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PODCAST

American Innovations

DNA science. Artificial intelligence. Smartphones and 3D printers. Science and technology have transformed the world we live in. But how did we get here? It wasn’t by accident. Well, sometimes it was. It was also the result of hard work, teamwork, and competition. And incredibly surprising moments.Hosted by bestselling author Steven Johnson (“How We Got To Now”), American Innovations uses immersive scenes to tell the stories of the scientists, engineers, and ordinary people behind the

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All Episodes

00:07:00

Listen Now: Once Upon a Beat

American Innovations ·

2024/05/13

Get ready to hear your favorite stories remixed with beats and hooks that you can’t find in books!In Once Upon a Beat, host DJ Fyütch and his sidekick/turntable Baby Scratch drop the needle on classic stories, spinning them up with a hip-hop twist. They’re turning the tables on your favorite fables – putting the Rap in Rapunzel, letting Goldilocks rock out, and helping the Ugly Duckling march to his own beat! Where hip hop and fables meet, It's Once Upon a Beat! Listen to new episodes of

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00:07:16

Listen Now: The Competition

American Innovations ·

2024/04/29

Every summer for the past seven decades, 50 high school seniors—one from every state—descend on Mobile, Alabama to take part in one of the country’s most lucrative scholarship competitions for teen girls. The Competition takes you behind the scenes of the Distinguished Young Women (DYW) program, and follows seven girls as they experience the highs and lows of competing for two weeks, away from home and under the most high-stress circumstances. Some girls enter for the money, some for prestige

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00:04:27

Listen Now: The Big Flop

American Innovations ·

2024/04/02

The Wing was supposed to be a model for feminist social clubs, built on activism, inclusion, and self-care. But instead, The Wing became a glaring example of toxic girlboss culture and workplace discrimination. On each episode of Wondery’s podcast The Big Flop, comedians join host Misha Brown to chronicle one of the biggest pop-culture fails of all time and try to answer the age-old question: who thought THIS was a good idea?This is just a preview of The Big Flop. Listen to the full episode

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00:04:54

Listen Now: Alternate Routes with Trey Wingo and...

American Innovations ·

2024/03/18

What if the NBA never vetoed the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers? What if the Seahawks ran the ball on the one yard line in the Super Bowl? Could a coin flip have landed Magic in Chicago, Michael in LA and made Charles Barkley the first Black President? Wait, what?!! Questions like these have broken the brains of sports fans since the beginning of time.Enter Wondery’s newest sports show, Alternate Routes, a weekly leap into the sports multiverse where former SportsCenter anchors, Trey Wingo and

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00:06:05

Listen Now: The Cat in the Hat Cast

American Innovations ·

2024/03/04

Hold on tight and prepare to be whisked away on a weekly adventure with Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat! In a world full of delightful mix-ups and exhilarating mayhem, the mischievous Cat takes the reins and enlightens the ever-cautious Fish on the art of hosting a perfectly poised podcast. Featuring alphabet song sing-a-longs, tremendous tongue-twisters, and wondrous wordplay, you'll be left guessing what surprises The Cat will pull out of his hat next. Listen to new episodes of The Cat in the Hat

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00:41:01

The Mystery of Stuxnet | Cracking the Code | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/12/16

In the summer of 2010, a mysterious computer virus called Stuxnet lands on the desk of Symantec cybersecurity analyst Liam O’Murchu. Stuxnet is unlike anything O’Murchu has ever seen: a highly sophisticated piece of malware that serves no obvious purpose. O’Murchu and his colleagues are determined to figure out how it works and who’s behind it -- but soon, it becomes clear that Stuxnet might be more than they bargained for.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and ad free, and access exclusive

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00:41:28

Man with No Memory | The Accident | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/11/11

Even as recently as the early 1950s, we didn’t understand that there were different types of memory, or how the brain processed and stored memories. Then, in 1953, a radical surgery by a reckless doctor gave us tremendous insights into how human memory works. Those scientific gains came at a terrible cost, however. The surgery left the patient, Henry Molaison, a profound amnesiac -- completely incapable of forming new memories. This is his story. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations

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00:46:34

Predator Drone | From Albatross to Amber | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/10/14

What if you could design a spy plane that could be flown remotely and hover in the sky for hours, providing reconnaissance for troops on the ground? In the early 1980s, the visionary inventor Abe Karem begins building drones out of his L.A. garage. Soon, the Pentagon and the CIA take notice. Though he faces many challenges, Karem is on the forefront of a revolution that will change the face of modern aerial warfare. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on

