Stephen Kenny scrutinizes the career of surgeon Rudolph Matas, the so-called "father of vascular surgery." Kenny demonstrates how his life and work must be understood in the context of segregation in the U.S. South and the racialized medicine that was practiced there in the 19th and 20th centuries. He also highlights the ways in which Matas used medical photography to legitimate an ideologically driven racialized research agenda. 

Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on racial science at: www.chstm.org/video/101

Stephen Kenny on Racial Science

Richard Wetzell analyzes the history of "racial science" in Germany during the early years of the Nazi regime, demonstrating how medical doctors, physical anthropologists, and human geneticists wielded competing theories of race in order to influence public policy and maintain their professional status.

Richard Wetzell is a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute (GHI) in Washington, D.C. and editor of the GHI's Bulletin. Dr. Wetzell is a historian of modern Germany, with particular interests in the history of criminology and penal reform, and the history of the human and biological sciences.

To listen to other installments in the Consortium's series on racial science, please visit: https://www.chstm.org/video/101

Richard Wetzell on "Racial Science" in Nazi Germany

The first episode of the DNA papers goes back to the nineteenth century when a young Swiss doctoral student, searching for the secrets of life by delving into the chemistry of cells, stumbled on to a hitherto unknown new chemical substance localized in the nucleus of pus cells. He named the substance nuclein; we now recognize it by the commonly used acronym for its chemical name: DNA. Friedrich Miescher reported his discovery in “Ueber Die Chemische Zusammensetzung Der Eiterzellen.” [On the chemical composition of pus cells] Medizinisch-Chemische Untersuchungen 4 (1871): 441–60.

Joining us to discuss the significance of Miescher and his discovery are:
Ralf Dahm, Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) gGmbH / Excellence Center for Life Sciences, Mainz, Germany
Kersten Hall, University of Leeds
William C. Summers, Yale University
Sophie Veigl, University of Vienna

For more information and resources on this topic, and others, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/144

DNA Papers #1: Friedrich Miescher

This podcast series illuminates the history of seminal discoveries and research through which we learned about the molecule that has been dubbed as the “secret of life” itself: DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid.

Neeraja Sankaran introduces the series. She is a historian of science and medicine at the National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR, Bangalore, India. Her work focuses on the recent and near-contemporary history of biomedical sciences. An independent scholar since 2015, she has held both research and teaching positions at universities in different parts of the world, including the United States, Egypt, South Korea, India, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

For more information and resources on this topic, and others, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/144

To cite this podcast, please use footnote:

Neeraja Sankaran, interview with Babak Ashrafi, Perspectives, Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine, October 4, 2022, https://www.chstm.org

DNA Papers: Introduction

DNA Papers #2: Albrecht Kossel

The papers discussed in episode 3 of the DNA Papers do not mention DNA in any way at all! And yet they are vitally important in any history of DNA because they provided the first step in bringing together a visible cellular component—the chromosome—both with ideas about heredity and about the chemical workings of living cells (DNA). The two papers, “On the Morphology of the Chromosome Group in Brachystola Magna,” and “The chromosomes in heredity,” were published in 1902 and 1903 in the journal The Biological Bulletin, by Walter Sutton.

Here to share their insights about the bearings of Sutton and his discoveries and thoughts on the hereditary functions of the chromosomes are:

Matthew Cobb, University of Manchester
Durgadas Kasbekar, The Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics
Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, University of Florida

See also a collection of Resources at https://www.chstm.org/video/144.

Recorded on on Aug 25, 2022

DNA Papers #3: Walter Sutton

Episode 4 of the DNA Papers features another chapter in the deep history of DNA in which the molecule itself doesn’t come up. As in the previous episode, the paper makes no explicit reference to either the molecule or its function. But the paper occupies an indisputable role in the history of DNA, because the discovery it reports opened the door to discovery of the function of DNA as the carrier of hereditary information. Joining the discussion on “The significance of pneumococcal types” by the British microbiologist and epidemiologist Fred Griffith (The Journal of Hygiene 27 (02): 113–59; 1928) are:

Lloyd Ackert, Drexel University
Matthew Cobb, University of Manchester (guest moderator) 
Michel Morange, École Normale Supérieure

For additional resources on this topic, see https://www.chstm.org/video/144.

