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Radiolab

G: Relative Genius

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2024

⏱️ 75 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Albert Einstein asked that when he died, his body be cremated and his ashes be scattered in a secret location. He didn’t want his grave, or his body, becoming a shrine to his genius. When he passed away in the early morning hours of April, 18, 1955, his family knew his wishes. There was only one problem: the pathologist who did the autopsy had different plans. In the third episode of “G”, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, first aired back in 2019 we go on one of the strangest scavenger hunts for genius the world has ever seen. We follow Einstein’s stolen brain from that Princeton autopsy table, to a cider box in Wichita, Kansas, to labs all across the country. And eventually, beyond the brain itself entirely. All the while wondering, where exactly is the genius of a man who changed the way we view the world? Special thanks to: Elanor Taylor, Claudia Kalb, Dustin O’Halloran, Deborah Lee and Tim Huson. If you want to listen to more of BLINDSPOT: THE PLAGUE IN THE SHADOWS, SUBSCRIBE HERE (https://link.chtbl.com/blindspotpodcast?sid=radiolab). New episodes come out on Thursdays. EPISODE CITATIONSPodcasts:If you want to listen to more of the RADIOLAB G SERIES, CLICK HERE (https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-g). Websites:The Einstein Papers Project: https://www.einstein.caltech.edu/ Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. In the third episode of “G”, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, first aired back in 2019 we go on one of the strangest scavenger hunts for genius the world has ever seen. We follow Einstein’s stolen brain from that Princeton autopsy table, to a cider box in Wichita, Kansas, to labs all across the country. And eventually, beyond the brain itself entirely. All the while wondering, where exactly is the genius of a man who changed the way we view the world? Special thanks to: Elanor Taylor, Claudia Kalb, Dustin O’Halloran, and Tim Huson. EPISODE CITATIONS Podcasts: If you want to listen to more of BLINDSPOT: THE PLAGUE IN THE SHADOWS, SUBSCRIBE HERE (https://link.chtbl.com/blindspotpodcast?sid=radiolab). New episodes come out on Thursdays. If you want to listen to more of the RADIOLAB G SERIES, CLICK HERE (https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-g). Websites: The Einstein Papers Project: https://www.einstein.caltech.edu/ Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is radio lab. I'm Lulu Miller.

0:03.0

Imagine you have a disease.

0:05.0

You know you have the disease. You know how you got it.

0:07.5

You can see very clear and painful signs of the disease on your body.

0:13.6

It's a disease that will take your life if left untreated,

0:17.4

but you can't get any medical help

0:19.8

because your symptoms do not officially count as part of the disease according to some bureaucratic

0:26.6

checklist somewhere.

0:29.1

This was the situation for over thousands of women in the 1990s, over a decade into the AIDS epidemic,

0:35.0

because the official symptoms of AIDS were based exclusively on male patients,

0:40.0

meaning that very clear signs of their bodies being immunocompromised,

0:44.0

things like cervical cancer, yeast infections, pelvic inflammatory disease,

0:49.0

those were completely ignored and discounted because men didn't get them.

0:55.0

So what the heck were these women supposed to do?

0:59.0

Today, before we dive into our radio lab episode,

1:02.0

I want to play you an excerpt from a new show that tells the story of a small group of women who tried to do something,

1:10.0

who tried to pull off this seemingly impossible existential feat to unerrace themselves.

1:17.0

The show is called Blind Spot.

1:20.0

It's a collaboration between the History Channel and our colleagues at WNYC.

1:24.6

And this season sort of lives at just the same nexus of science and humanity that our show does,

1:30.7

and we thought some of you might really like it.

1:33.0

So, to just get a feel for the show,

...

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