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00:42:33

Pushing Painkillers | An Untapped Market | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/10/07

Doctors once shied away from using opioids to treat chronic pain, citing the risk of addiction. But in the 1970s, a new generation of doctors started to argue that opioids should be reconsidered, and that allowing terminal patients to suffer in agony is torturous. As the palliative care movement grows, Purdue Frederick, a small pharmaceutical company, sees an opportunity to bring opioids out of the shadows and to the masses...to devastating effect. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations

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00:44:48

Social Media | Find Your Friends | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/08/12

Today social media is such a dominant part of our daily lives, it's hard to believe that only 20 years ago, it didn’t exist. Then a newly single tech entrepreneur named Jonathan Abrams wondered: What if you could use the internet to expand your network of real-life friends? His simple idea became Friendster, the first social media site, which would change not only how people interact online, but the very nature of human connection and friendship. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations

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00:46:06

Fracking | The Source Rock | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/07/15

In the late 1970s, oil and natural gas fields across the U.S. were drying up, making the country increasingly dependent on foreign oil. Then, a Texas energy magnate named George Mitchell decided to try extracting natural gas from shale, a layer of rock almost two miles beneath the surface, using a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. His innovation would kick off an energy revolution, and spur a massive environmental backlash. Listen to new episodes 1 week early and ad free, and

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00:38:42

Cryonics | Immortality On Ice | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/06/17

Not everyone chooses burial or cremation after death. Some believe in cryonics, freezing their bodies in the hopes of being reanimated sometime in the future. Bob Nelson, a TV repairman with no scientific background, made history when he froze the first human being. But as Nelson would discover, freezing someone is easy; keeping them frozen is a lot harder. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple

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00:39:36

Storm Chasers | Tornado Alley | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/05/27

No extreme weather phenomenon fascinates us more than tornadoes. For most of human history, very little was known about how these graceful yet violent columns of swirling air formed or behaved. Then, in the 1950s, a teenager from North Dakota began chasing them, and a scientist from Japan began studying them. Together, they started a movement. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See Privacy

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00:40:38

Hacking | What’s in the Blue Box? | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/04/29

Hackers: the criminals who prey on our digital lives. Today they steal credit cards and personal information, or even commit acts of cyber-terrorism. But in the early days, hackers were largely seen as harmless pranksters. And it wasn’t computers they were initially interested in, but phones -- which they hacked with a mysterious device called the Blue Box. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple

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00:42:38

Breaking The Sound Barrier | A Bullet With Wings | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/04/08

In the 1940s, as planes got faster, it seemed like they were hitting a wall -- literally. Many pilots tried to travel faster than the speed of sound, often with fatal results. Could American test pilot Chuck Yeager succeed where they had failed? Or would his daredevil attitude get him grounded before he gets a chance? You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See Privacy Policy at

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00:40:16

Lie Detector | The Heart of a Liar | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/02/25

Humans are shockingly bad at telling whether or not someone is lying. That’s why, a century ago, psychologists and criminologists developed machines to detect lies for us, by measuring blood pressure, pulse, and breathing rate. Their lie detectors promised to revolutionize the criminal justice system. But is it really possible for science to separate truth from lies? You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple

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00:35:04

Mission To Mars | Seeing Red | 1

American Innovations ·

2021/01/14

Even after the Apollo program put astronauts on the moon, Mars remained out of reach. Then, in 1990, an ambitious engineer hatched an ingenious plan to send the first humans to the red planet. But will anyone at NASA buy into his idea? You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at

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00:30:17

Year In Review | When Will I Get the Vaccine? | 1

American Innovations ·

2020/12/17

2020 has been a year of struggle, uncertainty and loss. It has also forced us to adapt and innovate in nearly every aspect of our lives. But no innovation this year has been more important and more astounding than the Covid-19 vaccine. On this year-end episode, Steven talks to Bruce Gellin, president of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, D.C.. about what to expect from the imminent Covid-19 vaccine. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and

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00:41:09

Telephone | Call Waiting | 1

American Innovations ·

2020/11/26

In the 19th Century, the telegraph is the cutting edge of communication. No one can imagine anything better—except Alexander Graham Bell. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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00:41:09

Auto-Tune: From Cher to Kanye | 1

American Innovations ·

2020/11/19

All Andy Hildebrand wanted to do was make a computer program to help singers sound better. He never expected it to kick off a battle for the soul of modern music. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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