Who was Emanuel Swedenborg?

This 2014 episode discusses Jules Verreaux and his two brothers, who collected an impressive array of flora and fauna specimens from around the world for placement with museums and collectors. They also did some really unsavory things that had long-term ramifications. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

8 Jan 202233min

Tracy and Holly discuss the natural tendency to find the platypus suspect as an animal. They also talk about some of the tangential pieces of the Cyrano story that didn't make it into Wednesday's episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

7 Jan 202214min

Cyrano de Bergerac is often called a man of letters, a philosopher, a soldier, a duelist, a playwright and many more things. But what he may have been best at was self-invention. His real story is blurry to begin with, and he contributed to that blur, but it’s been even more obscured obscured over the centuries by the fictionalized versions of his life. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

5 Jan 202233min

When European naturalists saw a platypus for the first time, they found it so bizarre that they thought it was fake, and then argued about how to classify it for almost a century. This happened in tandem with similar discussions about another Australian animal – the echidna, or spiny anteater – and discussions of scientific taxonomy in general.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

3 Jan 202238min

This 2016 episode covers the Piltdown Man, which is one of the world's most infamous instances of scientific fraud. It derailed the study of evolution for decades. How exactly did scientists in 1912 fall so completely for a hoax? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1 Jan 202233min

Holly and Tracy discuss Daguerre's life, and veer off into VR, and the nature of Daguerre's monetization of photography. Then they talk about the famously handsome Cornelius and the importance of photography to our modern world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

31 Dec 202116min

Cornelius is famous for having taken what’s often called the world’s first selfie - and he's noted for how handsome he looks in it. But he was smart and inventive in a variety of ways, and he innovated in lighting fixtures the same way he did with photography. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

29 Dec 202131min

Daguerre comes up almost any time we mention photography, but we’ve never covered his life story. Well before he figured out how to capture images through a camera obscura, he was an artist and innovator in entertainment. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

27 Dec 202138min