Science Stories

Episodes

1. 16

   Alexis Carrel and the immortal chicken heart

   Philip Ball tells the story of Alexis Carrel, the French surgeon who worked to preserve life outside the body and create an immortal chicken heart in a dish. His quest was to renew ageing flesh, repair and rebuild our bodies and keep them healthy far beyond the usual human lifespan. In the early...

   Sep 10, 2019

   27m
2. 15

   Ibn al-Haytham and How We See

   Philip Ball's story is of Ibn al-Haytham, the first scientist, and his book of optics that defined how we see.

   Jan 9, 2019

   27m
3. 14

   Lady Mary Montagu's Smallpox Experiment

   Naomi Alderman's Science Story reveals how Lady Mary Wortley Montagu experimented on her own child in a quest to prove that smallpox inoculation works. Born in 1689 in a position of some power and influence, Lady Mary travelled to Constantinople as the wife of the ambassador to Turkey and…

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   Jan 2, 2019

   27m
4. 13

   Kepler's Snowflakes

   Philip Ball reveals the tale of a small booklet 'On The Six-Cornered Snowflake", written by Johannes Kepler as a New Year's gift. The C17th astronomer wished to explain the intricate and symmetrical shape of winter's tiny stars of snow. His insightful speculations about minerals and geometry was...

   Dec 26, 2018

   27m
5. 12

   Lucretius, Sheep and Atoms

   Naomi Alderman's tale is of Lucretius, author of a 2000 year old poem that theorised about atoms and the natural world. Written in the first century BCE, during a chaotic and frightening time when the Roman Republic was collapsing, Lucretius encouraged people to feel free through contemplating…

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   Dec 19, 2018

   27m
6. 11

   Eddington's Eclipse and Einstein's Celebrity

   Eddington's Eclipse and Einstein's Celebrity Philip Ball's tale is of a solar eclipse 100 years ago observed by Arthur Eddington, a British astronomer who travelled to the remote island of Principe off the coast of West Africa and saw the stars shift in the heavens. His observations supplied the...

   Dec 12, 2018

   27m
7. 10

   Mary Anning and Fossil Hunting

   Mary Anning lived in Lyme Regis on what is now known as the Jurassic Coast in the first half of the 19th century. Knowing the shore from childhood and with a remarkable eye for detection she was extremely successful in finding fossils. In 1812 she unearthed parts of an Icthyosaur and in 1823 she...

   Jul 11, 2018

   27m
8. 9

   Hypatia: The Murdered Mathematician

   Naomi Alderman's tale is a murder mystery, the story of Hypatia, the mathematician murdered by a mob in the learned city of Alexandria, around the year 415 CE. Hypatia was a communicator of science, tackling difficult maths and teaching it to her students. This was incredibly important work. It…

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   Jul 4, 2018

   27m
9. 8

   Descartes' Daughter

   There's a story told about French philosopher René Descartes and his daughter. He boards a ship for a voyage over the North Sea with a large wooden box which he insists be handled with such great care that the sea captain's curiosity is aroused. When Descartes is out of his cabin the sea captain...

   Jun 27, 2018

   28m
10. 7

    Urea and the Wohler Myth

    Philip Ball tells the story of German chemist Friedrich Wöhler's creation of urea, an organic substance previously thought only to be produced by living creatures. Yet in 1828 Wöhler created urea from decidedly non-living substances. It was exciting because the accidental transformation seemed to...

    Jun 20, 2018

    27m
11. 6

    17th-Century Space Flight: The Real Cyrano de Bergerac

    Philip Ball reveals the real Cyrano de Bergerac - forget the big nosed fictional character - and his links to 17th Century space flight. Cyrano was a soldier, gambler and duellist who retired from military exploits on account of his wounds around 1639, at the grand old age of 20. But he studied…

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    Jun 13, 2018

    27m
12. 5

    Einstein's Fridge

    What do you do when you've described the nature of the universe? In the late 1920s Einstein was working on a grand unified theory of the universe, having given us E=mc2, space-time and the fourth dimension. He was also working on a fridge. Perhaps motivated by a story in the Berlin newspapers…

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    Apr 1, 2016

    27m
13. 4

    The duchess who gatecrashed science

    In the spring of 1667 Samuel Pepys queued repeatedly with crowds of Londoners and waited for hours just to catch a glimpse of aristocrat writer and thinker Margaret Cavendish. Twice he was frustrated and couldn't spot her, but eventually she made a grand visit to meet the Fellows of the newly...

    Jan 27, 2016

    27m
14. 3

    The meteorite and the hidden hoax

    In 1864 a strange type of rock fell from the sky above Orgueil in rural France. Shocked and frightened locals collected pieces of the peculiar, peaty blob from the surrounding fields, and passed them on to museums and scientists. At that time, a debate had been raging over the origin of life…

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    Jan 20, 2016

    27m
15. 2

    How an eel sparked our interest in electricity

    Naomi Alderman presents an alternate history of electricity. This is not a story of power stations, motors and wires. It’s a story of how the electric eel and its cousin the torpedo fish, led to the invention of the first battery; and how, in time, the shocking properties of these slippery...

    Jan 13, 2016

    27m
16. 1

    Submarine for a Stuart King

    Philip Ball dives into the magical world of Cornelis Drebbel , inventor of the world's first submarine in 1621. How did the crew of this remarkable vessel manage to breathe underwater, completely cut off from the surface, 150 years before oxygen was officially discovered? King James I of England...

    Jan 6, 2016

    27m