Distillations magazine

How did the launch of Sputnik I in 1957 change the lives of two Americans?

Death Salon founder Megan Rosenbloom tells us what a good death means to her.

Can scientists bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction? And should they?

Pity butter’s poor relative, margarine, which has shifted from outlaw to savior to villain in the space of 100 years.

In Renaissance maps geography becomes an art form.

Katharine Burr Blodgett was the first female scientist hired by General Electric. Her work was truly invisible, deliberately so.

Sometimes scientific discovery requires an unusual tool.

The rise of synthetic color and the scientists and designers who tried to save society from itself.

Fancy some alchemical recipes from 15th-century Italy?

The man who wanted to make the United States a healthier place and the sometimes fuzzy line between science and quackery.

How hard can it be to make a gemstone? Plenty hard. People have been trying for almost 2,000 years, but success finally beckoned in 19th-century France.

For decades serious people have tried to turn the stuff of science fiction—space colonies, self-replicating machines, and solar sails—into scientific reality.

How a machine used to create atom bombs became a tool for healing.

A Confederate doctor had no problem breaking the Hippocratic oath.

Three atmospheric scientists describe carrying their work beyond the lab.

What most frightened the Nobel Prize–winning chemist and explorer of Earth’s deep past?

Whale oil has been used in soap, explosives, and even margarine. Has it also fueled space exploration?

What does a world short on phosphorous look like?