Some things just go together: peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, milk and cereal, London and smog. Or at least, that’s the way things used to be until the Great Smog of 1952. (Don’t worry, the first three pairings are safe). If you’ve watched The Crown, you may remember an early episode in which a thick, noxious smog surrounded the entire city of London for days on end. People coughing, hacking, collapsing. Traffic ground to a standstill. Authorities in denial. What was actually going on in December 1952 to lead to such conditions? What was in the smog to make it so toxic? And how did this severe pollution event lead to massive changes in air quality regulations around the world? Tune in to find out all this and more (including what The Crown got wrong).

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For most of us, there probably hasn’t been a good reason for you to think about your gallbladder. Ever. Much of the time, it sits there, silently storing, concentrating, and, when needed, churning out bile every day. But occasionally, this unassuming organ will announce itself through waves of unceasing, excruciating pain brought on by a blockage of some sort. Why it does this to us, what we do about it, and how we can live a gallbladder-free life are just some of the things we cover in this episode. We’re also taking this opportunity to deep dive into the substance most closely associated with the gallbladder: bile. Bile plays an outsized role in the history of medicine, mostly through its role as one of the four humors in the humoral theory of disease. Are you of a choleric temperament or is your vibe more sanguine? Maybe melancholic or phlegmatic suits you better. Don’t know what the heck we’re talking about? Tune in to find out.

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In the first years of the COVID pandemic, a debate raged: was the virus transmitted via respiratory droplets, or was it airborne? For some, this distinction seemed overly technical, pedantic even. But for others, it represented decades of dismissal and missed opportunities - opportunities that had cost untold lives. In this week’s TPWKY book club episode, renowned science writer and journalist Carl Zimmer joins us to discuss his latest book Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe, which uncovers the long-forgotten story of an entire field of study - aerobiology - and the pioneering scientists who discovered life where there was thought to be none. Tune in for a fascinating conversation about why airborne transmission matters and the incredible work that some researchers are doing to breathe new life into its study.

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