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 greatest discoveries of the past century.Listen to American Innovations on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting https://wondery.com/links/american-innovations/ now.
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The Mystery of Stuxnet | Cracking the Code | S57-E1 (00:41:01)
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 sophist...
Man with No Memory | The Accident | S55-E1 (00:41:28)
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 doct...
Predator Drone | From Albatross to Amber | S54-E1 (00:46:34)
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 Kare...
Pushing Painkillers | An Untapped Market | S53-E1 (00:42:33)
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 ...
Social Media | Find Your Friends | S51-E1 (00:44:48)
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 ...
Fracking | The Source Rock | S50-E1 (00:46:06)
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 tr...
Cryonics | Immortality On Ice | S48-E1 (00:38:42)
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 scient...
Storm Chasers | Tornado Alley | S47-E1 (00:39:36)
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, ...
Hacking | What’s in the Blue Box? | S46-E1 (00:40:38)
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 a...
Breaking The Sound Barrier | A Bullet With Wings | S45-E1 (00:42:38)
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 pilo...
Lie Detector | The Heart of a Liar | S43-E1 (00:40:16)
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,...
Mission To Mars | Seeing Red | S42-E1 (00:35:04)
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 wil...
Year In Review | When Will I Get the Vaccine? | S40-E1 (00:30:17)
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 as...
Telephone | Call Waiting | S39-E1 (00:41:09)
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 ...
Auto-Tune: From Cher to Kanye | S38-E1 (00:41:09)
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...
The Fight Against AIDS | The Epidemic Begins | S37-E1 (00:42:23)
In the early 1980s, a mysterious new disease spread like wildfire through the gay communities of major U.S. cities. Before it even had a name, AIDS had already killed over half its victims. Public res...
Keeping Cool | A Chilly Reception | S35-E1 (00:38:53)
Muggy. Sticky. Miserable. For eons, that’s just what summer was. In fact, when air conditioning first became available, few people took advantage of it. Wasn’t summer supposed to be uncomfortable? Thi...
Video Games | Electric Dreams | S34-E1 (00:38:56)
Call of Duty, Fortnite, Animal Crossing.... The video game industry generates billions of dollars each year. But not so long ago, video games were mostly played by the programmers who made them. On ou...
Radar | Welcome to Tuxedo Park | S33-E1 (00:34:05)
What technology won WWII? Most people would say the atomic bomb, but the real answer is radar.As a small island country, vulnerable to aerial attacks, England took the lead in developing radar in the ...
Ferris Wheel | Wheel in the Sky | S31-E1 (00:41:46)
The 1889 World’s Fair in Paris dazzles attendees with the Eiffel Tower. So, when plans begin for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the mandate is clear: beat the Tower. America’s architects and engine...
Enemy of All Mankind | A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt | S30-E1 (00:36:19)
On September 11th, 1695, two ships confronted each other in the middle of the Indian Ocean: one an enormous treasure ship owned by the Grand Mughal of India, and the other a much smaller British pirat...
Chewing Gum: Snapping and Stretching | S29-E1 (00:33:17)
It’s the mid-1800s and in Maine, John Bacon Curtis is back from clearing the spruce forests with a crazy idea. He’s going to sell ready-to-chew gum.But his bold plan is only the start of what will bec...
Dynamite: The Controlled Explosion | S28-E1 (00:34:14)
In 1846, an Italian chemist discovered the volatile compound nitroglycerine, the first major breakthrough in creating man-made explosions since the invention of gunpowder a thousand years earlier. But...
Fighting Coronavirus: Bruce Gellin On How COVID-19 Could Change Vaccine Development | S27-E1 (00:25:37)
As the first in a series on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, Steven Johnson speaks with Dr. Bruce Gellin, president of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington D.C.. Dr. Gellin ...
Organ Transplant: The Kidney Twins | S26-E1 (00:42:50)
A century ago, organ transplants were the stuff of science fiction. But a handful of experimental surgeons believed that transplants were not just possible – they had the potential to save thousands o...
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