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Othmer Gold Medal, Bolte Award, and AIC Gold Medal will be presented on May 8 in Philadelphia.
Alternative currencies flourish in desperate times and situations.
The tricks and tools book sleuths use to date the undated.
Explore a unique collection of minerals that tell the story of human curiosity about the material world around us.
What do shark fins, wool, and DNA have in common? Physicist Florence Bell studied them all with X-ray crystallography.
Sperling was a plant explorer who dedicated his life to preserving biodiversity through seed banking for ecological and agricultural purposes.
How does a museum and library negotiate biography, civics, and the history of science?
Crushing, an ancient technique for transforming materials, remains central to our lives today.
The path to a dubious cure.
A familiar rite of passage that’s been more than 100 years in the making.
As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaches, Jeffery R. Appelhans highlights the American Philosophical Society’s efforts to shed light on the overlooked scientific revolution from 1763 to 1804.
Nazism was a society-wide catastrophe, so why did so many people in technical fields in Germany embrace it?
Searching for the cats hiding in our collections.
People spontaneously combusting is the stuff of myth, but discoveries about the connections between combustion, blood, and breathing got Charles Dickens’s imagination burning.
Guided tours of the Othmer Library of Chemical History begin June 18.
A huge epidemic swept through America, affected tens of thousands of people, and then virtually vanished without a trace.
The Australian nature writer solved the orchid pollination mystery that puzzled Darwin.
The Science History Institute invites you to an evening of music and scientific wonder!
Before we knew it was deadly, this “wonder material” saved lives and remade the world.
Audubon and the Bird of Washington.
Cod liver oil was an unpopular cure for rickets due to its nasty taste. Then scientists discovered a far simpler cure: going outside.
This outdoor exhibition explores the battle between butter and oleomargarine in the late 19th century.
By building connections between disciplines, the British-born astronomer transformed 20th-century understanding of stellar chemistry.
Our latest rare book exhibition sheds light on the personalities and projects of scientific biographers.
Charles Darwin’s work was misused by social Darwinists to justify inequality—work that received significant support from a surprising source: his own son.
Diaspora in twenty-one openings.
In the mid-1900s, the science of pregnancy prediction had a surprising helper: the Xenopus frog.
The Japanese Mexican botanist made extensive collections of Central and South American plants, aroids and cacti in particular.
A breakthrough proved that people with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome; it also led to a battle with a would-be saint that raises questions about how scientists determine who gets credit.
Curious about the other half of the Science History Institute? Step into the Othmer Library of Chemical History!