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Michael Robinson Historian Of Science Podcasts

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Part two of my interview with Julian Togelius, who talks about the history of machine learning, the quest for Artificial General Intelligence, and the difficulties AI researchers have in defining exactly what intelligence is. Togelius is an associate professor of Computer Science at New York University. He is the author of Artificial General Intell…
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In the first of two episodes, Julian Togelius talks about the history of machine learning, the quest for Artificial General Intelligence, and the difficulties AI researchers have in defining exactly what intelligence is. Togelius is an associate professor of Computer Science at New York University. He is the author of Artificial General Intelligenc…
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Dr. Giada Arney talks about the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a space telescope that, when it’s built and launched into space, will be able to image planets in other solar systems directly, focusing on planets that may support life. Arney is a Research Space Scientist in the Planetary Systems Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She’s al…
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In the late 1500s, Dutch navigator William Barrents sailed north in search of a Northeast Passage to Asia. This expedition and a second one both suffered hardships, but they were mild in comparison with the horrors of the third expedition. Andrea Pitzer talks about the Arctic voyages of William Barents and their impact on Europe for centuries to co…
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Claire Isabel Webb talks about the Europa Clipper mission and NASA’s broader agenda to find life on other worlds. Webb is a historian of science and directs the Future Humans program at the Berggruen Institute. Her opinion piece, “Can We Please Just Find the Aliens Already,” was published by the New York Times in October, 2024…
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Steven Johnson talks about the British pirate Henry Every and his improbable capture of the Mughal treasure ship, Gunsway. Johnson is the author of twelve books, including Enemy of All Mankind, Farsighted, Where Good Ideas Come From, and The Ghost Map. He’s also the host of the PBS series How We Got To Now and the podcast American Innovations.…
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Célia Abele talks about Wolfgang von Goethe, the French writer Chateaubriand, and the German physicist Georg Lichtenberg. These writers became fascinated in the Alps and volcanoes such as Vesuvius. Abele is an assistant professor of French at Boston College. She’s the author of “Mountain Time: Tense Futures and Present Pasts in the Alps and Vesuviu…
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Ed Armston-Sheret returns to Time to Eat the Dogs to talk about British geographical expeditions and the labor that made them possible, specifically the labor of local peoples that is frequently omitted from explorer accounts. Armston-Sheret is a Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He’s the author of On the Backs o…
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Dane Kennedy talks about Mungo Park’s troubled expeditions in West Africa and the rescue expeditions that set off to find him. Kennedy is an emeritus professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University. He has written eight books including Mungo Park’s Ghost: The Haunted Hubris of British Explorers in Nineteenth-Century A…
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Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees talk about the voyage of the Vrouw Maria and the long quest to find the ship under the waters of the Archipelago Sea off the coast of Finland. Easter is a professor of history at Boston College. Vorhees is a travel writer for Lonely Planet with an expertise in Russia, New England, and Central America. They are the aut…
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Adam Higginbotham talks about the history of the Space Shuttle program and the decisions that made the Challenger explosion almost inevitable. Higgenbotham is a journalist and contributing writer for the New Yorker, Wired, and the New York Times. His book Midnight in Chernobyl won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-Fiction and was sele…
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Catarina Madruga talks about Portuguese exploration in the nineteenth century as European powers made plans to conquer Africa and colonize its peoples. Madruga is a post-doctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum of Berlin. She’s the author of “Expert at a Distance: Barbosa du Bocage and the Production of Scientific Knowledge on Africa,” Jou…
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Al Zambone talks with me about American polar exploration, the origin of Time to Eat the Dogs, and the history of science as an academic discipline. Zambone is the host of the podcast Historically Thinking. He’s the author of Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life. You can hear an extended version of this interview on the Historically Thinking podcast…
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Emmanuel Iduma talks about his experiences traveling through Africa and his quest to find a new language of travel. Iduma is a writer and lecturer at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His stories and essays have been published in Best American Travel Writing 2020 and the New York Review of Books. He is the author of A Stranger’s Pose, which wa…
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Lachlan Fleetwood talks about debates about altitude sickness in the Himalaya and the ways these debates became tied up with ideas about the physiology of Europeans and Himalayans in the 1800s. Fleetwood is the author of “Bodies in High Places: Exploration, Altitude Sickness, and the Problem of Bodily Comparison in the Himalaya, 1800-50,” published…
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Kate Hollander talks about Bertolt Brecht’s life and work. She also talks about the community of artists who were his friends, lovers, and collaborators. Hollander is a historian of modern Europe. She’s also the author of a book of poems, My German Dictionary, which was awarded the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize by USA Poet Laureate Charles Wright.…
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Emma Kowal talks about the history of biospecimen collection among the aboriginal peoples of Australia. Kowal is a cultural and medical anthropologist at Deakin University. She’s the co-author, along with Joanna Radin, of "Indigenous Biospecimen Collections and the Cryopolitics of Frozen Life," published in the Journal of Sociology.…
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Eric Zuelow talks about the origins of tourism from the era of the European Grand Tour through the twenty-first century where is has become – until the current pandemic at least – the largest service sector industry in the world. Zuelow is a professor of European History at the University of New England. He’s the author of A History of Modern Touri…
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