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Distillations

Using stories from science’s past to understand our world

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Escape from Nazi Terror
People

Chemist Max Bredig’s race to save family and friends from catastrophe.

Charles Anderson Chases an Eclipse
People

A lucky streak sends a meteorologist on the flight of a lifetime.

The Newton Mess
Early Science & Alchemy

What a manuscript can tell us about an iconic scientist and the history we’ve built around him.

Dr. Butler and the Quest for the Philosophers’ Stone
Early Science & Alchemy

How searching for alchemy’s secrets helped create modern science.

Ode to the Periodic Table
Culture

Four elements in verse.

COVID’s Hidden Toll on Nurses
Pandemic Perspectives

“I just feel broken.”

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Recommended
For Love of the Lab
People
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.
Sex and Gender: What We Know and Don’t Know
Tools & Technology
Society has long had strict ideas about sex and gender binaries, but even nature doesn’t always comply.
Chemical Relations: William and Lawrence Knox, African American Chemists
People
For brothers William and Lawrence Knox, earning PhDs in chemistry was not enough to overcome discrimination. 
Distilled #9: Lovely Ladies Sell Instruments
Culture
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.
How History Keeps Ignoring James Barry
People
After 150 years of scrutiny, scholars still misrepresent the British doctor’s life and gender.
Interview with Magda Marquet
Pandemic Perspectives
The biochemical engineer and entrepreneur on her hopes for a better postpandemic society.
Richard Hamilton’s Plastic Problem
Culture
Pop artists set themselves apart by addressing throwaway culture. But how could they make the disposable last?
Bakelite: The First Synthetic Plastic
The story of Bakelite and its inventor, Leo Baekeland.
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