Distillations: Science + Culture + History

Our current devastating opioid crisis is unprecedented in its reach and deadliness, but it’s not the first such epidemic the United States has experienced or tried to treat. In fact, it’s the third.  Treating America’s Opioid Addiction is a three-part series that investigates how we’ve understood and treated opioid addiction over more than a century. Through the years we’ve categorized opioid addiction as some combination of a moral failure, a mental illness, a biological disease, or a crime. And though we’ve desperately wanted the problem to be something science alone can solve, the more we look, the more complicated we learn it is.  Part 2 focuses on a controversial rehabilitation program called Synanon, which became the first significant therapeutic community for opioid addiction. From the time it opened its doors in 1958, it seemed to do what no other hospital, prison, or sanitarium had done before: cure the supposedly incurable heroin addict. But over the years its changing methods became increasingly qu

In our next episode we’re continuing our three-part series on the history of opioid addiction treatment in the United States. And we’re going back to the early 1960s, when the foundations for our modern opioid addiction treatment system were being built--starting with a controversial drug rehabilitation program called Synanon. Tune in to our next episode, Synanon and the Tunnel Back to the Human Race, on September 18. 

Our current devastating opioid crisis is unprecedented in its reach and deadliness, but it’s not the first such epidemic the United States has experienced or tried to treat. In fact, it’s the third.  Treating America’s Opioid Addiction is a three-part series that investigates how we’ve understood and treated opioid addiction over more than a century. Through the years we’ve categorized opioid addiction as some combination of a moral failure, a mental illness, a biological disease, or a crime. And though we’ve desperately wanted the problem to be something science alone can solve, the more we look, the more complicated we learn it is.  Part 1 focuses on a government-run prison-hospital, the Narcotic Farm, just for people addicted to opioids. When it opened in 1935, it promised to find a cure for drug addiction.  Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Reporter: Mariel Carr with additional reporting by Meir Rinde Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Mo

We're hard at work on our next season. Listen to the first episode on August 21st!

If you live in Los Angeles, or even if you’ve just visited, you know about smog. But what might surprise you is that a half-century ago the city’s air quality was more unbearable, even though the city had far fewer cars. In the final installment of our three-part series on environmental success stories, we tell you about Los Angeles’s caveat-filled triumph over smog. The battle started in the 1940s and continues today, but along the way crucial pieces of technology and legislation helped clear the air—and forced the whole country to follow.   Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Morrison    Music Our theme music was composed by Zach Young.  Additional music courtesy of the Audio Network.  Research Notes To research this episode we read Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles and interviewed its author, Chip Jacobs. We also interviewed Roger Turner, research fellow for the Beckman Legacy P

Tune in to the next episode of Distillations on June 26!

Remember acid rain? If you were a kid in the 1980s like our hosts were, the threat of poison falling from the sky probably made some kind of impression on your consciousness. But thanks to the work of scientists, government, the media, and the pope—that’s right, the pope—the problem was fixed! Well, mostly fixed is probably more accurate. This complicated story spans 27 years, six U.S. presidents, and ecologist Gene Likens's entire career. Discover the insidious details in the second chapter of our three-part series on environmental success stories.  Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: James Morrison  Additional audio was recorded by David G. Rainey. Image of Gene Likens by Phil Bradshaw of FreshFly. We interviewed Rachel Rothschild, a former Science History Institute research fellow and Rumford Scholar, about her book, “Poisonous Skies: Acid Rain and the Globalization of Pollution.” To research this episode we read

Tune in to the next episode of Distillations on May 22!

If you were around in the 1980s, you probably remember the lurking fear of an ominous hole in the sky. In the middle of the decade scientists discovered that a giant piece of the ozone layer was disappearing over Antarctica, and the situation threatened us all. The news media jumped on the story. The ozone layer is like the earth’s sunscreen: without it ultraviolet rays from the sun would cause alarming rates of skin cancer and could even damage marine food chains. And it turns out we were causing the problem. Today, more than three decades after the initial discovery, the ozone hole in Antarctica is finally on the road to recovery. How did we do it? This environmental success story gives us a glimpse into what happens when scientists, industry, the public, and the government all work together to manage a problem that threatens all of us. Happy Earth Day! Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez To research this episode we read Merchant

They’re at the grocery checkout. They kill cancer cells. They’re in pointers that drive cats crazy and in the fiber networks that connect us to the internet. Lasers are so ubiquitous it’s hard to imagine a world without them. So you’d think we would know who the inventor was, right? Turns out it’s not so easy. There’s the guy who wrote down the initial idea, two other guys who got a patent for it, and then another guy who actually built the first laser. We spoke to Nick Taylor, author of Laser: The Inventor, the Noble Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War about this story and what it tells us about how inventions happen. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elizabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer and Reporter: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Catherine Girardeau Music Our theme music was composed by Zach Young.  Additional music courtesy of the Audio Network. 

