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The early 20th century was an especially rich time for creating ways to process and preserve food.
During the Civil War necessity drove the North and South to develop different strategies for dealing with malaria.
Follow the birth, life, and demise of the Hercules Powder Company, which once dominated the explosives industry in the United States.
How did the Hanford nuclear facility become one of America’s most vexing environmental challenges? Jennifer Weeks explores the history and future of the site.
The largest accidental release of radioactivity in the United States did not occur in 1979 at Three-Mile Island. That very same year a collapsing dam released a flood of radioactive debris into the Navajo Nation.
Meet J. J. Thomson, who disproved Einstein’s dictum that the man “who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of thirty will never do so.”
Discover alchemy, the secret science!
When Communist East Germany built a wall across Berlin, it created two different cities, two different countries, and for scientists two different careers.
The chemistry of the universe may help explain the presence of life on Earth.
Neon is a dull and invisible gas until it’s trapped in a tube and zapped with electricity. Literally pulled out of thin air, it became a symbol of progress and an essential component of the electronic age.
Vanadium was a rare metal, but for 100 years after its first discovery in 1801 no one cared—until a chemist discovered it strengthened steel.
A mother’s dogged search for the cause of her babies’ mental decline led to the discovery of a new disease.
Before becoming a synonym for cinema, celluloid was used to imitate expensive materials like ivory, tortoiseshell, and linen.
Faced with a sudden shortage of rubber, the wartime United States turned to an unlikely place: a Japanese American internment camp in California.
Joseph Black, one of the first to realize that air was composed of many gases, isolated carbon dioxide, and discovered latent heat.
How did a seemingly benign chemical and a near-miraculous public-health initiative spark decades and decades debate?
Observing as experts investigate whether La Bella Principessa is in fact the work of Leonardo da Vinci.
In the so-called Hamel Catastrophe of 1820, a scientific expedition lost three local guides after the entire party fell 1,200 feet in an avalanche.
In the 19th century, chemical oblivion replaced liquor, opiates, and bleeding as the numbing agent of choice for surgeons.
With dynamite and cannons, Robert St. George Dyrenforth hoped to end drought in the late 19th century. This vision of weather and climate control seized the imagination of scientists and businessmen.
In the early 19th century people dreamed of using light to paint permanent images.
For brothers William and Lawrence Knox, earning PhDs in chemistry was not enough to overcome discrimination.
From lab accident to wonder drug to chemical has-been, saccharin’s history tracks the rise of consumer consciousness, government regulation, and the uncertainties underlying scientific evidence.
In the late 19th century cod-liver oil was proclaimed the cure for many ailments. One problem: the oil’s foul taste.
Malaria and the benefits and pitfalls of government-funded biomedical research.
Are salt alternatives scarier than the substance they are replacing? A brief history of a “terrifying” food.
The first balloons, both hot-air and hydrogen powered, drew spectacular crowds and set off a craze—balloonomania!
The history of pasteurization and the controversy surrounding it demonstrate the complexity of milk as a chemical substance.
How 50,000 people tried to maintain a normal existence while living in isolation at the largest the Manhattan Project site.
The founding of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers represented the beginning of American technological dominance in the 20th century.