Distillations magazine

Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past

Controversy, Control, and Cosmetics in Early Modern Italy

In a society that damned women for both plainness and adornment, wearing makeup became a defiant act of survival.

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Distillations articles reveal science’s powerful influence on our lives, past and present.

People & Politics

Harvey Wiley’s Fierce Pursuit of Food Safety

Science writer Deborah Blum chronicles one chemist’s fight to bring order to a lawless food industry.

Inventions & Discoveries

The Death of Anton Chekhov, Told in Proteins

New forensics techniques are allowing researchers to solve historical mysteries based on the small traces we leave on everyday objects.

People & Politics

Ronald Fisher, a Bad Cup of Tea, and the Birth of Modern Statistics

A lesson in humility begets a scientific revolution.

Black and white lithograph of a painting showing an old man in robes on his knees being illuminated by a substance in a set of early chemical equipment
Early Science & Alchemy

Hennig Brandt and the Discovery of Phosphorus

An engraving hints at the ways art and science were intertwined in the Age of Enlightenment.

preserved body with head on mat of peat moss
Inventions & Discoveries

Bodies in the Bog: The Lindow Mysteries

In the 1980s workers in an English peat bog started unearthing bodies, the apparent victims of violence.

Photo of woman standing beside a lectern
Health & Medicine

Interview: Sangeeta Bhatia

The biomedical researcher talks about her work using nanotechnology to detect and treat disease.

Workers lined up for a group photo
People & Politics

Disability and the Myth of the Independent Scientist

Movies and television shows like to portray scientists as lone geniuses. But scientists with disabilities know the reality is much more complex.

Old botanical illustration of moths and chili peppers growing on plant
Health & Medicine

Heat Therapy

Humans have a masochistic love of capsaicin, a molecule responsible for the burn in hot peppers. That connection could be a key to pain relief.

Photo of audio equipment
Arts & Culture

How Oral History Opens Up the Past

Historian Ingrid Ockert makes a case for the spoken word.

Portrait of young man in shirt and tie in front of colorful background
Health & Medicine

The Death of Jesse Gelsinger, 20 Years Later

Gene editing promises to revolutionize medicine. But how safe is safe enough for the patients testing these therapies?

Environment

Where Lies Humanity’s Salvation—Conservation or Innovation?

Scientists William Vogt and Norman Borlaug took very different approaches to feeding the world.

Photo illustration of leaf shape filled with transistor and other electronics
Inventions & Discoveries

Can Science Build a Better Leaf?

Better photosynthesis, bomb-sniffing spinach, and that’s just the start of the ways plants are inspiring scientific innovation.

Woman in glasses standing beside lectern with a bowl in the foreground
Inventions & Discoveries

Interview: Jennifer Doudna

Distillations talks to the biochemist about the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9, the tool’s promise, and dangers of its misuse.

Photo illustration with main image being man in hat and handcuff, surrounded by other portraits and illustrations
People & Politics

Harry Gold: Spy in the Lab

How did a Philadelphia chemist wind up a Soviet spy?

illustration of William and Caroline Herschel
People & Politics

Making Space for Women in Astronomy

For centuries women have been looking at the stars despite earthly obstacles.

Arts & Culture

The Case of Continental Classroom

Before Bill Nye the Science Guy, there was Professor Harvey E. White of Continental Classroom.

black and white photo of pipes and fittings
People & Politics

Whose Knowledge Counts? Scientists with Cognitive Differences

Why emphasizing intellectual achievement and scientific “genius” harms scientists with intellectual disabilities—and the rest of us.

movie still showing a family scene
Arts & Culture

Where Are My Children? Public Health in the Movies

The silent movie Where Are My Children? is more than a century old, but its central question—who “deserves” access to reproductive rights—still resonates today.