Breakthroughs | Science History Institute

Breakthroughs

Color illustration, hand in clouds holding silver ingot with wings

Magnesium, from the Sea to the Stars

Distillations Article

Beckman Oligo 1000M DNA Synthesizer

Institute, Tsinghua University Partner to Present Online Exhibition

News

Chemist James Mack

Mechanochemistry

Distillations Podcast

illustration of a screwworm fly dumping eggs on a wound

The Screwiest—and Perhaps Most Original—Idea of the 20th Century

Distillations Podcast

Emory University’s Dennis Liotta to Receive 2022 SCI Perkin Medal

Press Release

Ivory barnacles

The Unsung Heroes of Darwin’s Evolution

Distillations Podcast

Ad for colored stockings 1955

Ex Libris Universum: Museum Tour

Media Coverage

A portrait of Niccolo Paganini on his deathbed.

Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by Our Genetic Code

Distillations Podcast

Illustration of tapping serum from a horse in a pharmacy

Institute’s Digital Exhibition on Vaccines Gets Boost from Google Arts & Culture

Press Release

Chemistry International: Downstream

Media Coverage

Science History Institute Announces Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold Will Present 2022 Ullyot Lecture

Press Release

Engraving of the alchemical universe 1618

Atlas Obscura: How Scholars Cracked a Medieval Alchemist’s Secret Code

Media Coverage

Mario Molina, left, and F. Sherwood Rowland at the University of California, Irvine, January 1975.

HISTORY This Week: The Sky Is Falling

Media Coverage

Alchemical emblem

The Conversation: Deciphering the Philosophers’ Stone

Media Coverage

Drawing of factory with photo of human eyes superimposed

How Two Outsider Scientists Saw Inside Climate Change

Distillations Article

ExxonMobil’s Carla Pereira to Receive 18th Annual SCI Gordon E. Moore Medal

Press Release

Photo of Stephane Bancel

Interview with Stéphane Bancel

Distillations Podcast

Doctors perform ancient neurosurgery

When a Hole in the Head Is a Good Thing

Distillations Podcast

Ida Noddack banner

Chemistry World: Ida Noddack and the Trouble with Element 43

Media Coverage

Drawing of an anopheles mosquito

When Mosquitoes Cured Insanity

Distillations Podcast

Close up photo of contraceptive pill

Why Don’t We Have a Male Birth Control Pill Yet?

Distillations Podcast

Physician inoculates boy with smallpox vaccine aboard ship

Orphan Vaccines

Distillations Podcast

$Robert W. Gore demonstrating the expansion of ePTFE, ca. 1982.$

Science History Institute Mourns Loss of Bob Gore

Press Release

Painting of shipwreck in rough seas

Reginald Fessenden and the Invention of Sonar

Distillations Article

Former Gilead CEO John C. Martin holds bottle of Truvada

Interview with John C. Martin

Distillations Podcast

Photograph of an operation in a surgical amphitheater

The Nurse Who Introduced Gloves to the Operating Room

Distillations Article

child on table surrounded by a group of men and women

The Story of Serum Therapy

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Woman in laboratory at Hercules Hopewell plant

Women in Science

Learn

Woodcut of well-dressed crowd and cow strapped to table

Smallpox and the Long Road to Eradication

Distillations Article

Advertisement for Bendix MA-3 Gas Chromatograph system

Distilled #9: Lovely Ladies Sell Instruments

Distillations Video

Dutch tea advertisement

Ronald Fisher, a Bad Cup of Tea, and the Birth of Modern Statistics

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Jesse Gelsinger photo illustration

The Death of Jesse Gelsinger, 20 Years Later

Distillations Article

Drawing of outer space and planets from an advertisement from the Hercules Powder Company

Book Club: A Universe of Dark Matter

Distillations Article

Jennifer Doudna at the 2018 Ullyot lecture

Interview: Jennifer Doudna

Distillations Article

Closeup of a penicillin fermentation jug

Distilled #8: Penicillin Jug

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Vaccinating for polio in South Sudan, 2014.

Political Ills

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Wichterle created the first wearable soft contact lens at his kitchen table on Christmas Eve 1961 using toys borrowed from his son, a hot plate, and a motor from a gramophone.

Politically Unreliable: The State v. Otto Wichterle

Distillations Article