DNA Papers #4: Fred Griffith

In episode 2 of the DNA Papers we discuss a cluster of papers from the late nineteenth century by the German physiological chemist Albrecht Kossel, who studied the chemical make-up of nuclein, and found and named its nitrogen-containing building blocks, probably best recognized today by their labels A, T, G, and C. Although work was deemed sufficiently important by his contemporaries to garner him the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1910, Kossel remains a lesser known figure in the history of DNA, especially among non-German speakers. The papers featured in this episode are:

    Kossel, Albrecht. 1879. “Ueber Das Nucleïn Der Hefe.” [On the nuclein of yeast] Zeitschrift Für Physiologische Chemie 3: 284–91.
    Kossel, Albrecht. 1882. “Zur Chemie Des Zellkerns.” [On the chemistry of the nuclei of cells] Zeitschrift Für Physiologische Chemie 7: 7–22.
    Kossel, Albrecht. 1886. “Weitere Beiträge Zur Chemie Des Zellkerns.” [Further contributions on the chemistry of the nuclei of cells] Zeitschrift Für Physiologische Chemie 10: 248–64.

Sharing  their perspectives on the Kossel’s contributions and their importance are:

Pnina Abir-Am, Brandeis University
Mark Lorch, University of Hull
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

For more information and resources on this topic, and others, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/144

DNA Papers Episode 2: Albrecht Kossel

Episode 5 of the DNA papers examines the contributions of the organic chemist Phoebus Levene, who published a corpus of some 200 papers on the subject over a period of four decades, during which he made discoveries about the constituents of, and developed his ideas about the structure of, DNA. Among other things, he was the first person to correctly identify the sugar components of the nucleic acids: d-ribose  in RNA and d-2-deoxyribose in DNA. But these contributions have often been overlooked, and Levene is unfortunately more likely to be remembered in a negative light for something called the tetranucleotide hypothesis, which many believe hampered the progress of understanding the role of DNA.

Here to talk about Levene’s contributions to nucleic acid chemistry, and offer some perspective about the tetranucleotide hypothesis are:

Pnina Abir-Am, Brandeis University
Pedro Bernal, Rollins College
Mark Lorch, University of Hull

DNA Papers #5: Phoebus Levene

The sixth installment of this podcast series introduces a brand new player into the story of DNA: a technique from physics called X-ray crystallography. This technique would eventually play a key role in unlocking the secrets of DNA structure, but this 1938 paper by Leeds-based scientists William Astbury and Florence Bell marks the first instance of anyone attempting to use X-rays for the visualization of the nucleic acids. It is also the first paper in this series where the main contributor to the work was a woman.

Sharing their insights about the significance of the “X-Ray Study of Thymonucleic Acid” which was published in the prestigious journal Nature (v. 141: 747-748), are:

Manju Bansal, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Kersten Hall, University of Leeds
Matthew Meselson, Harvard University
Jan Witkowski, Cold Spring Laboratory

More resources and podcasts available at https://www.chstm.org/video/144

Recorded on April 4, 2023.

DNA Papers #6: William Astbury and Florence Bell

The discovery of a never-released report from 1973 on women in the History of Science Society provides an opportunity to reflect on how much things have changed, what has not changed, and challenges that remain for improving inclusion in the Society. Discussants in this episode are:

Tara Nummedal, Brown University
Samantha Muka, Stevens Institute of Technology
Margaret Rossiter, Cornell University
Matthew Lavine, Mississippi State University

For more information and more podcasts go to, https://www.chstm.org/video/157

Recorded on June 5, 2023.

History of Science Society at 100: Women Historians of Science

The seventh episode of the DNA Papers is the central one in this podcast series, not only because it marks the halfway point of the podcast, but also, more so, because the paper discussed is at the center of the history of all twentieth century biology.  Written by a trio of microbiologists at the Rockefeller University in New York City, this paper without saying so in actual words, represents the first publication to offer evidence that DNA (though not yet known by that name) is the stuff that makes up genes:
 
Avery, Oswald T., Colin M. MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty. “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III.” The Journal of Experimental Medicine 79, no. 2 (1944): 137–58.
 
