Perspectives on Science

Join us for a discussion on the history of mining and the intersections of history of science with several other fields. How are mines sites of knowing the world, and how is that knowledge contested? How has our understanding of what a mine is changed over time, and what does that mean for how mines are studied? What can the methods and sources used in studying mines teach us about trends in the history of science and science studies? Discussants are: Allison Margaret Bigelow University of Virginia Victor Seow Harvard University Jessica Smith Colorado School of Mines Recorded on April 1, 2024 For more information on this and other topics, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/157

Tune in one last time to a bonus episode of The DNA Papers with the authors of "the most beautiful experiment in biology" as they reminisce about "the best years of their lives" and field questions from the commentators of episode 14. Series moderator Neeraja Sankaran was joined by historian of science Kersten Hall to co-host this special treat. Matthew Meselson Harvard University Franklin Stahl University of Oregon Kersten Hall University of Leeds Neeraja Sankaran National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR, Bangalore, India Recorded on June 4, 2024. Please see https://www.chstm.org/video/144 for more information and related episodes.

Four historians share their interests in music, and their perspectives in using songs as source material for better understanding the history of science. Antony Adler, Carleton College Andrew Fiss, Michigan Technological University Asif Siddiqi, Fordham University Betty Smocovitis, University of Florida Song Notes: (https://soundcloud.com/antony-adler/the-dredging-song-by-edward-forbes) Edward Forbes "Song of the Dredge" Performed by Michael Schrimpf and Antony - Timestamp 34:06 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpxwJNNufko) Bio-Rad PCR Song - Timestamp 38:00 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IwmGomRRZ4&list=PLSO9Kihiwr3Mgze10g_zfxDxtNaXhCUz2) The 7th Voyage of Sinbad - Bernard Hermann - Timestamp 40:40 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tJgRoMzMxg) Cosmogony by Björk - Timestamp 44:50 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjkxUA041nM) Songs of the Humpback Whale - Dr. Roger Payne - Timestamp 47:00 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNGoXR5W88c) Farewell to Tarwathie by Judy Collins - Timestamp 47:30 Recorded December 11, 2023 For more resources on this topic, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/157

Episode three of the podcast companion to the Isis CB special issue on pandemics, focuses on the very substance of pandemics, namely the diseases themselves. Join Mark Honigsbaum, Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva, and Michael Bresalier in a conversation about the impact of disease on history and on the condition of our planet vis-a-vis current diseases and those that may emerge, as well as the role and responsibility of the historian in dealing with pandemic incidents. Mark Honigsbaum, City University London Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva, University of St. Andrews Michael Bresalier, Swansea University For more information and additional resources, go to https://www.chstm.org/video/149 Recorded March 13, 2024.

The penultimate episode of the DNA Papers podcast series revisits a paper that demonstrated the semiconservative mode of DNA replication, which had been predicted by complementary base-paired double helix model of the molecule discussed in episode 13 of this series: Meselson, Matthew, and Franklin W. Stahl. “The replication of DNA in Escherichia coli.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 44, no. 7 (July 15, 1958): 671–82. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.44.7.671 The papers offers the details an experiment designed and performed by a pair of young molecular biologists, Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl at Caltech. They deployed the newly developed technique of density gradient centrifugation in combination with the use of heavy isotopes of nitrogen to show that during the replication of a DNA molecule, each progeny helix contained one strand that was conserved, or passed down directly from the parent and one new strand synthesized from the conserved template. Listen to our expert guests from different disciplines as they share their insights into what has been described as “the most beautiful experiment in biology”: Allan Franklin University of Colorado Boulder Michel Morange IHPST, Université Paris I William C. Summers Yale University Janina Wellmann Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Recorded on March 27, 2024 For additional resources on this topic, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/144

Rounding out the story begun in the previous installment, episode 13 of the DNA Papers centers on the publications in which the double helical structure for DNA was proposed, detailed, and its various implications speculated upon. It features four papers, all by Watson and Crick from Cambridge,. Together these papers not only proposed that DNA’s three dimensional structure was a double-stranded helix, but also described the antiparallel and complementary nature of its two component strands and the specific pairing of the component nucleotide bases, namely, the purines, A and G, with the pyrimidines T and C respectively. The papers also discussed the implications of these features for the fundamental functions of DNA. For more resources on this topic, see https://www.chstm.org/video/144. Recorded on Dec. 11, 2023.

