Distillations magazine

What possibilities might we be ignoring when we unquestioningly privilege sight as the primary pathway to knowledge about the natural world?

One war made him the most powerful man in science; the war that followed took that power away.

Why the recent findings of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine are enlightening, even if they aren’t surprising.

After the Vietnam War a mysterious yellow substance rained down from the skies of Southeast Asia. Was it a chemical weapon or something stranger?

Tattoos are more than decoration. But what do you do when the way you look no longer matches who you are?

The story behind a rare work by the father of the periodic table.

A painting bears the mark of Nazi brutality but also speaks to our capacity for kindness and bravery.

Computers have always been central to NASA’s accomplishments: they just used to be women.

The highs and lows of lab life.

How a Republican president ushered in the EPA.

How the chemical agent made the transition from wartime weapon to domestic police tool.

A discovery by Indian scientist and statesman Meghnad Saha revealed the nature of stars.

Remembering a Holocaust survivor, immigrant, and inventor.

Filippo Marinetti thought he could change Italian society through its collective belly.

Ernest Lawrence championed the idea of science done collectively. But he failed to champion his own scientists during the Red Scare.

Smallpox, polio, and the political and scientific haggling behind two medical triumphs.

Before these men became successful chemists they were World War II meteorologists.

Is there any truth in truth serums?