Science Diction is a bite-sized podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for our newsletter. Science has given us more than data.

Each episode of Science Diction takes a word or phrase, and with the help of historians, authors, etymologists, and scientists, serves up language with a side of science. It’s been wonderful to have ...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The alphabet has only 26 letters. With these 26 magic symbols, however, millions of words are written every day. IRA FLATOW, HOST: And that music means it's time for Science Diction, ...

It's time for our monthly episode of Science Diction, where we explore the origins of scientific words with my guest Howard Markel, professor of history of medicine at the University of Michigan in ...

Remember that summer when the internet was one Distracted Boyfriend after another—that flannel-shirted dude rubbernecking at a passing woman, while his girlfriend glares at him? Everyone had their own ...

THE word “meme” wasn’t created to describe things that spread all over the internet. Rather, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term when he was hunting for an idea-focused counterpart ...

The Rise Of The Myers-Briggs, Chapter 3: What Is It Good For? August 31, 2021 • When Isabel Briggs Myers imagined that her homegrown personality test would change the world, she couldn't have pictured ...

Cobalt has been hoodwinking people since the day it was pried from the earth. Named after a pesky spirit from German folklore, trickery is embedded in its name. In 1940s Netherlands, cobalt lived up ...