Distillations magazine
Arts & Culture
Science connects with the arts and popular culture
Chasing the Light
Pyro enthusiasts converge on Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for an annual event known as the Western Winter Blast.
Could Claude Monet See Like a Bee?
A harrowing eye surgery may have given the impressionist painter the ability to see UV light.
Fit to Be Dyed
The enduring appeal of tie-dye.
Comics: Old-School Distance-Learning Tools
How the often-maligned genre was used to train soldiers, explain the weather, and describe the modern world.
A Silent, Savage Menace: Reassessing “Panic in the Streets”
Elia Kazan’s 1950 film noir finds new relevance in a moment gripped by pandemic and social unrest.
The Inventions That Made Us Who We Are
Anissa Ramirez’s latest book tracks the (sometimes literal) ways technology can shape our lives.
How Oral History Opens Up the Past
Historian Ingrid Ockert makes a case for the spoken word.
The Case of Continental Classroom
Before Bill Nye the Science Guy, there was Professor Harvey E. White of Continental Classroom.
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.
Saving Old Movies
Old films are fragile, flammable, and frequently lost.
The Masters of Nature
The line between science and art was not always so stark.
What’s That Smell You’re Reading?
Sniffing out a peculiar love of books.
Sketch of a Scientist
An illustration of a biochemist connects two British political icons.
Fit as a Fiddle: The Remarkable Lives of Cremonese Violins
About half of the 1,100 instruments made by master luthier Antonio Stradivari have been lost or destroyed in the past 300 years. Should the instruments that remain be played or preserved?
The Art of Memory
A memento reveals how the demand for cheap copies of famous paintings helped democratize art ownership in the 19th century.
Stradivari and the Search for Brilliance
Can science tell us what makes a Stradivarius so special?
Science and Disability
Scientists with disabilities have frequently faced intolerance and prejudice in their careers.
Love, Peace, and Technoscience
Hippies of the 1960s and 1970s were not necessarily the technophobes they are often made out to be.