sergei S. Brukhonenko: The Development of the First Heart-Lung Machine for Total Body Perfusion". The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

Nowadays it is so easy to find new planets that a teenager can do it in his third day of intership at NASA. However, back in the day things were a little more complicated. There were no  fancy devices and advanced technology, so they had to make-do with other things, like using Venus to know how far the Earth is from the Sun. Join us to learn how they did it in this week´s episode! -- Sources: Hannah Morrison (2020): Meet the NASA intern who discovered a new planet on his third day. BBC News. / David Shortt (2012): Some Details About Transits of Venus. The Planetary Society. / Tim Sharp (2018): Edmond Halley: An Extraordinary Scientist and the Second Astronomer Royal. Space. / Tim Sharp (2021): How far is Earth from the sun? Or: What is an astronomical unit? Space. / Peter Aughton (2002): Endeavour: The Story of Captain Cook's First Great Epic Voyage. London: Cassell & Co.

In this episode we do not talk so much about science, but about the scientists. Join us to know more about the crazy French expedition to Peru to determine whether the Earth was a sphere or not, and the series of unfortunate events that happened to the oblivious scientists who lead the mission. -- Sources: Jim R. Smith (2002): The Meridian Arc Measurement in Peru 1735 – 1745. IIHSM. / Lafuente, A & Mazuecos, A. (1987): Los Caballeros del Punto Fijo. Ediciones del Serbal / Guillén Tato, Julio F. (1973). Los tenientes de navío Jorge Juan y Santacilia y Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Guiral y la medición del Meridiano. Madrid: Caja de Ahorros de Novelda. / Raú Hernández Asensio (2008): El Matemático impaciente: La Condamine, las pirámides de Quito y la Ciencia Ilustrada (1740-1751). IEP Lima.

We rewatched Jurassic Park (1993), which is a banger every time, and that got us thinking how far genetic engineering went. Nowadays, the idea of such a park is not that crazy. In this episode we talk about genetic technologies, how do they work, and what they can be used for. -- Sources: Barrangou R (2015): The roles of CRISPR-Cas systems in adaptive immunity and beyond. Current Opinion in Immunology. / Redman M, King A, Watson C, King D (2016): What is CRISPR/Cas9. Archives of Disease in Childhood. Education and Practice Edition. / Hsu PD, Lander ES, Zhang F (2014): Development and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome engineering. Cell. / Michael Crichton (1990): Jurassic Park.

For most of us, chemistry class was a nightmare because of our teachers and their methods. Actually, chemistry can be really cool! In this episode we talk about the cool guy Mendeleev, his adventures and story, and how he came up with the most elegant solution for the mess that chemistry was before him.

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Sources: Alexei Storonkin, Roman Dobrotyn (1984). D. I. Mendeleev's Life and Work Chronicles. Leningrad: Nauka. / Gordin, Michael D. (2004). A Well-ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table. / Scerri, Eric (2019). The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance. Oxford University Press.

The story of how a man robbed two banks with lemon juice proved not only that it could be done, but also how incredibly wrong someone can be. This strange story triggered a very interesting research on how incompetent people cannot realize how little they actually know about almost anything. Tune in to learn about the Dunning-Kruger Effect!

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Sources: Dunning and Kruger: "Unskilled and Unaware" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2000). / David Dunning: "The Dunning-Kruger effect, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology" Elsevier (2011). / William Poundstone: "Head in the Cloud, Little", Brown and Co. (2016).