# The Battery Dope Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-disappearing-spoon-a-science-history-podcast-with-sam-kean-550844/the-battery-dope Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-disappearing-spoon-a-science-history-podcast-with-sam-kean-550844/the-battery-dope.md Podcast: [The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-disappearing-spoon-a-science-history-podcast-with-sam-kean-550844) Published: 2026-05-19T20:34:03+00:00 Episode link: https://samkean.com/podcast/ Audio file: https://audio2.redcircle.com/episodes/d4c73ca9-b835-4450-a282-8db1a76070ad/stream.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-disappearing-spoon-a-science-history-podcast-with-sam-kean-550844/episodes/the-battery-dope Duration seconds: 1132 ## Resource In the 1950s, scientists hated politics. Then one Allen Astin got fired. After that, scientists knew they had to play politics—or face professional annihilation. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-disappearing-spoon-a-science-history-podcast-with-sam-kean-550844/episodes/the-battery-dope/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-disappearing-spoon-a-science-history-podcast-with-sam-kean-550844/the-battery-dope.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.