Joining the discussion of this historic paper are the following expert commentators:
 
Matthew Cobb, University of Manchester
Ute Deichmann, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Geoff Montgomery, Independent Science Writer, New York City
 
Please see https://www.chstm.org/video/144 for additional resources on this topic.
 
Recorded on April 28, 2023.

DNA Papers # 7: Avery, McLeod and McCarty

Join us for a discussion of history of science from the perspectives of Latin American, African, and Ottoman history — and global history more broadly. How have these perspectives been represented in the past? What has changed more recently? What are the pressing questions and challenges for the future of the field from a global perspective? Sharing their experiences and points of view on these issues:

Harun Küçük, University of Pennsylvania
Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Harvard University
Helen Tilley, Northwestern University

Recorded on June 5, 2023.

For information, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/157.

History of Science Society at 100: Global Perspectives

Moviegoers who might never pick up a book on the history of science may nonetheless find themselves confronted with the stories, themes, and questions to which historians of science devote their careers when they go to the movies. 

Films and other forms of popular culture both reflect and shape public discourse about the significance of scientific discoveries and the legacies of technological achievements. 

For this episode, we’ve convened a film forum. HSS Secretary Matt Shindell hosts a discussion of four recent movies with fellow historians Yangyang Cheng, David Hecht, and Amit Prasad. Each of the films take on history of science subject matter in different ways; they include Christopher Nolan’s newly released biopic, Oppenheimer, Sudhir Mishra and Sachin Krishn’s satire, Serious Men, Ryan White’s documentary, Good Night Oppy, and Jianya Zhang’s heroic depiction of Qian Xuesen.

Recorded on July 27, 2023.

For information this topic, and other HSS@100 episodes, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/157.

History of Science Society at 100: HSS at the Movies

In Episode 8 of the DNA papers, we discuss the papers that directly followed up the discovery of the 1944 paper from episode 7.  These papers, which have received little attention in histories of DNA, describe the purification and experimental use of an enzyme, desoxyribonuclease, or DNase, which specifically destroys DNA. By showing how the transforming principle is specifically inactivated by this enzyme alone and not by RNA- or protein-degrading enzymes- the DNase experiments left “little doubt” that DNA is the chemical substance responsible for the transformation of bacterial types.

Papers discussed include:

    McCarty, Maclyn. 1946. “Purification and Properties of Desoxyribonuclease Isolated from Beef Pancreas.” The Journal of General Physiology 29 (3): 123–39.
    McCarty, Maclyn, and O.T. Avery. 1946. “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types. II. Effect of Desoxyribonuclease on the Biological Activity of the Transforming Substance.” Journal of Experimental Medicine 83: 89–96.

Returning to the podcast series to share their thoughts on the place of these experiments in DNA history are:

Mark Lorch, University of Hull
Geoffrey Montgomery, Independent Science Writer
Michel Morange, École Normale Supérieure
Jan Witkowski, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Additional resources on this topic are available at https://www.chstm.org/video/144

Recorded on June 22, 2023.

DNA Papers #8: Maclyn McCarty and Oswald Avery

Episode 9 of the DNA Papers discusses a set of papers by the first scientist who made a sustained effort into uncovering the secret behind specificity of nucleic acids. The principle author, Erwin Chargaff, a European-American biochemist from Columbia University in New York, determined that the relative rations of the four nucleotide bases—A, T, G and C—were not present in all DNA in equal amounts as widely assumed, but rather, that they varied in proportion from one to another, with the amount of the A and G bases being equal to the T and C bases respectively. Furthermore, he also demonstrated that the ratio of these amounts was specific and consistent for a given species. He first laid out his vision for determining the role of nucleic acids in 1947, and over the next decade or so, proceeded to probe the finer details of DNA chemistry with the then state-of-the art innovations in techniques such as chromatography and UV spectroscopy.


Papers discussed include:

    Chargaff, Erwin. “On the Nucleoproteins and Nucleic Acids of Microorganisms.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 12 (January 1, 1947): 28–34. https://doi.org/10.1101/SQB.1947.012.01.006.

