Scientific Discovery

Science History Institute and Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie Announce Winners of 2020 Franklin-Lavoisier Prize
Press Release
Cuyahoga River Fire

Vox: 18 Fascinating Nonfiction Podcasts
Media Coverage

Philadelphia Magazine: Explore Philly from Your Couch with These Virtual Tours of Local Attractions
Media Coverage
Color photograph of a mushroom cloud

Element Hunting in a Nuclear Storm

Distillations Article
Science and Disability exhibition

DHA Blog: ExhibitLab at the Science History Institute
Media Coverage
Surrealist painting of artist drawing planet on canvas

How the First American Science Writer Found (Then Lost) God in the Cosmic Ray

Distillations Article
The Alchymist (1775), an engraving

Hennig Brandt and the Discovery of Phosphorus

Distillations Article
Periodic table with cellphones depicting US and China flags

Green Tech Media: A Strategic Approach to Rare Earth Elements as Global Trade Tensions Flare
Media Coverage
Suburban house with electric car in driveway

Mashable: Do Something Good for Earth Day
Media Coverage
Polio vaccine dropped on to sugar lump for child patient.

Book Club: The Story of the Polio Vaccine

Distillations Article
Science history photo collage

Love, Hate, and Sex from the History of Science

Distillations Podcast

The Parasites in Our Past

Distillations Article
Lab mouse in red Harvard sweater/bowtie

The Mouse That Changed Science

Distillations Podcast
Image of microscope from Robert Hooke's "Micrographia : or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses," 1665.

Through the Lens of Disability

Distillations Article
Photo illustration of poppy flowers and opioid addict

Treating America’s Opioid Addiction

Distillations Podcast
Photo illustration of poppy flowers and prison-hospital for addicts

Treating America’s Opioid Addiction

Distillations Podcast
Helitrim trimming potentiometers on the moon

The Folly of the Martian Back-Up Plan

Distillations Article

Probing the Mysteries of Human Digestion

Distillations Article
A portrait of Charles Darwin by Thomas Johnson

Book Club: Simultaneous Discovery and Darwin’s Ghosts

Distillations Article
Woman irritated by smog in LA in the 1950s

Fighting Smog in Los Angeles

Distillations Podcast
Man walking in forest of fall leaves

Whatever Happened to Acid Rain?

Distillations Podcast
Portrait of alchemist in his lab

Interview: Curator Elisabeth Berry Drago

Distillations Article
Woman and penguins in Antarctica

Whatever Happened to the Ozone Hole?

Distillations Podcast

A Study In Scarlet

Distillations Article
Photo of automaton hand drawing a picture on paper

Serious Fun

Distillations Article

Second Chances

Distillations Article
Painting of a operation in a historical surgery theater

From Barbers and Butchers to Modern Surgeons

Distillations Article
Laser inventor Gordon Gould playing chess 1940

The Man, the Myth, the Laser

Distillations Podcast

An Interview with the Field Museum’s Emily Graslie

Distillations Article

Anticipating the Future: Historical Narratives, Imagination, and Innovation
Visit
Reno

Air Born

Distillations Article

Fizzy Water

Distillations Video

The Art of Memory

Distillations Article
An 1822 star map by Alexander Jamieson shows the constellation Telescopium Herschelii, depicted here, ironically, as a refracting telescope.

A Giant of Astronomy

Distillations Article
Start Talking Science participants

From STEM to STEAM: An Interview with Marion Leary

Distillations Article

Concrete Solutions

Distillations Article

Data from Disaster

Distillations Article

The Birds, the Bees, and the Froggies

Distillations Article
A group of Amish people standing in a field

High-Tech and Amish

Distillations Podcast

The Age of Scurvy

Distillations Article

How Drinking Beer Is in Our DNA: An Interview with Jessica Zinskie

Distillations Article
Fist and flask graphic

Political Science

Distillations Podcast

A Tear Gas Tale

Distillations Article
AIDS

Going Viral

Distillations Article

History Lab
Visit

A Forgotten Star

Distillations Article

VIrtual Speaker Series
Visit
Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot.

Things Fall Apart

Museum

Guided Tours
Visit
Nitrous oxide party

High Times

Distillations Article
Illustration of a Pasteur-Chamberland filter

The Filter of Life

Distillations Article

Second Skin: The Science of Stretch
Museum
TOMS and SBUV on display at the Institute. Photo by Gregory Tobias.

TOMS and SBUV
Research
Electron Capture Detector, 1958. The Institute Collections. Courtesy of James E. Lovelock.

