Distillations magazine

Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past

Distillations articles reveal science’s powerful influence on our lives, past and present.

Inventions & Discoveries

Reginald Fessenden and the Invention of Sonar

How a radio pioneer transformed life at sea.

Health & Medicine

The Nurse Who Introduced Gloves to the Operating Room

Caroline Hampton and the forgotten origins of the first personal protective equipment.

Health & Medicine

The Story of Serum Therapy

How a 19th-century invention could save lives today.

large crowd outside in city
Environment

Philadelphia Earth Week, Fifty Years On

The successes and shortcomings of the first Earth Day in 1970 still reverberate.

People & Politics

The Dual Legacies of Henry Moseley

After transforming the periodic table should the promising young scientist have been allowed to fight in World War I?

Health & Medicine

Who Needs a Mammogram?

In the fight against breast cancer, entrenched interests and outmoded ideas may be hurting patients.

Health & Medicine

Medicinal Leeches and Where to Find Them

The rise, fall, and resurrection of the humble leech.

Health & Medicine

Old Drug Ketamine Offers New Hope for Chronic Pain Sufferers

Will stigma and cost undermine the therapy’s promise?

Engraved portrait of man
Early Science & Alchemy

Paracelsus, the Alchemist Who Wed Medicine to Magic

Historian Bruce Moran reveals the life of an itinerant doctor whose work influenced modern science.

Inventions & Discoveries

The Rise and Fall of Polywater

What happens when an earth-shattering discovery runs up against the scientifically impossible?

Color anatomical drawing of a mosquito
Health & Medicine

Our Oldest, Deadliest Foe

Tracing the immense misery wreaked by the mosquito.

Early Science & Alchemy

The Anatomy Riot of 1788

When New York’s poor revolted against the city’s grave-robbing medical establishment.

Color map of Soviet- and Western-controlled countries
People & Politics

Spying in Plain Sight: Scientific Diplomacy during the Cold War

The covert politics behind American efforts to establish scientific freedom around the world.

Color photograph of a mushroom cloud
Inventions & Discoveries

Element Hunting in a Nuclear Storm

A fighter pilot’s tragic flight into a nuclear explosion leads to the discovery of two elements.

People & Politics

Choosing a Better High-Tech Future

Rare earth elements make modern devices faster, brighter, and lighter, but it will take the creaky gears of government to make their production cleaner and more equitable.

Inventions & Discoveries

How RCA Fell Flat on Flat-Screen TVs

In the 1960s RCA created the world’s first liquid-crystal displays. How did the company fail to cash in on one of the modern world’s most ubiquitous technologies?

Health & Medicine

Searching for Schizophrenia

In the late 1960s an international contingent of psychiatrists took up a monumental task: making schizophrenia mean the same thing to doctors around the world.

Health & Medicine

Smallpox and the Long Road to Eradication

It’s one thing to make a scientific discovery, but making it count is another thing entirely.