Penicillin: More than a Moldy Petri Dish

Tracy talks about a book that she didn't use for research on Viola Roseboro'. Holly talks about how wealth inequality has shaped science history.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Boyle is frequently described at the first modern chemist, but his work encompassed much more than that. Among other things, he was a founding member of the Royal Society. Research: Boyle, Robert. “An account of Philaretus during his Minority.” Accessed online: https://celt.ucc.i ...  Show more

In 1928 a young bacteriologist named Alexander Fleming failed to tidy up his petri dishes before going home to Scotland on holiday. On his return, he famously noticed that one dish had become mouldy in his absence, and the mould was killing the bacteria he’d used the dish to cult ...  Show more

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Bacteriophages -- viruses that target and kill bacteria -- were one of the most promising medical treatments of the early 20th century, and were used to treat all sorts of infections, from cholera to staph, and everything in between. But by the ...

Six years ago, a new infection began popping up in four different hospitals on three different continents, all around the same time. It wasn’t a bacteria, or a virus. It was ... a killer fungus. No one knew where it came from, or why. Today, the story of an ancient showdown be ...

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Intravenous or IV fluids are a ubiquitous treatment in medicine, and one of the most cost-effective treatments that we have, costing less than a cup of coffee in the developing world. But it wasn't always this way. In this episode, called Salt W ...