Undiscovered

By Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Society & Culture History

What's Undiscovered about?

Undiscovered is a podcast about how science really happens. It's about all the stuff that gets left out of journal articles – the left turns, false starts, harebrained ideas, and lucky breaks that go into scientific research. It’s scientists telling the story of how they discovered something.

Most science shows focus on scientific findings – this new thing we know now, that we didn’t know before. But sometimes, the story of HOW the heck scientists figured this new thing is as compelling – sometimes more! – than the discovery. There are some experiments that are also great stories. Undiscovered is a podcast about those stories.

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LAST EPISODE

Spontaneous Generation

12.11.2019

These days, biologists believe all living things come from other living things. But for a long time, people believed that life would, from time to time, spontaneously pop into existence more often—and not just that one time at the base ...

Undiscovered episodes:

12.11.2019 Spontaneous Generation These days, biologists believe all living things come from other living things. But for a long time, people believed that life would, from time to time, spontaneously pop into existence more often—and not just that one time at the base ...
12.04.2019 Into The Ether In 1880, scientist Albert Michelson set out to build a device to measure something every 19th century physicist knew just had to be there. The “luminiferous ether” was invisible and pervaded all of space. It helped explain how light traveled, ...
11.27.2019 Planet Of The Killer Apes In Apartheid-era South Africa, a scientist uncovered a cracked, proto-human jawbone. That humble fossil would go on to inspire one of the most blood-spattered theories in all of paleontology: the “Killer Ape” theory. According to the Killer Ape theory, humans ...
11.20.2019 Like Jerry Springer For Bluebirds “Do men need to cheat on their women?” a Playboy headline asked in the summer of 1978. Their not-so-surprising conclusion: Yes! Science says so! The idea that men are promiscuous by nature, while women are chaste and monogamous, is an ...
03.28.2019 Mini: The Undercover Botanist In 1767, a young French servant sailed around the world, collecting plants previously unknown to Western science. The ship’s crew knew the servant as “Jean,” the scrappy aide to the expedition’s botanist. But “Jean” had a secret. She was actually ...
12.17.2018 Mini: Cats, Villains At Heart Undiscovered is back between seasons with a listener question: What saved the cats? If you rewind to the Middle Ages, cats and humans were on bad terms. Cat roundups, cat torture, and even cat murder were common occurrences throughout Europe. ...
11.13.2018 Not Your Subject In U.S. cancer research, the most promising clinical trials are done mostly on white patients, which means people of color—and especially African Americans—are underrepresented in research that might save their lives. In this episode, a young, black medical student joins ...
11.06.2018 This Headline Might Kill You In this Undiscovered Cares Report, Annie and Elah dig into a scary science headline to help Elah’s friend, David, figure out how scared he should be that his B12 vitamins will give him lung cancer. And we find out how—even ...
10.30.2018 Party Lines In 2016, a North Carolina legislator announced that his party would be redrawing the state’s congressional district map with a particular goal in mind: To elect “10 Republicans and three Democrats.” His reasoning for this? As he explained, he did ...
10.23.2018 The Long Loneliness Americans haven’t always loved whales and dolphins. In the 1950s, the average American thought of whales as the floating raw materials for margarine, animal feed, and fertilizer—if they thought about whales at all. But twenty-five years later, things had changed ...
10.16.2018 Turtle v. Snake Travis Thomas is a rookie turtle researcher in Florida. He was on the verge of publishing his first big paper and naming two new species of turtle when he found out he’d been scooped by a stranger in Australia: Raymond ...
10.09.2018 Guest Episode: The Infinite God This week, Annie and Elah share an episode from one of their favorite podcasts, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Sum of All Parts. For years, Robert Schneider lived the indie rocker’s dream, producing landmark records and fronting his band, The Apples ...
10.02.2018 Plants And Prejudice Are non-native species all that bad, or are we just prejudiced against “the Other”? In the San Francisco Bay Area, one particular foreign species has been dividing environmentalists for years: the blue gum eucalyptus. Eucalyptus opponents say it’s a serious ...
09.25.2018 The Magic Machine As a critical care doctor, Jessica Zitter has seen plenty of “Hail Mary” attempts to save dying patients go bad—attempts where doctors try interventions that don’t change the outcome, but do lead to more patient suffering. It’s left her distrustful ...
09.18.2018 The Holdout Since the 1980s, Gerta Keller, professor of paleontology and geology at Princeton, has been speaking out against an idea most of us take as scientific gospel: That a giant rock from space killed the dinosaurs. Nice story, she says—but it’s ...