Don's book project, "Daughters of Ceres: The Scientific Advancement of Women in Horticulture, 1870–1920" examines the confluence of two 19th century movements—one dedicated to the promotion of scientific agriculture, another to the advancement of women's education in science. These movements fueled international efforts to elevate women's position in the fields of horticulture and "the lighter branches" of agriculture. This new international movement organized to create new educational, employment, and civic opportunities for women in fields traditionally constructed as male bastions. "Daughters of Ceres" will sketch out more fully the professional and civic-oriented sides to the advancement of women's education in horticulrure, accounting for the role of commercial industries, industrial associations, professional societies, garden clubs, philanthropic foundations, and educational and scientific institutions that, collectively, participated in an extensive network that undergirded this movement. The book will offer a new perspective on "women in science" with a repositioning of horticulture in the overall landscape of scientific disciplines. Recorded on December 19, 2023. For more resources on this topic, see https://www.chstm.org/video/180

In this episode, we speak with Rena Selya, the archivist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and author of Salvador Luria: An Immigrant Biologist in Cold War America. Blacklisted from federal funding review panels but awarded a Nobel Prize for his research on bacteriophage, biologist Salvador Luria (1912–1991) was as much an activist as a scientist. In this first full-length biography of Luria, Rena Selya draws on extensive archival research; interviews with Luria's family, colleagues, and students; and FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to create a compelling portrait of a man committed to both science and society. In addition to his work with viruses and bacteria in the 1940s, Luria broke new ground in molecular biology and cancer research from the 1950s to the 1980s and was a leader in calling for scientists to accept an educational and advisory responsibility to the public. In return, he believed, the public should rely on science to strengthen social and political institutions. Luria was born in Italy, where the Fascists came to power when he was ten. He left Italy for France due to the antisemetic Race Laws of 1938, and then fled as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Europe, making his way to the United States. Once an American citizen, Luria became a grassroots activist on behalf of civil rights, labor representation, nuclear disarmament, and American military disengagement from the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. Luria joined the MIT faculty in 1960 and was the founding director of the Center for Cancer Research. Throughout his life he remained as passionate about his engagement with political issues as about his science, and continued to fight for peace and freedom until his death. Recorded on November 22, 2023. For more resources about this topic, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/178.

Episode 12 of the DNA Papers, is the first of a two-parter, which centers on papers published about the now iconic double helix structure of the DNA molecule. This episode features three publications, all published in the journal Nature, which represent the work of scientists working at King’s College London, whose X-ray crystallographic work provided some of the crucial data that supported the new double helix model. Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick, Alec R. Stokes, and Herbert R. Wilson. “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids.” Nature 171, no. 4356 (1953): 738–40. Franklin, Rosalind E., and Raymond G. Gosling. “Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate.” Nature 171, no. 4356 (1953): 740–41. Franklin, Rosalind E., and Raymond G. Gosling. “Evidence for 2-Chain Helix in Crystalline Structure of Sodium Deoxyribonucleate.” Nature 172 (1953): 156–57. Tune in to listen to our panel of experts in a lively and informative conversation about the place of these papers in the history of our understanding of DNA: Soraya de Chadarevian, University of California, Los Angeles Elspeth Garman, Oxford University Kersten Hall, University of Leeds Jan Witkowski, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory See also a collection of Resources at https://www.chstm.org/video/144 Closed captioning available on YouTube. Recorded on Nov. 6, 2023.

In this episode of Perspectives, we speak with Daniel Vandersommers, author of Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories from the Animal Archive. In this book, Vandersommers shows how zoo animals always ran away from the zoo. This is meant literally—animals escaped frequently—but even more so, figuratively. Living, breathing, historical zoo animals ran away from their cultural constructions, and these constructions ran away from the living bodies they were made to represent. Vandersommers shows that the resulting gaps produced by runaway animals contain concealed, distorted, and erased histories worthy of uncovering. Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo also demonstrates how the popular zoology fostered by the National Zoo shaped every aspect of American science, culture, and conservation during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Between the 1880s and World War I, as intellectuals debated Darwinism and scientists institutionalized the laboratory, zoological parks suddenly appeared at the heart of nearly every major American city, captivating tens of millions of visitors. Vandersommers follows stories previously hidden within the National Zoo in order to help us reconsider the place of zoos and their inhabitants in the twenty-first century. For more resources on this topic, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/176. Recorded on October 31, 2023.

