Distillations magazine

Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past

Inventions & Discoveries

The tools and technology that help us understand and change the world

Inventions & Discoveries

Let There Be Light

The story of electricity, danger, nationalism, advertising, and pollution in the lighting of the United States.

Inventions & Discoveries

A Cloudy Past

Before today’s cell-phone, laptop, and TV screens, there was a whiskey advertisement.

Inventions & Discoveries

Hard-Headed Man

When William Aspdin stumbled on the secret to modern concrete, it was the first and one of the few fortuitous steps in an unsteady life.

Inventions & Discoveries

Life and Death

A tour through the history of radioisotopes, used to study and treat disease and to unlock the secrets of DNA and photosynthesis.

Inventions & Discoveries

The Strange, Gruesome Search for Substance X

John Hughes worked his way through uncounted pig brains to find the human body’s natural painkiller.

Inventions & Discoveries

Ancient DNA

Studying ancient DNA (aDNA) is a lot like playing Whac-A-Mole: stamp out one problem and another will pop up and take its place.

Fiberglas was invented by accident at Corning Glass in the early 1930s. Fiberglas and its competitors helped insulate 1950s homes, with their open floor plans.
Inventions & Discoveries

In the Pink

Winter’s coming, so wrap up and discover the history of home insulation.

Nikola Tesla sitting under a machine shooting lightening
Inventions & Discoveries

The Electrical Wizard

Nikola Tesla’s career epitomizes the scientist as showman.

Inventions & Discoveries

The DDT Collector

In the 1980s Phil Allegretti found an unusual hobby. His collection of old DDT cans, sprayers, and diffusers tells the story of our contradictory approach to pesticides.

Eugene Pfizenmayer (left) excavating a mammoth carcass on the banks of the Berezovka River in Siberia, ca. 1901. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution)
Inventions & Discoveries

Mammoth Undertaking

Can scientists bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction? And should they?

Inventions & Discoveries

Tiny Productions

Sometimes scientific discovery requires an unusual tool.

Color illustrations of a donut-shaped space colony
Inventions & Discoveries

A Future without Limits

For decades serious people have tried to turn the stuff of science fiction—space colonies, self-replicating machines, and solar sails—into scientific reality.

Harvard Cyclotron
Inventions & Discoveries

Accelerating Oncology

How a machine used to create atom bombs became a tool for healing.

Inventions & Discoveries

Harold C. Urey: Science, Religion, and Cold War Chemistry

What most frightened the Nobel Prize–winning chemist and explorer of Earth’s deep past?

Inventions & Discoveries

Whales in Space

Whale oil has been used in soap, explosives, and even margarine. Has it also fueled space exploration?

Inventions & Discoveries

Peak Phosphorus?

What does a world short on phosphorous look like?

Inventions & Discoveries

Processed: Food Science and the Modern Meal

The early 20th century was an especially rich time for creating ways to process and preserve food.

Illustrated depiction of 19th century lab
Inventions & Discoveries

Where’s the Beef?

Mix a 19th-century chemist with a South American roader builder. Add cows and boil.