Matthew Sweet talks to Stephen Johnson about his new book telling the story of how Dr John Snow challenged medical orthodoxy after a cholera outbreak in 1854.
Mino 2005 by Tomma Abts
Tomma Abts's Turner Prize winning work
Playlist
The Turner Prize
We discuss the winner of this year's Turner Prize, Tomma Abts, with art critic, Sarah Kent
The Turner Prize exhibition continues at Tate Britain until 14th January 2007
Mismatch
Are human beings still fit for this world? We develop in the womb in the same way as we have always done, but emerge into a modern artificial world that appears to be increasingly out of tune with our evolved bodies. Could it be that this mismatch has led to the current explosion in "lifestyle" diseases such as diabetes and obesity? This important new strain of scientific thinking is explored in a conference called Mismatch and also in a book of the same name. Matthew Sweet and guests debate the extent of this problem on tonight's Night Waves.
Mismatch is written by Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson and is published by Oxford University Press
The Ghost Map
In ten terrible days in 1854 a cholera epidemic swept through the Soho district of London. It went on to claim thousands of lives. In Steven Johnson's new book "The Ghost Map" he introduces us to two characters, an anaesthesiologist and a reverend, who take it upon themselves to track down the source of the cholera outbreak. Steven Johnson discusses the changing city and describes how the 1854 detectives track the outbreak of cholera to No 40, Broad Street
The Ghost Map is written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin Books
Louise Brooks
The Twenties starlet Louise Brooks is probably the only star in cinema history who is better known for her haircut than her movies: pictures of her sporting that jetblack bob are crucial to our vision of the Twenties. And if you've seen any of her performances, it's likely to be Lulu, the moral-free hedonist who flounces towards trouble in George Pabst's Pandora's Box. As a new season of her films opens at the National Film Theatre, its curator Erica Carter and silent film pianist Neil Brand join Matthew to discuss whether the actor deserves as much attention as her famous image.
The Louise Brooks season runs at the National Film Theatre until December 23rd
