Scientific Discovery
Surrealist painting of artist drawing planet on canvas

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

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WikiSalon attendees on laptops

Report an Error on Wikipedia
Visit
The Alchymist (1775), an engraving

Hennig Brandt and the Discovery of Phosphorus

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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
Jesse Gelsinger, 18, in an undated family photo

The Why: The Philadelphia Tragedy that Changed Gene Therapy
Media Coverage
Illustration of periodic table

LiveScience: How Many Chemical Elements Can You Name?
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

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Chad A. Mirkin to Receive Society of Chemical Industry’s 2019 Perkin Medal
Press Release
Science history photo collage

Love, Hate, and Sex from the History of Science

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The Parasites in Our Past

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WikiSalon attendees on laptops

WikiSalon

Event
Jennifer Doudna presents 2018 Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture

Jennifer Doudna Delivers 2018 Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture at the Science History Institute
Press Release
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

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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

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Helitrim trimming potentiometers on the moon

The Folly of the Martian Back-Up Plan

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Probing the Mysteries of Human Digestion

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A portrait of Charles Darwin by Thomas Johnson

Book Club: Simultaneous Discovery and Darwin’s Ghosts

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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?

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Portrait of alchemist in his lab

Interview: Curator Elisabeth Berry Drago

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Woman and penguins in Antarctica

Whatever Happened to the Ozone Hole?

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A Study In Scarlet

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Serious Fun

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Second Chances

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From Barbers and Butchers to Modern Surgeons

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Laser inventor Gordon Gould playing chess 1940

The Man, the Myth, the Laser

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An Interview with the Field Museum’s Emily Graslie

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

Air Born

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Fizzy Water

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The Art of Memory

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

A Giant of Astronomy

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Start Talking Science participants

From STEM to STEAM: An Interview with Marion Leary

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Concrete Solutions

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Data from Disaster

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The Birds, the Bees, and the Froggies

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A group of Amish people standing in a field

High-Tech and Amish

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The Age of Scurvy

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

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Fist and flask graphic

Political Science

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A Tear Gas Tale

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AIDS

Going Viral

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History Lab
Visit

A Forgotten Star

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Saturday Speaker Series
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Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot.

Things Fall Apart

Museum
WikiSalon

WikiSalon
Visit

Guided Tours
Visit
Nitrous oxide party

High Times

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Illustration of a Pasteur-Chamberland filter

The Filter of Life

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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

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

Waning Interest

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

Future Calculations

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Roger Eardley-Pryor

People

Oral History Collections
Collections
pH Meter Illustration

Virtual Chemistry
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Vaccinating for polio in South Sudan, 2014.

Political Ills

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Medusa Nebula

Elements of Invention

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Roald Hoffmann, after receiving the 2006 AIC Gold Medal.

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

Joseph Klett

People
Visitors view adoptable books on Acquisitions Night

Benjamin Gross

People
New York

Let There Be Light

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Pig

The Strange, Gruesome Search for Substance X

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A photographic print toned with uranium, made around 1900.

New Transmutations

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

Humphry Davy
Historical Profile
Stephanie Kwolek at a polarizing microscope.

Stephanie L. Kwolek
Historical Profile
Justus von Liebig.

Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler
Historical Profile
Portrait of Edward G. Acheson, early 20th century. Williams Haynes Portrait Collection, the Institute Collections.

Edward Goodrich Acheson
Historical Profile
Ray W. Fuller.

Ray W. Fuller, David T. Wong, and Bryan B. Molloy
Historical Profile
Gordon Moore at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in 2005.

Gordon E. Moore
Historical Profile
Carl F. and Gerty T. Cori in their lab at Washington University.

Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Theresa Cori
Historical Profile
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (left) and Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen.

Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff
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
Amedeo Avogadro. Edgar Fahs Smith Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

Amedeo Avogadro
Historical Profile
Emil Fischer.

Emil Fischer
Historical Profile
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev as a young man.

Julius Lothar Meyer and Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev
Historical Profile
Percy Julian.

Percy Lavon Julian
Historical Profile
The Shannon Portrait of the Hon. Robert Boyle F. R. S., by Johann Kerseboom, 1689. Science History Institute/Will Brown

Robert Boyle
Historical Profile
Irène Joliot-Curie.

Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot
Historical Profile
Hermann Staudinger.

Hermann Staudinger
Historical Profile
Paul Ehrlich.

Paul Ehrlich
Historical Profile
Gilbert Newton Lewis.

Gilbert Newton Lewis
Historical Profile
George Washington Carver, Tuskegee Institute, 1906.

George Washington Carver
Historical Profile
Portrait of Berzelius. Edgar Fahs Smith Collection, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

Jöns Jakob Berzelius
Historical Profile
Elizabeth Hazen (left) and Rachel Brown, 1955. Smithsonian Institution Archives, image # SIA2008-3566

Elizabeth Lee Hazen and Rachel Fuller Brown
Historical Profile
Ernest Rutherford in academic garb.

Ernest Rutherford
Historical Profile
Gerhard Domagk.

Gerhard Domagk
Historical Profile
Robert S. Langer.

Robert S. Langer
Historical Profile
John Dalton, F.R.S., engraved by William Henry Worthington after an 1814 painting by William Allen, published June 25, 1823, in Manchester and London. Note the charts with Dalton’s atomic symbols lying on the table.

John Dalton
Historical Profile