Time To Eat The Dogs

Rebecca Priestley talks about her journeys to Antarctica and the process of bringing them to life in her writing. Priestley is an associate professor at the Centre for Science in Society at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She is the author of Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica which was recently longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Dr. Beth Taylor talks about the physiological differences between men and women athletes and why ultra-endurance events seem to offer certain performance advantages to women. Taylor is an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and the Director of Exercise Physiology Research in Cardiology at Hartford Hospital.

Paige Madison talks about recent discoveries at the Liang Bua cave where researchers are trying to understand the complicated story of the hominin Homo Floresiensis. Madison is a PhD candidate in the history of science at Arizona State University where she also works with The Center for Biology and Society and the Institute of Human Origins. She writes about paleoanthropology at the blog Fossil History. She recently wrote about her trip for National Geographic and Scientific American.  

Daniel Kennefick talks about resistance to relativity theory in the early twentieth century and the huge challenges that faced British astronomers who wanted to test the theory during the solar eclipse of 1919. Kennefick is an associate professor of physics at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He’s the author of No Shadow of Doubt: the 1919 Eclipse that Confirmed Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

Dr. Namrata Goswami talks about the Chinese space program and its ambitious plans for lunar exploration. Goswami is a strategic analyst on space and great power politics. She’s the author of many books and articles including Great Powers and Resource Nationalism in Space soon to be published Lexington Press.

Director Robert Stone talks about his film Chasing the Moon, a three-part documentary which aired on PBS’s American Experience for the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission.

Kim Walker talks about the history and science of cinchona bark as a tonic, medicine, and mixer. Walker is a biocultural historian completing her PhD work on the Cinchona Bark Collection at Kew Gardens. She’s the co-author (along with Mark Nesbitt) of Just The Tonic: A Natural History of Tonic Water.

Amy Shira Teitel talks about Apollo and the community of people who are deeply attached to space history. Teitel is a spaceflight historian and the creator of the YouTube Channel, Vintage Space. She is also the author of two books, Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA and Apollo Pilot: The Memory of Astronaut Don Eisele.     

David Chang talks about the history of indigenous Hawaiians (Kanaka Maoli) as explorers and geographers of the world. Chang is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota. He’s the author of The World and All the Things upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration.

Ed Armston-Sheret talks about the mysterious disease of scurvy: how it affected expeditioners and why it was so difficult to understand. Armston-Sheret is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway University of London. He’s the author of "Tainted bodies : scurvy, bad food and the reputation of the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904," published in the Journal of Historical Geography.

Glen Asner and Stephen Garber talk about NASA’s efforts to plan ambitious missions in the face of huge political and financial challenges. Asner is the Deputy Chief Historian for the Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Garber works in the NASA History Division at NASA Headquarters. They are the authors of Origins of 21st-Century Space Travel: A History of NASA’s Decadal Planning Team and the Vision for Space Exploration, 1999–2004.

Jake Robins and Michael Robinson talk about the quest to explore Mars: how it compares to earlier eras of exploration in the West and in the Arctic as well as its power to capture the imagination of thousands of people. Robins is the host of WeMartians, a podcast that considers the exploration of the Red Planet from a variety of angles, both technical and scientific.

Tina Adcock talks about the controversy over George Putnam's Baffin Land expedition and why it tells a bigger story about the changing culture of exploration in the 1920s. Adcock is an assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser University. She’s the author of the essay “Scientist Tourist Sportsman Spy: Boundary-Work and the Putnam Eastern Arctic Expeditions” which was published in the edited collection Made Modern: Science and Technology in Canadian History, edited by Adcock and Edward Jones-Imhotep.

In Part II, Ruth Gruenthal continues her story of her family's escape from France in 1940. She also discusses the challenges of living in the United States after the war.  

Ruth Gruenthal talks about her life in Germany as the Nazi Party came to power in the 1930s. Gruenthal and her family – along with thousands of Jewish refugees -- raced to escape France when the Germans invaded in the summer of 1940. Gruenthal is a practicing psychotherapist in New York City. She’s also the daughter of the publisher Kurt Enoch who co-founded the New American Library in the United States after World War II.

Claire Isabel Webb talks about the search for extraterrestrial life and the different strategies used by astronomers and exobiologists to look for it. Webb is a PhD candidate at MIT's History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society Program. Her dissertation project, “Technologies of Perception: The Search for Life and Intelligence Beyond Earth” won this year’s HSS/NASA Fellowship in Aerospace History.

Bruce Strickrott talks about the value of human exploration of the deep sea. Strickrott is the Program Manager and Senior Pilot of the United States’ deepest diving science submersible, the DSV Alvin which is owned by the US Navy and operated out of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He has participated in over 60 science expeditions and piloted over 365 dives in Alvin, spending over 2000 hours underwater.

Catherine Newell talks about the religious roots of the final frontier, focusing on the collaboration of artist Chesley Bonestell, science writer Willy Ley, and the NASA rocket engineer Wernher von Braun. Newell is an assistant professor of religion and science at the University of Miami. She’s the author of Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier.

Laura Waterman talks about her novel, Starvation Shore, which relies upon memoirs, letters, and diaries to reconstruct the life of the Greely Party as it attempted to survive impossible conditions. Waterman is a climber, conservationist, and author who has written many books with her husband Guy Waterman about mountain history, climbing and environmental ethics. Her memoir Losing the Garden tells the story of her marriage to Guy and his decision nineteen years ago to end his life on the summit of Mt Lafayette.

Lukas Rieppel talks about dinosaur fossils in the Gilded Age  – from the discovery and excavation of fossils in the American West to the re-construction of fabulous creatures in museums that were the darlings of wealthy philanthropists. Rieppel is an assistant professor of history at Brown University. He’s the author of Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle.