Sidedoor

When the Smithsonian’s Richard Kurin learned that a museum curator found hair inside a Bible in the Smithsonian’s collections, his own hair stood on end. This wasn’t just any Bible. It was Thomas Jefferson’s personal Bible. Could the hair belong to Jefferson? If so, it might help resolve one of the oldest and most contested questions in American history: Was Thomas Jefferson the father of Sally Hemings’s children?

The mystery hair sent Kurin on a years-long quest for answers. Now, he’s ready to share what he found. Join us as well follow him from the Smithsonian to Monticello, DNA laboratories, and the living rooms of Jefferson and Hemings descendants. Can scientists reconstruct a genome from a 200-year-old strand of hair? And what might that DNA reveal?

Guests: 

Richard Kurin, Smithsonian distinguished scholar, and ambassador-at-large

Leslie Greene Bowman, president emerita of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation 

Arthur (Art) Westerinen, great-great-great grandson of Sally Hemings through her son Eston Hemings 

Robert Fleischer, senior scientist emeritus at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics

Beth Shapiro, co-director of the Paleogenomics Lab at UC Santa Cruz

Richard E. Green, professor of bimolecular engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-director of the Paleogenomics Lab

David Miller, sixth generation descendent of Thomas Jefferson through his daughter Maria Eppes

Clara Lee-Nutt, great-great-great granddaughter of Sally Hemings through her son Madison Hemings

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Beetles make up a quarter of all known animal life on Earth. A QUARTER! Beetles are everywhere, doing almost everything. From eating flesh off skeletons to making poop disappear, these little buggers make the world a lot less gross for the rest of us… and look cool doing it. With a little help from the Smithsonian’s beetle experts, we’ll discover why these tiny powerhouses are so wildly diverse, why Ancient Egyptians considered them sacred, and what makes a dung beetle beautiful. (Yes, really.) Get ready to see beetles in a whole new light. Just watch where you step. 

Guests:
Inger Toraason, osteological specimen preparator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of National History's Osteo Prep Lab

Floyd Shockley, entomologist and collections manager for the Department of Entomology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History 

Frank Krell, coleopterist and curator of beetles at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History 

When baby Asian elephant Linh Mai was born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, her mother rejected her. Then things got worse. Linh Mai couldn’t digest her formula, she was losing weight, and her care team was running out of time.

Join us behind the scenes at the National Zoo to learn how curators and "turd nerds" race to save Linh Mai with an unusual treatment: a fecal microbiota transplant. But not just any poop will do!

Roll up your sleeves (and pinch your nose) as we explore the extraordinary lengths people will go to save one very big baby.

Guests: 

Sally Bornbusch, Microbial Ecologist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics and Department of Nutrition Science

Robbie Clark, Curator and Manager for Elephant Trails at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

Erin Kendrick, Clinical Nutritionist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

Season 13 of Sidedoor is almost here! Follow us behind the scenes at the National Zoo to meet the new baby elephant, Linh Mai. We open the vaults to see some of the weirdest beetles in the collection. And we track the wild journey of the Declaration of Independence after it was signed (which was actually not on July 4, 1776). New episodes begin next week! 

One of the deadliest poisons known to man is now used to treat wrinkles, migraines, and even, maybe, depression. How did that happen? 

This is a special episode from Unexplainable  podcast from Vox and the Vox Media Network. 

Guests: 

Jean Carruthers, ophthalmologist and “godmother” of cosmetic Botox. 

David Simpson, neurologist at Mount Sinai hospital in New York. 

Axel Wollmer, psychiatrist at the Asklepios clinic in Hamburg, Germany.

What happens when we slow down enough to really experience art? We visit a museum to discover how slow looking at art can cultivate awe, empathy, and a greater sense of connection in a distracted world.

This episode comes from the podcast The Science of Happiness. 

Science of Happiness on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-science-of-happiness/id1340505607

Science of Happiness on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4dq0wmiZlk58Eu0NcqgWei?si=6756c114ff904008

Science of Happiness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scienceofhappinesspod/

Science of Happiness Website Landing Page: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/series/the_science_of_happiness

How do you stop being so afraid? Tracy Twombly had such a strong phobia of spiders, it was messing with her life — stressing her out while she was working at her native plant nursery or hiking through the woods. So, she embarked on a journey to make peace with her eight-legged neighbors (even the extra hairy ones).

This is a special episode from the Up From Dust podcast, produced by the NPR Network, KCUR Studios, and the Kansas News Service.

Artwork for this episode by, Jessica Cornelison

For more than two decades, the StoryCorps silver Airstream trailer has crisscrossed the country, recording the stories of everyday Americans. In this episode honoring the 250th anniversary of the United States, our friends at The StoryCorps Podcast introduce you to the kaleidoscope of voices that make up these United States. 

In 1935, a diver searching Lake Champlain found something extraordinary: a nearly intact warship from the American Revolution. It was the Gunboat Philadelphia. In this episode, we dive into the story of how a ragtag American army built a fleet of ships to stand up against the British Navy in 1776 ... and lost. But that loss changed the course of U.S. history. 

So, how did Benedict Arnold and a bunch of sailors who had never been on a boat before turn the tide in the Revolutionary War? Listen, and find out! 

Guests: 

Jennifer Jones, Curator and Project Director for the Gunboat Philadelphia Preservation Project at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Kenneth Cohen, Chair of the Curatorial Division of Military and Society, and Curator of Early American History at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

This episode received support from Smithsonian's Our Shared Future: 250, a Smithsonian-wide initiative commemorating the nation's 250th. Major support for Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: 250 has been provided by Lilly Endowment Inc. Additional generous contributions have been made by Target, Caterpillar Foundation, and the Gates Foundation.

In the 1880s, a conservator at the Smithsonian set out for Montana to capture an American bison before the dwindling species vanished forever. He returned with six taxidermied bison that he displayed in the museum. 

The bison diorama wowed visitors so much that it helped kickstart a movement to save the species. But then, just like that, the stuffed bison vanished! 

Where did they go? 

With the nation's 250th birthday fast approaching, the director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History set out to find the missing bison. It's a journey that led west —where it all began— and ended on the steps of the museum. 

Guests: 

Kirk Johnson, Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History

Siobhan Starrs, Senior Project Manager and Exhibition Developer at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History 

Jonny BearCub Stiffarm, Volunteer with the Fort Peck Tribal Bison program in Montana. Member of the Assiniboine Nation and a former Buffalo Program administrator at the World Wildlife Fund 

Jim Wood, Assistant Director for Communications at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History

This episode received support from Smithsonian's Our Shared Future: 250, a Smithsonian-wide initiative commemorating the nation's 250th. Major support for Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: 250 has been provided by Lilly Endowment Inc. Additional generous contributions have been made by Target, Caterpillar Foundation, and the Gates Foundation.