Distillations

Reatha Clark King wanted to be a research chemist, so she made the journey from the segregated South to Illinois. At the University of Chicago her dreams came true.

Society has long had strict ideas about sex and gender binaries, but even nature doesn’t always comply.

For brothers William and Lawrence Knox, earning PhDs in chemistry was not enough to overcome discrimination. 

Why are these stylish women posing with scientific instruments? Instrument makers in the 1960s used “lovely ladies” to sell their wares, an advertising ploy that’s still around today.

After 150 years of scrutiny, scholars still misrepresent the British doctor’s life and gender.

The biochemical engineer and entrepreneur on her hopes for a better postpandemic society.

Pop artists set themselves apart by addressing throwaway culture. But how could they make the disposable last?

The story of Bakelite and its inventor, Leo Baekeland.