In this episode of Perspectives we speak with Christopher Willoughby, author of Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools. Masters of Health examines how the founders of U.S. medical schools promoted an understanding of race influenced by the theory of polygenesis—that each race was created separately and as different species—which they supported by training students to collect and measure human skulls from around the world. Medical students came to see themselves as masters of Black people's bodies through stealing Black people's corpses, experimenting on enslaved people, and practicing distinctive therapeutics on Black patients. In documenting these practices Masters of Health charts the rise of racist theories in U.S. medical schools, throwing new light on the extensive legacies of slavery in modern medicine. For more resources on this topic, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/173 Recorded on October 30, 2023.

In episode 11 of The DNA Papers we revisit a paper describing a famous experiment performed by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase which combined the atomic-age tools of radioisotopes with an ordinary kitchen blender to show that DNA alone, and not protein, was the carrier of hereditary information: Hershey, Alfred D., and Martha Chase. “Independent Functions of Viral Protein and Nucleic Acid in Growth of Bacteriophage.” The Journal of General Physiology 36, no. 1 (1952): 39–56. By using radioisotopes to separately label the DNA and protein components of a bacterial virus and demonstrating DNA’s central role in the earliest stages of viral replication inside a bacterial cell, Hershey and Chase’s 1952 paper provided powerful evidence about the chemical nature of the gene, and gained a well-deserved place among the classics in the history of DNA science. Here to share their ideas and opinions about the history and significance of this paper are: Angela Creager, Princeton University Geoffrey Montgomery, Independent Science Writer William Summers, Yale University See also a collection of resources on this topic at https://www.chstm.org/video/144. Recorded on Oct 24, 2023.

Following in the wake of the Isis CB special issue on pandemics, this episode of the companion podcast takes a deeper look at the social and political contexts of pandemics, and also considers the impact of doing such a history during times of disease crises. Contributors Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Keith Wailoo and Emily Hamilton share their insights and and experiences of taking stock of literature and also of the impact that COVID-19 had on their own scholarship and teaching. For more information and additional resources, go to https://www.chstm.org/video/149 Recorded October 19, 2023.

The tenth episode of the DNA papers podcast brings to light some of the lesser discussed papers in the history of DNA that were instrumental in confirming its role in effecting genetic transformation. Both papers discussed in this episode were first presented at the 1951 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology; the first by a geneticist, and the second by a chemist, who were responsible for maintaining the continuity of work on bacterial transformation in Avery’s laboratory. These two papers provided important corroboration for the 1946 implication that the nucleic acid—DNA—of pneumococcus might be able to transform a variety of other bacterial traits besides their capsules and virulence. Ephrussi-Taylor, Harriett. “Genetic Aspects of Transformations of Pneumococci.” In Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 16:445–56. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1951. Hotchkiss, Rollin D. “Transfer of Penicillin Resistance in Pneumococci by the Desoxyribonucleate Derived from Resistant Cultures.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 16 (January 1, 1951): 457–61. https://doi.org/10.1101/SQB.1951.016.01.032. Here to share their insights on these papers are: Eleonora Cresto, National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, Buenos Aires Geoffrey Montgomery, Independent Science Writer Michel Morange, IHPST, Université Paris I, Jan Witkowski, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Recorded on Sept 19, 2023. See also a collection of resources on this topic at https://www.chstm.org/video/144.

In this episode of Perspectives, we speak with Christopher Heaney, author of Empires of the Dead: Inca Mummies and the Peruvian Ancestors of American Anthropology. Bringing together the history of science, race, and museums' possession of Indigenous remains, from the sixteenth century to the twentieth, Empires of the Dead illuminates how South American ancestors became coveted mummies, skulls, and specimens of knowledge and nationhood. In doing so it reveals how Peruvian and Andean peoples have learned from their dead, seeking the recovery of looted heritage in the centuries before North American museums began their own work of decolonization. Recorded on October 13, 2023. For more resources on this topic, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/171