Distillations magazine
People & Politics
Science in a world of rules, regulations, and conflict
When Electricity Met Democratic Revolution
The science that animated a political idea.
Politically Charged
How shady car battery additive AD‑X2 sparked a showdown between the U.S. political and scientific establishments.
Ed Pendray and the Science of Tomorrow
A PR man’s pitch for science.
Disorderly Persons
What are laws against fortune-telling really meant to do?
The Trials of Lavoisier
Tracking the Reign of Terror through a revolutionary chemistry journal.
An Absolute Good?
Paul Berg, controversy, and the engineering of life.
The Eclipse That Killed a King (and May Have Saved a Kingdom)
How the scientific prowess of King Mongkut of Siam helped stave off European incursion.
Valery Fabrikant and Science’s Ethical Limits
Is it right to publish research from an unrepentant murderer?
The Human Price of American Rubber
Segregated lives of privilege, pride, and peril on Firestone’s Liberian plantations.
The Case Against Charles Darwin
How the investigation into a grisly murder shocked 19th-century France and framed the scientist as an accomplice.
In the Shadow of Oppenheimer
How popular narratives of the atomic age obscure the bomb’s first victims.
Yue Xiong’s Great Leap
A promising young man from a politically marked family navigates China’s era of Maoist upheaval.
The Problem of Piltdown Man
Seduced by a racist idea, archaeologists hyped an outrageous hoax.
Losing the Genetic Lottery
How did a field meant to reclaim genetics from Nazi abuses wind up a haven for race science?
Percy Julian and the False Promise of Exceptionalism
Reflecting on the trailblazing chemist’s fight for dignity and the myths we tell about our scientific heroes.
Georg Bredig: Scientist, Humanist, and Holocaust Survivor
Restoring the legacy of a physical chemistry pioneer.
American Fevers, American Plagues
How yellow fever outbreaks in the early United States anticipated much of what we lament about the COVID-19 era.
Confronting America’s Food Emergencies
Can a White House conference muster the political will to address the nation’s food insecurity and obesity crises? A summit from 1969 offers clues.