09.11.2018 I, Robovie A decade ago, psychologists introduced a group of kids to Robovie, a wide-eyed robot who could talk, play, and hug like a pro. And then, the researchers did something heartbreaking to Robovie! They wanted to see just how far kids’ ...
09.04.2018 Undiscovered Is Back For Season 2 Annie and Elah are back with tales of dinosaurs, robots, and more!
08.23.2018 Mouse’s Vineyard: Update! It’s been two years since we followed MIT scientist Kevin Esvelt to Martha’s Vineyard. Has he created his Lyme-fighting super-mouse? We follow up.
06.27.2017 Mouse’s Vineyard Martha’s Vineyard has a Lyme disease problem. Now a scientist is coming to town with a possible fix: genetically engineered mice. An island associated with summer rest and relaxation is gaining a reputation for something else: Lyme disease. Martha’s Vineyard ...
06.20.2017 Kurt Vonnegut and the Rainmakers In the mid 1940s, no one would publish Kurt Vonnegut’s stories. But when he gets hired as a press writer at General Electric, the company’s fantastical science inspires some of his most iconic--and best-selling--novels. Every snowflake is unique—except they all ...
06.13.2017 The Wastebook After a senator calls her research a waste of taxpayer dollars, biologist Sheila Patek heads to Capitol Hill to prove what her science is worth. In December 2015, the fight over science funding got personal for biologist Sheila Patek. She ...
06.06.2017 Six Degrees Are you just six handshakes away from every other person on Earth? Two mathematicians set out to prove we’re all connected. You have probably heard the phrase “six degrees of separation,” the idea that you’re connected to everyone else on ...
05.30.2017 Sick and Tired When researchers publish a new study on chronic fatigue syndrome, a group of patients cry foul—and decide to investigate for themselves. A landmark study on chronic fatigue syndrome sets off a multi-year battle between patients and scientists. On one side, ...
05.23.2017 Born This Gay At the turn of the 20th century, a German doctor sets out to prove that homosexuality is rooted in biology—but his research has consequences he never intended. In pre-Nazi Germany, a doctor named Magnus Hirschfeld sets out to take down ...
05.15.2017 The Meteorite Hunter Deep in Antarctica, a rookie meteorite hunter helps collect a mystery rock. Could it be a little piece of Mars? In Antarctica, the wind can tear a tent to pieces. During some storms, the gusts are so powerful, you can’t ...
05.09.2017 Boss Hua and the Black Box A team of social scientists stumbles onto a cache of censored Chinese social media posts—and decides to find out what the Chinese government wants wiped from the internet. On China’s most influential microblogging platform, a wristwatch aficionado named Boss Hua ...
05.02.2017 Hi! We are Undiscovered. We're a podcast about the left turns, false starts, and lucky breaks that move science forward.
Hi! We are Undiscovered. We're a podcast about the left turns, false starts, and lucky breaks that move science forward.
Boss Hua and the Black Box A team of social scientists stumbles onto a cache of censored Chinese social media posts—and decides to find out what the Chinese government wants wiped from the internet.
The Meteorite Hunter Deep in Antarctica, a rookie meteorite hunter helps collect a mystery rock. Could it be a little piece of Mars?
Born This Gay At the turn of the 20th century, a German doctor sets out to prove that homosexuality is rooted in biology—but his research has consequences he never intended.
Sick and Tired When researchers publish a new study on chronic fatigue syndrome, a group of patients cry foul—and decide to investigate for themselves.
Six Degrees Are you just six handshakes away from every other person on Earth? Two mathematicians set out to prove we’re all connected.
The Wastebook After a senator calls her research a waste of taxpayer dollars, biologist Sheila Patek heads to Capitol Hill to prove what her science is worth.
Kurt Vonnegut and the Rainmakers In the mid 1940s, no one would publish Kurt Vonnegut’s stories. But when he gets hired as a press writer at General Electric, the company’s fantastical science inspires some of his most iconic--and best-selling--novels.
Mouse’s Vineyard Martha’s Vineyard has a Lyme disease problem. Now a scientist is coming to town with a possible fix: genetically engineered mice.

Undiscovered

What's Undiscovered about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Undiscovered episodes:

Spontaneous Generation

Into The Ether

Planet Of The Killer Apes

Like Jerry Springer For Bluebirds

Mini: The Undercover Botanist

Mini: Cats, Villains At Heart

Not Your Subject

This Headline Might Kill You

Party Lines

The Long Loneliness

Turtle v. Snake

Guest Episode: The Infinite God

Plants And Prejudice

The Magic Machine

The Holdout

I, Robovie

Undiscovered Is Back For Season 2

Mouse’s Vineyard: Update!

Mouse’s Vineyard

Kurt Vonnegut and the Rainmakers

The Wastebook

Six Degrees

Sick and Tired

Born This Gay

The Meteorite Hunter

Boss Hua and the Black Box

Hi! We are Undiscovered.