Distillations magazine
Controversy, Control, and Cosmetics in Early Modern Italy
In a society that damned women for both plainness and adornment, wearing makeup became a defiant act of survival.
Distillations articles reveal science’s powerful influence on our lives, past and present.
Imagining a Postcarbon Future
How do we think about a world that doesn’t yet exist?
The Frontiersman
In Silicon Valley’s renegade days, a hardheaded Texan chased dreams of a flying car.
The Filter of Life
A simple invention that saved lives and led to the discovery of a hidden form of life.
Synthetic Threads
Synthetic fibers not only changed the fashion industry; they changed how women lived their lives.
Death and Taxidermy
Step into the weird and wonderful world of stuffing animals.
Biting Back
The story of Louis Pasteur and the development of the rabies vaccine.
Information Overload
Data overload is nothing new. How have people in the past managed their versions of big data?
The Ancient Chemistry Inside Your Taco
Dive into the world of nixtamalization, and find out how you’re eating a small piece of ancient chemistry each time you bite into a taco.
The Secrets of Life
Resurrecting radium’s role in early genetics research.
Waning Interest
Two space-loving PR men consider the marketing of NASA’s Apollo program.
Future Calculations
Was Svante Arrhenius the first climate change believer?
Thinking Machines: The Search for Artificial Intelligence
Does history explain why today’s smart machines can seem so dumb?
Isaac Newton and the American Alchemist
A manuscript reveals the mark a mysterious American alchemist made on Isaac Newton and other early chemists.
Tough Stuff
Some of the most indestructible menswear ever made.
Political Ills
Smallpox, polio, and the political and scientific haggling behind two medical triumphs.
Speaking in Tongues
Science’s centuries-long hunt for a common language.
CSI: Gowanus—Cleaning up the Canal
Take a trip down Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal with cartographer and citizen scientist Eymund Diegel.
Where Have All the Trailers Gone?
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita displaced more than a million people in 2005, many of whom turned to trailers provided by FEMA. But it soon became apparent that these trailers were making people sick.