Yoga pants are having a moment. And while they’re not new, they’ve moved beyond the gym and yoga studio into nearly every corner of our lives. This so-called athleisure wear trend has made a lot of people happy. “Once I wore [yoga pants], I never wore jeans again if I could help it,” says Sage Roundtree, a yoga instructor from North Carolina. But as comfy as the trend is, it has made a lot of people very unhappy—including the entire cotton industry. That’s because performance athletic wear isn’t made out of cotton. It’s made of synthetic fibers such as Lycra, polyester, and spandex. As demand for athleisure wear grows, demand for cotton shrinks. Luckily, cotton has a few tricks up its sleeve to keep consumers interested—because this is only the latest episode in a decades-long rivalry between cotton and synthetic fibers. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elizabeth Berry Drago Reporter and producer: James Morrison Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Music Our theme music was composed by

Every aspiring chemist has heard of Boyle’s law—the equation that relates the pressure of a gas to its volume. But even if you know about Robert Boyle himself, it’s not likely you’ve heard of his sister, even though she probably talked him through many of his ideas. Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh (1615–1691), had a lifelong influence on her famous younger brother, natural philosopher Robert Boyle. In her lifetime she was recognized by many for her scientific knowledge, but her story was almost lost to time. This episode is a collaboration with Poncie Rutsch, the creator and host of Babes of Science. Poncie interviewed CHF’s own Michelle DiMeo, a historian who’s writing a book about Lady Ranelagh. Babes of Science is a podcast that tries to answer two questions: Who are the women who changed the trajectory of science? And why has it taken us so long to recognize their work? Credits Hosts: Michal Meyer and Bob KenworthyReporter and producer: Poncie Rutsch Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernand

As you ponder which shiny new gadgets to put in your children’s stockings this holiday season, beware of the story of the Abbott family, whose lives were forever changed after a little too much screen time. Distillations brings you a live performance of Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt.” Originally titled “The World the Children Made,” it’s a science-fiction tale about the dangers of our growing overdependence on technology. “People ask me to predict the future when all I want to do is prevent it,” Bradbury said. “We have too many cellphones. We’ve got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines.” Special thanks to Mechanical Theater and the Hear Again Radio Project for the live performance. Credits Hosts: Michal Meyer and Bob Kenworthy Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Music Our theme music was composed by Zach Young.  Dream (instrumental) by Chan Wai Fat, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

It’s one of the most bizarre episodes in American food history: when butter and margarine were at war. What you choose to spread on your toast might seem like a boring subject, but it turns out to be fascinating and sometimes hilarious. Margarine’s history began with French emperor Napoleon III, a French chemist, and some sheep’s stomachs, and went on to include heated courtroom debates, our first federal laws regulating food, and outlaws smuggling faux butter across state lines. The spreads have competed for more than a hundred years, and public preferences shift each time our understanding of health science changes. In this episode of Distillations we learn about the history of butter and margarine and explore the distinctly American debates they inspired involving food, health, science, and regulation. Credits Hosts: Elisabeth Berry Drago and Alexis Pedrick Producer: Mariel Carr Associate Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Catherine Girardeau Reading for this episode: The Dairy Crisis: http://ww

Baby horses and giraffes walk soon after they’re born, and they can feed and take care of themselves pretty quickly, too. A one-year-old person, on the other hand, is basically helpless. But humans go on to live much longer than most other mammals, and scientists have long been trying to piece together why this is the case. One theory, called the grandmother hypothesis, claims that grandmas are the key to why humans live so long. Unlike most other species, human females live long past their childbearing years and so can help raise their grandchildren, allowing their daughters (or daughters-in-law) to have another baby before the first one can take care of itself. As warm and fuzzy as this idea sounds, it turns out to be pretty controversial. In this episode of Distillations we explore the grandmother hypothesis and find out what the debate is all about. Credits Hosts: Michal Meyer and Bob Kenworthy Producer: Mariel Carr Associate Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez  Music Our theme music was composed by Zach Young.

