ScienceBrunch

No guest of honor today. Instead, we talk about some of the interesting happenings in the modern science world. And Katie tells us about her fossil dig!

You may have never heard of him, but African-American chemist Percy Lavon Julian is the guy you should thank for your hormonal birth control. And life is just better when nerds name things!

Mary Agnes Chase struggled to begin her career in botany, so when she finally made the big time, she turned around to help other women and minorities succeed in the field.

Botanist Carl Linnaeus had a noble goal: to create a new standardized system of naming all living creatures on the planet. But he was only human, after all, and couldn't resist immortalizing his enemies' names in some of the gross stuff he found in nature.

Margaret Mead traveled the world to study and compare different cultures, in a quest to find out which parts of us are driven by nature and which by culture.

Richard Feynman was a brilliant theoretical physicist who won a Nobel Prize and inspired his younger sister to a career in STEM -- but is he worthy of hero worship?

"Birdman of India" Sálim Ali spent nearly 80 years observing and documenting bird species in India, yet he still considered his research a drop in the bucket.

Cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock proved chromosomal crossover in meiosis long before anyone in her field understood it.

Qian Xuesen is known as the father of China's missile and space program. He helped transform China into a world-class military power but started his career in the United States, working in the WWII war effort.

Vera Rubin's observations of galaxy rotations showed that we can only actually see about 5% of the universe.

After leading the United States' successful scientific effort to become the first nation to develop the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer spent the rest of his life advocating for international arms control.

German mathematician Emmy Noether came up with theorems to elegantly describe the workings of the universe.

Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam created a calendar that lasted 1000 years, but the Western world only remembers him for his depressing poetry.

Yvonne Brill was a brilliant rocket scientist whose work made modern satellite and spacecraft missions possible. However, most people only know about her because of one terribly sexist obituary.

Jacques Cousteau started out as a bit of a careless sea explorer, but became a conscientious conservationist and revered science communicator.

In her time, Mary Anning was known as the go-to person if you wanted an interesting fossil from the Jurassic period. But the most many people know about her is the tongue-twister she inspired, not her contributions to paleontology or even her name.

Things computer scientist and US Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper kept in her purse: wallet, tissues, lip balm, and a bundle of nanoseconds.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal is considered the "father of modern neuroscience" for his study and illustration of neurons -- work for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize.

Sara Josephine Baker saved hundreds of thousands of infant lives with a basic concept: start treating them BEFORE they start dying. Revolutionary!

Nikola Tesla was a great inventor overflowing with amazing ideas, but he wasn't very successful in business.

One of NASA's original computers is turning 98 this summer. Her name is Katherine Johnson!

Jane Goodall has made a scientific career of patiently waiting and watching. Thanks to her, we've learned more about chimpanzees in the past 50 years than ever before!

It's the first day of summer, so why aren't you worried about a polio outbreak in your neighborhood? You can thank Jonas Salk for your peace of mind!

The Roman Catholic Church wasn't fond of many of Galileo's ideas, but he didn't let that stop him.

The first computer wasn't built until the mid-20th century, but that didn't stop Ada Lovelace from writing the first computer program in 1842!

Which scientist was the best cook? Our bet's on Gregor Mendel who certainly had a killer split-pea soup recipe. Sometimes, science is delicious!

Albert Einstein was (is!) a big deal, but why exactly? If your answer is "something-something-ummm....relativity?", you should probably listen to this episode.

You've heard of Watson and Crick, but what about Rosalind Franklin? Without her, those guys might not have won the Nobel Prize, or you know ... figured out the structure of DNA.

Good ol' Charlie Darwin knew his theory of natural selection would just make the world explode. It made him a nervous guy.

Marie Curie was a badass woman scientist. Who knows how much more she could've accomplished if she'd had more support ... or less radiation poisoning.