Distillations magazine
Something Old, Something New
Humans owe a huge medical debt to horseshoe crabs. Now there’s an opportunity to pay it back.
Distillations articles reveal science’s powerful influence on our lives, past and present.
The Murky Ethics of Wastewater Surveillance
By monitoring sewage, scientists can track disease outbreaks in near real time. But will the technology leave long-term privacy risks in its wake?
Fighting through the Fear
Lessons from the Polio Pioneers in an era of misinformation.
Diagnosing the Dead
Can scrutinizing the ailments of historical figures really teach us anything?
Georg Bredig: Scientist, Humanist, and Holocaust Survivor
Restoring the legacy of a physical chemistry pioneer.
Does Louis Pasteur Still Matter?
Or will the scientist’s 200th birthday be his last hurrah?
Magnesium, from the Sea to the Stars
Dow’s gamble on magnesium helped push the boundaries of human exploration and launched an ocean of consumer products.
American Fevers, American Plagues
How yellow fever outbreaks in the early United States anticipated much of what we lament about the COVID-19 era.
The Tragedy of the World’s First Seed Bank
Soviet geneticist Nikolai Vavilov led an ideologically perilous campaign to rid the world of famine.
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.
William Dampier, Revered and Reviled
The pirate-turned-naturalist-turned-pirate-again inspired generations of British writers and scientists.
Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell?
Biologist John Calhoun’s rodent experiments gripped a society consumed by fears of overpopulation.
Greenbacks, Chits, and Scrip
Alternative currencies flourish in desperate times and situations.
Speaking to the Future
Nuclear waste remains dangerous for millennia, so how do we keep people in the distant future away from it?
The Simple Usefulness of the Secchi Disk
A centuries-old sailor’s hack enters the ecologist’s toolkit.
The Toll of the Road
Calculating the automobile’s grisly impact on wildlife.
John Snow Hunts the Blue Death
In showing that cholera spreads through tainted water, an English doctor helped lay epidemiology’s foundations.
Stuck Inside
Space toilets and the lessons of living in closed environments.
River Gods, Lake Monsters, and the Abiding Power of Myth
How ancient (and not so ancient) cultures thought about water purity and contamination.