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.
The Parasites in Our Past
Lice can tell us a lot about who we are and where we came from.
Harry versus the Volcano
Foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking eccentric Harry R. Truman became a folk hero for refusing to evacuate his home in the months before Mount St. Helens erupted. Where did he go once it did?
Baking Up a Storm
When crime and politics influenced American baking habits.
Exhuming the Flu
Remembering the Spanish flu 100 years later.
Nor Any Drop to Drink
Drought drove American pursuit of desalination in the mid-20th century. Now a changing climate has compelled nations around the world to embrace the double-eged technology.
Saving Old Movies
Old films are fragile, flammable, and frequently lost.
Through the Lens of Disability
What possibilities might we be ignoring when we unquestioningly privilege sight as the primary pathway to knowledge about the natural world?
Snakes and Letters
An ancient work on toxicology gets a 16th-century makeover from a master of fonts.
The Folly of the Martian Back-Up Plan
Why resources spent building a colony on the red planet would be a waste of money.
Probing the Mysteries of Human Digestion
The strange, sometimes sickening things we’ve done to understand what goes on inside our guts.
Opioids’ Devastating Return
The latest painkiller revival has left a trail of bodies, with no end in sight.
Water Fit for a King
Eleanor Roosevelt thanks a chemical engineering firm in Philadelphia for manufacturing water for the king and queen of England on their visit to America.
Gone to the Dogs
A long-running genetics project in Siberia helps us understand how we made man’s best friend.
Constructing Life
A historian of science goes searching for meaning in synthetic life.
If You Smell Something, Say Something
City dwellers of the 19th century were dogged by a foul terror: miasma.
Styrofoam, a Practical and Problematic Creation
The good and bad of an everlasting invention.
Old Brew, New Brew
Fermentation is the key to many of the lifesaving drugs we have today.
Sweating Blood
A misunderstanding of hippo physiology gave rise to one of the most widespread and pointless practices in medical history.