For most of human history, seeing inside a living body meant surgery. Newt tells how Dr. Raymond Damadian and physicist Paul Lauterbur turned 1940s nuclear magnetic resonance research into the MRI scanner—a machine that images soft tissue in astonishing detail without radiation or a single incision. From Damadian's hand-built "Indomitable" scanner to today's 40 million annual U.S. procedures, this episode traces how basic physics research, conducted with no medical purpose in mind, became one of medicine's most powerful diagnostic tools—and examines the controversial Nobel Prize snub that still stings decades later.

Episode 1051: The End of a Fair Price — Lindsay Owens on How Companies Use Your Data to Charge You More
40:28

Episode 1050: The Midterms, 27 Days Out — McLaughlin and Sosnik on Who Will Control Congress
41:35

Episode 1049: The Exhausted Majority — Who Independents Really Are and Why They'll Decide 2026
35:24