    Vischer, Ernst, and Erwin Chargaff. “The Separation and Quantitative Estimation of Purines and Pyrimidines in Minute Amounts.” Journal of Biological Chemistry 176 (1948): 703–14.

    Chargaff, Erwin. “Chemical Specificity of Nucleic Acids and Mechanism of Their Enzymatic Degradation.” Experientia 6, no. 6 (June 15, 1950): 201–9.

Joining us to illuminate the role of Chargaff and his experiments in the history of DNA are:

Pnina Abir-Am, Brandeis University
Kersten Hall, University of Leeds
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

View more at https://www.chstm.org/video/144

Recorded August 9, 2023.

DNA Papers #9: Erwin Chargaff

The current and incoming editors of the journal Isis reflect on their expectations, experiences, and hopes for the journal and for the field of the history of science.

Sigrid Schmalzer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Elise Burton, University Toronto
Projit Mukharji, Ashoka University
Matt Lavine, Mississippi State University 
Alexandra Hui, Mississippi State University

Recorded July 31, 2023

For more episodes in this series, other podcasts, and additional resources, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/157

History of Science Society at 100: Publications

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.

DNA Papers #10: Harriet Ephrussi-Taylor and Rollin Hotchkiss

Laura Stark is a historical sociologist and Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University. Her second book project, The Normals: A People’s History, explores how a global market for healthy civilian “human subjects” emerged in law, science, and everyday imagination over the past century. The Normals shows how logics of racialized citizenship were built into American clinical science in the post-World War II period—and how scientists and their human subjects worked for change. 

The George Sarton Memorial Lecture in the History and Philosophy of Science, named after a founding member of the History of Science Society (HSS), was first awarded in 1960. The lecture is given annually at the AAAS Annual Meeting by a distinguished practitioner in the history of science.

Recorded March 4, 2023 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

For more information on this topic, please see https://www.chstm.org/video/170

Who Does the Work of Science? A Century of Science as Passion, Punishment, and Paycheck

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

Empires of the Dead: Inca Mummies and the Peruvian Ancestors of American Anthropology

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.

IsisCB on Pandemics - The Social and Political Dimensions of Pandemic Diseases

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.

Christopher Willoughby — Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools

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.

DNA Papers #11: Hershey, Chase, and DNA as the material of heredity

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.

Vandersommers - Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories from the Animal Archive

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.

DNA Papers #12: Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, and the double helix model for DNA structure

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.

Rena Selya — Salvador Luria: An Immigrant Biologist in Cold War America

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

Donald L. Opitz - Daughters of Ceres

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.

DNA Papers #13 - James Watson, Francis Crick, and the DNA Double Helix × Status message

Mary Augusta Brazelton talks about the COVID-19 crisis along with the history of public health and modernization in China.

Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on COVID-19 at:
https://www.chstm.org/video/74

Mary Augusta Brazelton on COVID-19

In this episode of Perspectives, we talk with M. Susan Lindee, author of Rational Fog: Science and Technology in Modern War.

In Rational Fog, Susan Lindee explores the way that science, technology and medicine were transformed by the military establishment and defense funding. She discusses the ways in which thousands of scientists, engineers, and physicians justified or made peace with creating technologies of war, or instead rebelled against the use of science for such pursuits. Indeed, as Lindee reminds us, scores of scientific societies have defended science as a uniquely positive endeavor dedicated to the "welfare of mankind," all while many of their members have pursuit chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons research for the purpose of human injury and death.

M. Susan Lindee is Janice and Julian Bers Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Susan Lindee — Rational Fog: Science and Technology in Modern War

A new public events series from the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine brings historical perspective to contemporary issues and concerns.

In the public forums, historians and other specialists speak about culturally relevant topics in front of a live audience at Consortium member institutions. Forum subjects range from medical consumerism to public trust in science and technology. Videos of these events are also available at chstm.org.

In podcast episodes, authors of new books in the history of science, technology, and medicine respond to questions from readers with a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. These conversations illuminate the utility and relevance of the past in light of current events.

Popular tracks by Perspectives on Sci Tech Med