Search Results
A recent discovery in a remote Puerto Rican cave sheds new light on the hysteria that greeted Halley’s Comet a century ago.
Lice can tell us a lot about who we are and where we came from.
How does a museum and library negotiate biography, civics, and the history of science?
Crushing, an ancient technique for transforming materials, remains central to our lives today.
Nazism was a society-wide catastrophe, so why did so many people in technical fields in Germany embrace it?
Guided tours of the Othmer Library of Chemical History begin June 18.
The Science History Institute and the Society of Chemical Industry America will present the 22nd annual Innovation Day on September 8, 2025.
The Australian nature writer solved the orchid pollination mystery that puzzled Darwin.
Audubon and the Bird of Washington.
This outdoor exhibition explores the battle between butter and oleomargarine in the late 19th century.
By building connections between disciplines, the British-born astronomer transformed 20th-century understanding of stellar chemistry.
Our latest rare book exhibition sheds light on the personalities and projects of scientific biographers.
Join us for an exciting day of revolutionary science and the history of fireworks!
Diaspora in twenty-one openings.
The Japanese Mexican botanist made extensive collections of Central and South American plants, aroids and cacti in particular.
A breakthrough proved that people with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome; it also led to a battle with a would-be saint that raises questions about how scientists determine who gets credit.
In pursuit of the perfect fruit.
Opening April 2026, this exhibition celebrates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Learn about Rebel Ventures, a group of student entrepreneurs based in West Philly who create healthy food for school kids.
How did the simple act of counting human chromosomes become a saga that destroyed a friendship and started a battle over the cause of Down syndrome?
How to read a book when the pages are out of order.
Comets were long seen as portents of doom, but the spectrograph changed all of that. So why did everyone panic when Halley’s Comet returned in 1910?
A conversation on the weapon salve, a sensational cure.
An Institute fellow sheds light on an enigmatic trio.
Hesse changed medicine and the life sciences when she introduced agar, a jelly derived from seaweed, into laboratory research.
In early modern Europe, collecting was a way to press order on a world made increasingly strange.
The Soviet physical chemist discovered that a film of lubricant weakens the surfaces of materials, especially metals and rocks. This was an early example of the influence of mechanochemical effects.
The story of the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA.
A biography of the fictional Elisabeth Bakker highlights the experiences of middle-class women in the history of early chemistry.
Paul Berg, controversy, and the engineering of life.