17 - The Iceman

What does it mean when a computer can make better medical decisions than a human? The progress in large language models, and in particular the popularity of ChatGPT, has brought these questions to the forefront in 2023, but we've been discussing this for over 50 years. In this ep ...  Show more

What happens when a patient far from surgical care – say, at the bottom of the Pacific ocean on a submarine, or at a research base in Antarctica in the middle of the winter – develops a surgical abdomen? This dilemma was the impetus to build the first truly effective clinical dec ...  Show more

Ötzi, otherwise known as the Iceman, is a renowned glacial mummy uncovered in 1991 in the Tyrolean Alps between Italy and Austria. Found by mountain hikers at 3,200 meters above sea level, his discovery was due to melting ice sheets and marked a significant archaeological brea ...

A mummified man found in the mountains of Italy on a nutrition science podcast? Have we gone completely off track? We haven’t - we promise. This unfortunate soul could be the key that unlocks an entirely new understanding of human health. This mummy, discovered in an alpine snow ...  Show more

Who knew an ancient man frozen in his underwear could trigger international conflict? Otzi's accidental discovery was quite a find for science, and many are grateful that a glacier gobbled him up thousands of years ago! 

High in the frozen Alps, a man flees through the snow, his breath ragged, his body battered. Blood—his own or someone else’s—drips onto the ice. A shadow looms. A blade flashes. Darkness takes him. Fast forward 5,300 years. When hikers stumble upon his withered body, they unknowi ...  Show more