Nov 16, 2023
We’re sure you’ve heard of the Nobel Prize although it’s hard to
make the case Beth has since she mispronounces it quite a bit in
this episode. But have you heard of Nobel Disease? It’s when people
are labeled geniuses and go on to embrace some whackadoodle
pseudoscience. In today’s Strange Country episode, Beth and Kelly
discuss Kary Mullis, the only Nobel winner to be referred to as
“generally barking mad.” He discovered the polymerase chain
reaction, which we all regularly employed when we wanted to make
dang certain it wasn’t covid.
Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands
Cite your sources:
“First DNA
Exoneration, Center on Wrongful Convictions: Northwestern Pritzker
School of Law.” Northwestern Law,
https://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/il/gary-dotson.html.
Accessed 9 October 2023.
Guo, Jerry. “A
Little Off the Top for History.” The New York Times, 13 July 2008,
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/fashion/13hair.html. Accessed 9
October 2023.
Jarry,
Jonathan. “The Man Who Photocopied DNA and Also Saw a Talking
Fluorescent Raccoon.” McGill University, 15 August 2019,
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/technology-history/man-who-photocopied-dna-and-also-saw-talking-fluorescent-raccoon.
Accessed 9 October 2023.
Joseph, Pat.
“Intolerable Genius: Berkeley's Most Controversial Nobel Laureate.”
Cal Alumni Association, 12 December 2019,
https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/winter-2019/intolerable-genius-berkeleys-most-controversial-nobel-laureate/.
Accessed 8 October 2023.
Loeb, Dylan.
“Kary B. Mullis, 74, Dies; Found a Way to Analyze DNA and Won Nobel
(Published 2019).” The New York Times, 15 August 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/science/kary-b-mullis-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1.
Accessed 9 October 2023.
Markel, Howard.
“How the talented Oscar Levant broke taboos by talking about mental
health.” PBS, 14 August 2021,
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-the-talented-oscar-levant-broke-taboos-by-talking-about-mental-health.
Accessed 9 October 2023.
“Polymerase
Chain Reaction (PCR) Fact Sheet.” National Human Genome Research
Institute, 17 August 2020,
https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Polymerase-Chain-Reaction-Fact-Sheet.
Accessed 9 October 2023.
Schreiber, Dan.
The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the
Weird. HarperCollins Publishers, 2023.
Thielking,
Megan. “How Linus Pauling duped America into believing vitamin C
cures colds.” Vox, 27 February 2015,
https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7547741/vitamin-c-myth-pauling.
Accessed 9 October 2023.
Warden, Rob.
“Kary B. Mullis: A lament for the loss of a life that saved many.”
Injustice Watch, 18 August 2019,
https://www.injusticewatch.org/commentary/2019/requiem-for-kary-b-mullis-a-lament-for-a-life-that-saved-many/.
Accessed 9 October 2023.