Inside the Breakthrough - How Science Comes to Life
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Inside the Breakthrough - How Science Comes to Life
In Season 2 of the series we will share a new collection of surprising and unusual stories from the history of science. In each episode we will feature two seemingly unrelated stories from the past. Then, Dan Riskin will connect the dots between those stories and offer insight into how that history...
Neueste Episoden
28 EpisodenGive it All Away (Best of for 2025)
The discovery of insulin and building of the first Jeep. Two stories to explain why innovation and capitalism have a complicated relationship. Voted b...
Seeing it Firsthand (Best of for 2025)
The story of Antarctic Explorer Roald Amundsen, and a giant squid. What do they have in common? Listen to find out. Reprised from season 1.
Orig...
Money Matters (Best of for 2025)
The Nazi scientist that powered NASA’s moonshot and the Roman emperor who built the Colosseum have more in common than you think. To find the connecti...
Ooops! That’s a Big Mistake (Best of for 2025)
A man gets a lobotomy to cure his epilepsy, and the government tries to rid India of cobras. Neither of those efforts go as planned. Dan Riskin’s favo...
Clinical Trials Gone Bad (Best of for 2025)
Scurvy was a bigger threat to the Royal Navy than the French were, meanwhile the biggest threat to six men in a British hospital was their medicine! T...
What is Snake Oil? (Best of for 2025)
What is really in ‘snake oil’ and why did an innocent man go to prison for murder. What’s the connection? Listen to find out. This is one of our favou...
Spreading the News
Science communication has impacted our lives more than we ever thought it would. Getting complicated scientific and medical information out to a large...
Guinea Pigs
Let’s talk about the use of animals in medical research. It’s not a subject that people are very comfortable discussing, but we are going to do it any...
Follow the Money
The relationship between researchers and funders is complicated.
Some people think that researchers should be left to their own direction and th...
Old Meets New
The Amish community in Pennsylvania is heavily impacted by genetic diseases. You might think that their resistance to modern technology would make it...
Too Much or Too Little?
We often complain about having too little of something: Too little time, too little money. But today in first world countries a lot of our problems co...
Unintended Consequences
We’ve all heard the saying about “the best laid plans….” but there is a caveat to that. Not all unexpected consequences are bad. Sometimes something r...
Double Blind
Join us for a wild ride through Vienna and Paris. We will hang out with Mozart, Marie Antoinette, and the incredible Dr Mesmer. We will drink cocktail...
Tools for Testing
Sometimes great discoveries have to wait for the creation of the perfect tool.
What is the best screw ever invented? If you said the Phillips, y...
The Trouble With Trials
Ten years ago, in a hospital in London England a drug company conducted a clinical trial. That trial went horribly wrong. The lessons learned from tha...
What's in a Name?
Kick back and enjoy a cold Corona beer as we tell stories about the importance of names. From cameras to resumes to hormones, names matter.
Geor...
Introducing Season 2
Dan Riskin invites you to listen to season 2 of Inside the Breakthrough - How Science Comes to Life. This innovative series combines stories of the di...
Bonus Episode – How We Got Here
SciMar does more than produce a podcast. They are a real medical research company doing really amazing work in the field of type 2 diabetes. This epis...
Seeing It With Your Own Eyes
We made it! This is the final episode in season one… and it is a huge day for the medical research group SciMar.
Some scientific discover...
Going Back to Square One
Starting a story at the beginning makes sense… but what if there is a mistake in that first sentence? Does it invalidate the rest of the story? What i...
Why Giving It All Away Doesn’t Always Work
You’ve probably heard that Banting and Best gave away the patent for Insulin for one dollar. But why did they do that? And did it achieve what they wa...
Generations: What Newton taught Einstein
How many astronomers does it take to discover a planet that doesn’t exist? The Answer: Generations.
Depending on where you live, (and a t...
When Snake Oil Enters the Courtroom
What do you think of when you hear the term Snake Oil? Do you think of miracle vitamins with outlandish claims? Do you think of sneaky sales people tr...
Diversity, Leaded Gasoline, and Carjacking
The answers to life’s biggest questions will vary widely based on one simple variable: who you ask. If you do an experiment on men, you might get a di...
Why Unpopular Science is Good Science
When someone tells you “that is a stupid idea,” how do you react? Do you reconsider your position? Do you dig your heels in and get defensive? Do you...
Ross Geller and Marie Curie are Outsiders
The TV show Friends was king of primetime for a decade and while all six characters were ‘friends’ one of them was not like the others: Ross. We look...
How Bad Timing Killed the Electric Car
There was a time that the battle between Electric, Gasoline, and Steam powered cars was a dead heat. So why did gas win? Was it price? Or power? Speed...
Eureka! Before and After
When we tell science stories they usually have a long complicated build up, and finish with someone yelling Eureka. But is Eureka really the end? What...