Distillations magazine

Better photosynthesis, bomb-sniffing spinach, and that’s just the start of the ways plants are inspiring scientific innovation.

Distillations talks to the biochemist about the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9, the tool’s promise, and dangers of its misuse.

How did a Philadelphia chemist wind up a Soviet spy?

For centuries women have been looking at the stars despite earthly obstacles.

Before Bill Nye the Science Guy, there was Professor Harvey E. White of Continental Classroom.

Why emphasizing intellectual achievement and scientific “genius” harms scientists with intellectual disabilities—and the rest of us.

The silent movie Where Are My Children? is more than a century old, but its central question—who “deserves” access to reproductive rights—still resonates today.

Around the world a network of detectives searches for evidence of illicit nuclear activity. Is it enough to keep us safe from a nuclear catastrophe?

Lice can tell us a lot about who we are and where we came from.

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?

When crime and politics influenced American baking habits.

Remembering the Spanish flu 100 years later.

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.

Old films are fragile, flammable, and frequently lost.

What possibilities might we be ignoring when we unquestioningly privilege sight as the primary pathway to knowledge about the natural world?

An ancient work on toxicology gets a 16th-century makeover from a master of fonts.

Why resources spent building a colony on the red planet would be a waste of money.

The strange, sometimes sickening things we’ve done to understand what goes on inside our guts.