Though they lived decades apart, Adolphe Dessauer and Abdelwahhab Azzawi share similar stories. They were both esteemed physicians who faced violence and persecution in their home countries. They both sought refuge abroad and found safety, only to find themselves facing a new struggle—getting permission to practice medicine in their new homes. Dessauer, a Jewish doctor, fled Germany for the United States in 1938. Azzawi, a 36-year-old ophthalmologist from Syria, found asylum in Germany in 2015. Both men’s lives were spared through the generosity of their new countries, but they had to struggle to give back in the most meaningful way they could—by sharing their medical expertise. In 2016 every American Nobel laureate in science was an immigrant. And it wasn’t just that year; U.S. winners often are born abroad. Yet as global an enterprise as science has become, navigating bureaucracy and straddling boundaries seems to be as difficult in the 21st century as during World War II. Show Clock  00:13 Intro 01:35 The

There are no parents in the world who want to see their child sick. Often the illness is no big deal—you follow doctor’s orders and your kid gets better soon. But what do you do when your child is really sick, and it’s because of decisions the founders of your religion made more than 300 years ago? And what do you do when the medical solutions seem to run counter to that very same religion? This is the dilemma faced by many Amish and Mennonite parents in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, whose children suffer from genetic diseases at rates exponentially higher than the rest of the population. These Plain People, as they call themselves, typically eschew technology. But 30 years ago they chose to step out of character and embrace the latest advances in genomic medicine to help save their children. Reporter Kyrie Greenberg spent almost a year getting to know some of these families, and she produced this podcast with us.   Credits Hosts: Michal Meyer and Bob Kenworthy Producer: Mariel Carr Associate Producer: Rig

On April 22, 2017, more than one million people in 600 cities around the world took to the streets in the name of science. Many were scientists themselves, and quite a few donned lab coats. Some were protesting for the first time. It was an unusual sight perhaps, but science has never been immune to politics. “If we could imagine angels doing science maybe it wouldn’t be political,” says Liz Lopatto, science editor of the technology site the Verge, “But since it’s humans, it’s inescapable.” Throughout the past century quite a few scientists have taken up political causes, but the tide of politics and science ebbs and flows, from the labs to the streets and back again. Now, after a period of relative quiet it seems to be flowing again. But this time it’s different. Sociologist Kelly Moore says, “I don’t know of any period in American history when scientists have felt the need to collectively defend science as a public good.” Show Clock 00:32 March for science 02:14 Science as a noun, science as a verb  04:55 

There was a time when tattoos were taboo, and you thought long and hard before getting one. Today 20 percent of American adults are inked. Tattoos just don’t carry the stigma they once did—unless it’s a particular kind of tattoo, in a particular place on the body. Fortunately, as our penchant for getting tattoos has grown, so has our ability to get rid of them. In the 1960s researchers started experimenting with lasers to remove tattoos, and since then the technology has dramatically improved. Now we can erase our past, whether it’s a sailor’s bad decision from overseas or a gang identifier that prevents its owner from getting a job—and could even get him killed. Sociologist and CHF research fellow Joseph Klett traces the modern history of tattoo removal through the stories of his father—a retired sailor—and ex-gang members in California.   Credits Hosts: Michal Meyer and Bob Kenworthy Reporter: Joseph Klett Producer:  Mariel Carr Associate producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Additional production by Kyrie Greenber

Most of us are content to use our existing five senses to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch our way through the world. But an increasing number of people called biohackers are not satisfied with watching the everyday brilliance of a sunset or petting a silky kitten. They want infrared vision and electromagnetic fingertips. “Why wouldn't I want to add one more sense to the ones I already have and enjoy so much? The ability to feel just a little bit more?” Nic Fox asked reporter Catherine Girardeau. Fox has a device embedded in his chest that vibrates when he faces magnetic north. To understand more about these would-be cyborgs we turned to Kara Platoni, author of We Have the Technology: How Biohackers, Foodies, Physicians and Scientists Are Transforming Human Perception, One Sense at a Time. Platoni is a science reporter and a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She describes how many biohackers feel the future hasn’t gotten here fast enough. They’re ready to be cyb