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Distillations | Science History Institute

Distillations | Science History Institute

Written by: Science History Institute
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 Each episode of Distillations podcast takes a deep-dive into a moment of science-related history in order to shed light on the present.Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Science World
Episodes
  • Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment

    Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment
    Sep 30 2025

    Alexis Pedrick joins Katie Hafner to bring you an episode from The Lost Women of Science Initiative, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to telling the forgotten or untold stories of remarkable female scientists and their groundbreaking work through history.

    The episode, which originally aired in October 2023, is about Flemmie Kittrell, the first Black woman to earn a PhD in Home Economics. In the early 1960s, Flemmie decided to see what would happen if you gave poor kids a boost early in life, in the form of a really great preschool. Every day for two years, parents would get free childcare, and their kids would get comprehensive care for body and mind—with plenty of nutritious food, fun activities, and hugs. What kind of difference would that make? And would it matter later on?

    Credits

    Host: Alexis Pedrick
    Executive Producer: Mariel Carr
    Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez
    Associate Producer: Sarah Kaplan
    Music by Blue Dot Sessions

    Resource List

    Flemmie Kittrell audio interviews, Black Women Oral History Project Interviews, 1976–1981, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute's Schlesinger Library Institute

    Kittrell, Flemmie, "The Negro Family as a Health Agency," The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 18, No. 3, The Health Status and Health, 1949

    Baure, Lauren, "Does Head Start Work?," The Brookings Institution, 2019

    Horrocks, Allison, Good Will Ambassador with a Cookbook: Flemmie Kittrell and the International Politics of Home Economics, University of Connecticut, 2016

    First report on Howard Preschool Experiment: Prelude to School: An Evaluation of an Inner-City Preschool Program, Children's Bureau (DREW), Washington, D.C. Social and Rehabilitation Service, 1968 ‍

    Talbot, Margaret, " Did Home Economics Empower Women?," The New Yorker, 2021

    Zigler, Edward, and Muenchow, Susan, Head Start: The Inside Story Of America's Most Successful Education Experiment, 1994.
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    52 mins
  • The CRISPR Babies

    The CRISPR Babies
    Sep 11 2025
    In 2018 news broke that a Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had used CRISPR to edit human embryos, and twin girls had been born as a result. The story set off an explosive bioethical controversy. As gene editing expert Kiran Musunuru put it, "He Jiankui's genetic misadventures were the biggest medical story of the century so far." Both scientists and the public had a lot of questions. What was the unmet medical need that justified the gene editing? Was the science ready for prime time? And, if it was, was He Jiankui the right scientist to do it? Seven years later these questions are far from resolved. Credits Host: Alexis Pedrick Executive Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Associate Producer: Sarah Kaplan Audio Engineer: Samia Bouzid Music by Blue Dot Sessions Resource List Baylis, Françoise. Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. CBS News. "Chinese Researcher Claims He Helped Make First Gene-Edited Babies." CBS News, November 26, 2018. CBS News. "Chinese Scientist Behind Gene-Edited Babies Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison." CBS News, December 30, 2019. Cobb, Matthew. As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age. New York: Basic Books, 2022. Greely, Henry T. CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021. "He Jiankui presentation and Q&A, International Summit on Human Genome Editing." Youtube Video, November 26, 2018. Marchione, Marilynn. Associated Press. "Chinese researcher claims first gene-edited babies." AP News, November 26, 2018. "Meet Cathy Tie, Bride of 'China's Frankenstein.'" MIT Technology Review, May 23, 2025. Musunuru, Kiran. The CRISPR Generation: The Story of the World's First Gene-Edited Babies. BookBaby, 2019. NBC News. "Chinese Scientist Says He Helped Create First Gene-Edited Babies." NBC News, November 26, 2018. "World's first successful tailor-made gene therapy saves baby born with rare disorder." CBS Mornings. May 16, 2025.
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    54 mins
  • Humans and Monsters: An Interview with Surekha Davies

    Humans and Monsters: An Interview with Surekha Davies
    Sep 9 2025

    The fears about genetic engineering were stoked when experiments took off in the 1970s. From lab leaks to disease epidemics to the ability to make "Frankenstein creations," many of those fears are still with us today. We talk to author Surekha Davies about her latest book, why she thinks of monsters as category breakers and why blurring boundaries can be so terrifying for us, but maybe doesn't have to be.

    Credits

    Host: Alexis Pedrick
    Executive Producer: Mariel Carr
    Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez
    Associate Producer: Sarah Kaplan
    Audio Engineer: Samia Bouzid
    Music by Blue Dot Sessions

    Resource List

    Davies, Surekha. Humans: A Monstrous History. University of California Press: 2025.
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    32 mins
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