This week we’re digging into our archives and looking back at one of our first episodes of Distillations.

On today’s show we go local when it comes to checking up on air quality. 

Charles Mann’s latest book traces how scientists William Vogt and Norman Borlaug took very different approaches to feeding the world and how their feuding ideas anticipated today’s environmental debates.

Stories from the pandemic’s essential workers.

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

Despite a lack of evidence, many have been captivated by the electrical whiz’s most mysterious project.