James Lovelock's Electron Capture Detector
Research

Learn
Learn

Instruments
Research
Waters: Glaciers and Bucks by Diane Burko.

Art
Research
Tho-Radia ad

The Secrets of Life

Distillations Article
Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. (NASA)

Waning Interest

Distillations Article
P.S. Krøyer's The Iron Foundry, Burmeister and Wain

Future Calculations

Distillations Article

Roger Eardley-Pryor

People

Oral History Collections
Collections
pH Meter Illustration

Virtual Chemistry
Learn
Vaccinating for polio in South Sudan, 2014.

Political Ills

Distillations Article
Medusa Nebula

Elements of Invention

Distillations Article
Roald Hoffmann

Roald Hoffmann
Historical Profile
Oral History bound books

Oral History Collections
Collections

Modern Books and Journals
Collections

Rare Books
Collections
Babes of Science logo

Babes of Science, a Guest Episode

Distillations Podcast
Visitors view adoptable books on Acquisitions Night

Benjamin Gross

People
Pig

The Strange, Gruesome Search for Substance X

Distillations Article
A photographic print toned with uranium, made around 1900.

New Transmutations

Distillations Article
New York

Let There Be Light

Distillations Article
Charles Drew in the lab at Howard University, 1942.

Charles Richard Drew
Historical Profile
Mario Molina, left, and F. Sherwood Rowland at the University of California, Irvine, January 1975.

Mario Molina
Historical Profile
Louis Pasteur in his laboratory, holding a jar containing the spinal cord of a rabbit infected with rabies, which he used to develop a vaccine against the disease.

Louis Pasteur
Historical Profile
Portrait of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, early 20th century. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood Studios, New York, NY. Williams Haynes Portrait Collection, the Institute Collections.

Leo Hendrik Baekeland
Historical Profile
Irène Joliot-Curie.

Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot
Historical Profile
Carl Djerassi.

Carl Djerassi
Historical Profile
An 1830 engraving of Sir Humphry Davy, by G. R. Newton, after a painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830).

Humphry Davy
Historical Profile
Russell Marker.

Russell Earl Marker
Historical Profile
Alexander Fleming, holding a petri dish.

Alexander Fleming
Historical Profile
James Collip as a graduate student, ca. 1914.J. B. Collip Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto

Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip, and John Macleod
Historical Profile
Elizabeth Hazen (left) and Rachel Brown, 1955. Smithsonian Institution Archives, image # SIA2008-3566

Elizabeth Lee Hazen and Rachel Fuller Brown
Historical Profile
Susan Solomon in her NOAA office in Boulder, Colorado, next to a globe showing Antarctica.

Susan Solomon
Historical Profile
Robert S. Langer.

Robert S. Langer
Historical Profile
Stanislao Cannizzaro. Edgar Fahs Smith Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

Stanislao Cannizzaro
Historical Profile
Lavoisier. Engraved by François Séraphin Delpech, after a drawing by Belliart, after the painting by Jacques Louis David.

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier
Historical Profile
George Rosenkranz.

George Rosenkranz
Historical Profile
Professor Gay-Lussac, F.R.S.: Membre de l'Institut, Professor at the University of Paris &c.

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
Historical Profile
Linus Pauling during an oral history interview conducted by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, now the Science History Institute, in 1987.

Linus Carl Pauling
Historical Profile
Percy Julian.

Percy Lavon Julian
Historical Profile
Irving Langmuir at home enjoying Harper’s Magazine. Science History Institute

Irving Langmuir and Katharine Burr Blodgett
Historical Profile
Richard Smalley with a model of a buckyball.

Richard E. Smalley, Robert F. Curl, and Harold W. Kroto
Historical Profile
Rosalind Franklin in Paris.

James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin
Historical Profile
Michael Faraday. Engraved by D. J. Pound from a photograph by Mayall.

Michael Faraday
Historical Profile
Gordon Moore at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in 2005.

Gordon E. Moore
Historical Profile
Ray W. Fuller.

Ray W. Fuller, David T. Wong, and Bryan B. Molloy
Historical Profile
Rosalyn Yalow. Science History Institute

Rosalyn Yalow and Solomon A. Berson
Historical Profile
Portrait of August Kekulé, commissioned by German dye companies for his 60th birthday.

August Kekulé and Archibald Scott Couper
Historical Profile
Robert Woodward, with his trademark cigarette, sitting at a desk with a statue of a Scotsman.

Robert Burns Woodward
Historical Profile