RTBS 01 02 "The Human Side of Sideshow: Performing Prodigies and Unusual Bodies from Barnum to Brighton Beach"
Release Date: 04/22/2019
RTBS 02 03 "COVID-19: Rhetorics of Infection, Resources of Resistance"
Remains to be Seen
We join forces with Pitt’s Center for Bioethics & Health Law to present a special panel discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic. Mari Webel, Lisa S. Parker, and our own Jake Dechant address the problems of understanding and dealing with a crisis in which we must always act on partial knowledge, filtering that from a tumult of questionable information and disinformation. We discuss the naming of epidemics, the sacrifices of healthcare workers, and our favorite sources of reliable information'
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RTBS 02 02 "Do not open that airlock: Notes from the COVID-19 Bunker”
Remains to be Seen
In this special gonzo episode, Emma, Jake, and Jeff broadcast on improvised equipment from their respective pandemic shelters as the COVID-19 crisis expands faster than any one person can appreciate. We race Emma’s dwindling laptop battery as we tackle issues social and scientific, including the racist targeting of Asians in America, the pitfalls of public health education, and the confusing messaging from on high. Before you sacrifice yourself for the good of Wall Street, you need to listen to this o
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RTBS 02 01 "Voyage of the Damned: A Cruise through the Coronavirus Epidemic"
Remains to be Seen
In this episode, we delve accurately if irreverently into the Covid-19 epidemic. It’s everything you’ve always wanted to know (and probably a few things you didn’t) about how viruses reproduce, or where they hide when they’re not causing us trouble. Along the way we riff on the exotic bathroom tissues of Japan and Australia, find out why that surgical mask may not be the protection that you were hoping for, and ring the changes on yeast, Yiddish, and why Batman is always patient zero.
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RTBS 01 08 “Of Medical Flesh and Blood Libel: The Polish ‘Cadaver Affair,’ Medical Education, and Inter-War Anti-Semitism”
Remains to be Seen
In this episode, Natalia Aleksiun, Professor of Modern Jewish History at Touro College, joins us in the studio to discuss her work on Jewish medical students in Central Europe between the world wars. In Poland and elsewhere, nationalist medical students under the rallying cry “Christian Bodies for Christians!” attempted to drive Jewish students out of the medical schools on the argument that Jews did not contribute a “fair share” of their dead for medical/anatomical education.
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RTBS 01 07 “Plasticize Me: You Too Can Exhibit Human Remains for Entertainment and Profit”
Remains to be Seen
In this episode, your hosts turn their scalpels on the ethically-murky world of human body exhibitions. We discuss Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist who perfected techniques of plastination that he applied to human cadavers in his exhibition “Bodyworlds.” We look at von Hagen’s predecessors and his present-day imitators, who turned these preserved-anatomy exhibits into an international cash business, with side jaunts into the health risks of anatomists and the dangers lurking in your frying pa
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RTBS 01 06: “The Fox and the Hound: Co-Evolving with our Furry Friends”
Remains to be Seen
In this episode, we sniff into the strange territory of domestication and co-evolution with our special guest Anne Burrows, member of the research team making big news this summer for their work on the evolution of facial expression in domestic dogs. How does a muscle in a dog’s forehead tug on human heartstrings? We take a summer walk with our furry friends, with side journeys into the rat, parasitic disease, sugar-free gummi bears, and fecal transplants.
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RTBS 01 05: “The Needle Has Landed: Vaccine Science and Anti-Vaccine Activism, Past and Present.”
Remains to be Seen
As vaccine fever runs high, Lo Reese joins the crew in the studio for a discussion about vaccines and the people who fear them, from the early days of smallpox vaccination to the present day of discredited anti-vaccine “experts” and “conspiracy cruises.” We delve into the science, culture, and spin around inoculation, with side- journeys into Dr. Seuss, herpes viruses, shaky vaccine trials, the surprisingly deep and international history of vaccination, and even a bit of spontaneous human combustio
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RTBS 01 04 "Missing, Presumed Dead: Dirty Secrets from the History of the Trade in Human Cadavers"
Remains to be Seen
In this episode, we dig deeply into the troubling history of obtaining human bodies for anatomical dissection and medical education. From disappearing parents to companies that offer body parts for rent, we will take you on a sometimes morbid excursion through medical history. You will meet a lot of people who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, with side trips into stone babies and a children’s game we don’t recommend you try at home.
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RTBS 01 03 "69 and Us: The Strange World of Commercial Genetic Testing"
Remains to be Seen
In this episode, Jake, Emma, and Jeff poke their instruments into the brave new world of commercial genetic testing. In a time when the swab of a cheek can reveal many things--some welcome, some not--we encounter crime, romantic disappointments, bogus diagnoses, and some very naughty doctors, with digressions into gangsta kiwis and the motherf***er gene.
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RTBS 01 02 "The Human Side of Sideshow: Performing Prodigies and Unusual Bodies from Barnum to Brighton Beach"
Remains to be Seen
Emma, Jake, and Jeff talk about people with unusual, non-normative, or prodigious bodies who took their gifts on the road, performing before delighted, titillated (and sometimes shocked) audiences. Historical figures discussed include Charles Sherwood Stratton a.k.a. "General Tom Thumb," The Hilton Sisters (conjoined twins), Myrtle Corbin "The Four Legged Girl," and the life, trial, and murder of Gradey Stiles, "The Lobster Man."
info_outlineEmma, Jake, and Jeff talk about people with unusual, non-normative, or prodigious bodies who took their gifts on the road, performing before delighted, titillated (and sometimes shocked) audiences. Historical figures discussed include Charles Sherwood Stratton a.k.a. "General Tom Thumb," The Hilton Sisters (conjoined twins), Myrtle Corbin "The Four Legged Girl," and the life, trial, and murder of Gradey Stiles, "The Lobster Man."
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