Ep. 44: I Fell In to a Burning Ring of Fire

Ep. 44: I Fell In to a Burning Ring of Fire

A machine that was supposed to heal became one of the deadliest medical devices of the twentieth century, and nobody could figure out why. This week, we dig into the Therac-25, a radiation therapy machine whose software errors delivered massive, lethal overdoses to patients across the US and Canada in the mid-1980s. We walk through the race condition bugs that let operators override safety checks in a matter of keystrokes, the manufacturer that dismissed early reports as impossible, and the investigation that turned this into one of the founding case studies in software safety engineering. It's a story about how a few lines of bad code became a body count.

Ep. 43: Bad Medicine

At a crowded state institution on Staten Island, hepatitis wasn't just common. It was almost guaranteed. Instead of treating it, one doctor decided to use it. This week, Andrea walks through the hepatitis studies conducted at Willowbrook State School, where children with intellectual disabilities were deliberately infected in the name of vaccine research. We cover how the study was framed to parents, why it went on for over a decade, and how it became one of the defining scandals in the history of medical ethics. It's a hard listen, and an important one.

Ep. 42: It's a Cult of Personality

"Two Women Sue Church When Christ Fails to Appear" In a small Utah town, a self-proclaimed prophet convinced dozens of followers that the Second Coming had a date on the calendar. When it didn't happen the way he said, he didn't lose his followers. He just adjusted the story. This week, Crystal and Andrea head to Manti, Utah, to unpack the rise of a charismatic leader who claimed direct communication with God, built a following through seances and secret plural marriages, and somehow talked his way out of a failed apocalypse. Along the way: whispered VHS tapes, a memoir from a woman who lived it, and a lawsuit headline you have to read twice to believe. Faith, control, and a prophecy that just wouldn't quit.

Ep. 41: Who Can it Be Now?

Imagine your hand picking up a glass, unbuttoning your shirt, or reaching for someone else's plate, and you had nothing to do with it. You didn't decide. You didn't even feel it coming. You just watched your own hand act like it belongs to someone else. This week, Crystal and Andrea dig into Alien Hand Syndrome, the rare neurological condition where one hand moves with purpose but without permission. We cover where it comes from, including stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain tumors, and certain neurodegenerative diseases, and why a condition this strange so often gets mistaken for something else entirely. We get into the split-brain surgeries that first revealed it, the cases where patients gave their hand its own name just to cope, and the unsettling question at the center of it all: what happens when part of your body stops listening to you. It's rare. It's real. And it might be happening right now to someone who has no idea why their own hand won't behave.

Ep. 40: Bad Blood

For forty years, the U.S. government promised free healthcare to a group of men who needed it most. What they delivered instead was decades of deliberate, documented deception. This week, Andrea and Crystal break down the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee: how it started, why it kept going long after a cure existed, and the nurse caught in the middle of it all. We trace the men behind the headlines, the whistleblower who finally ended it, and the bioethics rules that exist today because of what happened to them. It's a hard one. It's also one of the most important episodes we've made.** Please note, we are aware that Crystal mispronounces "Tuskegee" throughout this episode - our sincerest apologies **