Surprising stories from the history of science told by Naomi Alderman and Philip Ball.
Radio 4,·50 episodes
Philip Ball tells the story of Anton Mesmer and the rise and fall of animal magnetism.
28 Dec 2016,·28 mins
Naomi Alderman tells the story of engineer Hertha Ayrton, who refined street lights.
21 Dec 2016,·28 mins
The man who predicted deforestation and harmful human-induced climate change 200 years ago
14 Dec 2016,·28 mins
How testosterone has been used and abused in history
07 Dec 2016,·28 mins
How a dying man's book demoted the earth and reconstructed the universe.
30 Nov 2016,·27 mins
How blood donation became segregated and associated with racial identity.
15 Jun 2016,·28 mins
Philip Ball explains the thought experiment that niggled at physics for a century.
08 Jun 2016,·28 mins
Naomi Alderman tells the story of Paul Ehrlich's 'magic bullet' and the cure for syphilis.
01 Jun 2016,·28 mins
Chaucer's Astrolabe and how a renowned poet wrote the world's first scientific manual.
25 May 2016,·28 mins
Naomi Alderman tells how Florence Nightingale saved lives with statistics.
18 May 2016,·28 mins
What happened when Einstein decided to fix the fridge?
03 Feb 2016,·28 mins
Margaret Cavendish and the birth of the scientific method.
27 Jan 2016,·28 mins
The riddle of the 19th century French meteorite that carried a secret for 100 years.
20 Jan 2016,·28 mins
How an eel sparked our interest in electricity
13 Jan 2016,·28 mins
The magical world of Conelis Drebbel, inventor of the first submarine in 1621.
06 Jan 2016,·28 mins
Simon Schaffer tells of the astronomers who grappled with evolution long before Darwin.
08 Jul 2015,·28 mins
How William Perkin brought purple to the people in Victorian London.
01 Jul 2015,·28 mins
The third man behind the unravelling of DNA's double helix, Maurice Wilkins.
24 Jun 2015,·28 mins
How the engine that powered the industrial revolution nearly ran out of steam.
17 Jun 2015,·28 mins
The extraordinary tale of feuding dinosaur hunters in America's Wild West .
10 Jun 2015,·28 mins
