Materials Science
Innovation Day Poster Session

Innovation Day 2019
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19th century breast reliever

Distilled #7: Bicycle Horn or Breast Pump?

Distillations Video

Saving Old Movies

Distillations Article
An early 20th century porcelain painting kit

Distilled #5: Porcelain Painting

Distillations Video

Innovation Day 2018
Visit

Distilled #2: An Early (Gold-Plated!) Not-Quite-IUD

Distillations Video
RHex marches up a dune in Pismo Beach, California, carrying a mechanical sensor that scrapes the dune’s surface to detect how much force is needed for the wind to pick up grains of sand.

Thinking on Your Feet—or with Them

Distillations Article
Women wearing orange yoga pants and yellow sneakers

The Yoga Pant Problem

Distillations Podcast

Anticipating the Future: Historical Narratives, Imagination, and Innovation
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Innovation and Regulation on the Open Seas: The Development of Sea-Nine Marine Antifouling Paint

Studies in Materials Innovation
Research

Here Comes the Spray Man!

Distillations Video

Fizzy Water

Distillations Video

Concrete Solutions

Distillations Article

How to Mine an Asteroid

Distillations Video
Still image from Rethinking Ink animation

Rethinking Ink

Distillations Video
Before and after of laser tattoo removal

Rethinking Ink

Distillations Podcast
Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot.

Things Fall Apart

Museum
LZR Racer

Winning Skin

Distillations Article
Tim Cannon

Fast Forward

Distillations Article
Crocidolite asbestos, Pomfret Mine, Vryburg, South Africa.

Flexible Meaning
Research

Second Skin: The Science of Stretch
Museum
Detail of the Beckman HC/CO tester. Courtesy of Beckman Coulter Heritage Council

Beckman HC/CO Tester, Beckman Instruments
Research
Bird with Plastic

Polymer Scientist—Medical Applications
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Bird with Plastic

Pro−Plastic Bag Advocate
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Bird with Plastic

Case Study for Waste: Trash and Treasure
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Oral History Collections
Collections
Bird with Plastic

Game Home
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Conflicts in Chemistry: The Case of Plastics
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Carl “Speed” Marvel in PBI vest

Tough Stuff

Distillations Article
Man with arm in sling with dead leopard

This Is Not Your Great-Grandfather’s Taxidermy

Distillations Podcast
Women in Chemistry

Women in Chemistry
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Historical Biographies
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Robert W. Gore demonstrating the expansion of ePTFE, ca. 1982.

Robert W. Gore
Historical Profile
Uma Chowdhry.

Uma Chowdhry
Historical Profile

Modern Books and Journals
Collections
Babes of Science logo

Babes of Science, a Guest Episode

Distillations Podcast
New York

Let There Be Light

Distillations Article
Reatha Clark King

For Love of the Lab

Distillations Article
Distillations Magazine

Nano Pop

Distillations Article
Recherches Chimiques

Materials Matter

Distillations Article
Lead Balloon Contest

Up, Up, and Away

Distillations Article
Alan MacDiarmid

Trade Secret

Distillations Article
Portrait of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, early 20th century. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood Studios, New York, NY. Williams Haynes Portrait Collection, the Institute Collections.

Leo Hendrik Baekeland
Historical Profile
Stephanie Kwolek at a polarizing microscope.

Stephanie L. Kwolek
Historical Profile
Henry Aaron Hill, ca. 1976–1977.

Henry Aaron Hill
Historical Profile
Robert S. Langer.

Robert S. Langer
Historical Profile
Richard Smalley with a model of a buckyball.

Richard E. Smalley, Robert F. Curl, and Harold W. Kroto
Historical Profile

Photographs
Collections

Add to Our Collections
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T. T. Chao Symposium on Innovation
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Past Chao Symposia
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Scientists You Must Know Video

Scientists You Must Know
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Archives
Collections
A Beckman model D oxygen analyzer monitoring an infant in an incubator.

Arnold O. Beckman Legacy Project
Research

Innovation Day
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Synthesis Book Series
Research
Operation Greenhouse

An Aging Army

Distillations Article
Drawing of tortilla making

The Ancient Chemistry Inside Your Taco

Distillations Podcast
Early blood transfusion experiment

Power in the Blood: When Religion and Medicine Meet in Your Veins

Distillations Podcast
Kidney donation promotion

Do You Need That Kidney?

Distillations Podcast
trade secret document

Stealing Industry Secrets

Distillations Podcast
illustration of half man half woman

Sex and Gender: What We Know and Don’t Know

Distillations Podcast

The French Connection

Distillations Article
Alex Wellerstein

Telling Secrets

Distillations Article
Foster Grant Sunglasses Ad

Plastic Town

Distillations Article
Genetically engineered corn

Genetic Engineering and Organic Farming: An Unexpected Marriage

Distillations Podcast
Baseball

Turf Wars

Distillations Article
Molding a Bright Future in Plastics

It’s a Mad, Mad World: Dow and the Age of Consumption

Distillations Article
FEMA trailer with dog in window

Where Have All the FEMA Trailers Gone?

Distillations Podcast
Silly Putty

A Successful Failure

Distillations Article
17th-century scientists in the lab

Science and the Supernatural in the 17th Century

Distillations Podcast
Liquid-crystal displays, a fundamental element of much of today’s technology, found their first commercial use behind a bar.

A Cloudy Past

Distillations Article
White Mountains

Living in the Town Asbestos Built

Distillations Article
When William Aspdin stumbled on the secret to modern concrete, it was the first and one of the few fortuitous steps in an unsteady life.

Hard-Headed Man

Distillations Article

Bakelite: The First Synthetic Plastic

Distillations Video
immunization record

Fads and Faith: Belief vs. Fact in the Struggle for Health

Distillations Podcast
Fiberglas was invented by accident at Corning Glass in the early 1930s. Fiberglas and its competitors helped insulate 1950s homes, with their open floor plans.

In the Pink

Distillations Article

Art Detectives

Distillations Video
The 17-jewel movement of a 1967 Omega Moon watch.

Making Gemstones

Distillations Article

Double Vision

Distillations Article
A show at the Corning Museum of Glass features professional glassmakers at their craft.

Hot Stuff

Distillations Article

Teflon 

Distillations Podcast

Cellophane Comes to Buffalo

Distillations Article

Asbestos

Distillations Podcast
George Yokomizo

Behind the Barbed Wire of Manzanar: Guayule and the Search for Natural Rubber

Distillations Article
Cropped image of La Bella Principessa

The Da Vinci Question

Distillations Article

Burning Rubber

Distillations Podcast
The Eighth Wonder of the World

Communicating Underwater

Distillations Article
Museo Territoriale Bassa Friulana

A Future Woven in Rayon

Distillations Article
Gordon Moore

The Integrated Circuit at Fifty

Distillations Article
Rhoplex advertisement painting over graffiti

Do-It-Yourself Paints

Distillations Article
An early advertisement for cellophane

Sealed with a Wrap

Distillations Article
Making Modernity exhibition at the Museum at CHF.

Images of Modernity

Distillations Article
A giant leg, 35 feet high, advertised nylons to the Los Angeles area.

Nylon: A Revolution in Textiles

Distillations Article

The Art of Science

Distillations Podcast