Distillations magazine

Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past

People & Politics

Science in a world of rules, regulations, and conflict

Romantic painting of a woman holding French flag on a battlefield with men holding weapons
People & Politics

The Trials of Lavoisier

Tracking the Reign of Terror through a revolutionary chemistry journal.

Man with rolled up shirt sleeves working under a lab hood while a woman in lab coat looks on
People & Politics

An Absolute Good?

Paul Berg, controversy, and the engineering of life.

Daguerreotype of old man in royal clothing with infant child
People & Politics

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.

Color photo of two men in suits, one without a shirt, photographed walking in the dark
People & Politics

Valery Fabrikant and Science’s Ethical Limits

Is it right to publish research from an unrepentant murderer?

A boy cutting into the bark of tree
People & Politics

The Human Price of American Rubber

Segregated lives of privilege, pride, and peril on Firestone’s Liberian plantations.

Satirical cartoon of Darwinism using a circus theme
People & Politics

The Case Against Charles Darwin

How the investigation into a grisly murder shocked 19th-century France and framed the scientist as an accomplice.

Close-up portrait of an older man with his eyes closed
People & Politics

In the Shadow of Oppenheimer

How popular narratives of the atomic age obscure the bomb’s first victims.

Black and white family photo
People & Politics

Yue Xiong’s Great Leap

A promising young man from a politically marked family navigates China’s era of Maoist upheaval.

Collage showing natural history illustrations and newspaper clippings
People & Politics

The Problem of Piltdown Man

Seduced by a racist idea, archaeologists hyped an outrageous hoax.

Collage with illustrations and photographs with a heredity theme
People & Politics

Losing the Genetic Lottery

How did a field meant to reclaim genetics from Nazi abuses wind up a haven for race science?

People & Politics

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.

People & Politics

Georg Bredig: Scientist, Humanist, and Holocaust Survivor

Restoring the legacy of a physical chemistry pioneer.

People & Politics

American Fevers, American Plagues

How yellow fever outbreaks in the early United States anticipated much of what we lament about the COVID-19 era.

People & Politics

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.

People & Politics

Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell?

Biologist John Calhoun’s rodent experiments gripped a society consumed by fears of overpopulation.

People & Politics

The Dark Stars of Marietta Blau

A scientist pitted hard work and ingenuity against the constraints she faced as a Jewish woman.

Photo of woman exiting building surrounded by news cameras
People & Politics

Why Did Annie Dookhan Lie?

Forensic science can be a powerful crime-fighting tool, but misdeeds, dubious methodologies, and bogus claims threaten its reputation—and the reputation of science as a whole.

Black and white photo portrait of woman in uniform
People & Politics

Lou Henry Hoover, Lost in Translation

Though often celebrated, the adventurous First Lady never received full credit for her scientific accomplishments.