Distillations | Science History Institute
Distillations is the Science History Institute's critically acclaimed flagship podcast. It takes deep dives into stories that range from the serious to the eccentric, helping listeners better understand the surprising science that is all around us. Episodes cover topics from the crisis in Alzheimer's research to New England's 19th-century vampire panic in compelling, sometimes-funny, documentary-style audio stories.
Episodes
The History of Clinical Trials: From Fake Exorcisms to Testing Today
Alexis Pedrick joins Sam Jones and Deboki Chakravarti to bring you an episode from Tiny Matters, an award-winning podcast from the American Chemical Society produced by Multitude. The episode, which originally aired in February 2026, explores the surprising origins and evolution of one of modern medicine's most important tools: the clinical trial. Tiny Matters follows the development of experime
Agnes Pockels and the Kitchen Sink Myth
This episode is a co-production with Lost Women of Science. Agnes Pockels did pioneering work in surface science. Her invention, the Pockels Trough, became the basis for an instrument that helped Katherine Burr Blodgett and Irving Langmuir make discoveries in material science that quietly shape our everyday world. But the way we talk about Agnes's life and work often falls back on familiar tr
Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment
Alexis Pedrick joins Katie Hafner to bring you an episode from The Lost Women of Science Initiative, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to telling the forgotten or untold stories of remarkable female scientists and their groundbreaking work through history. The episode, which originally aired in October 2023, is about Flemmie Kittrell, the first Black woman to earn a PhD in Home Ec
The CRISPR Babies
In 2018 news broke that a Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had used CRISPR to edit human embryos, and twin girls had been born as a result. The story set off an explosive bioethical controversy. As gene editing expert Kiran Musunuru put it, "He Jiankui's genetic misadventures were the biggest medical story of the century so far." Both scientists and the public had a lot of questions. What was the u
Humans and Monsters: An Interview with Surekha Davies
The fears about genetic engineering were stoked when experiments took off in the 1970s. From lab leaks to disease epidemics to the ability to make "Frankenstein creations," many of those fears are still with us today. We talk to author Surekha Davies about her latest book, why she thinks of monsters as category breakers and why blurring boundaries can be so terrifying for us, but maybe doesn't hav
IVF: An Interview with Robin Marantz
Our producer Rigoberto Hernandez spoke with Robin Marantz, the author of Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution. She tells us about the history of IVF, from the first known artificial insemination by donor produced in Philadelphia in the 19th century to the scientific race in the 1960s and 1970s that resulted in the first so-called "test-tube baby." Cred
Gene Therapy's Families
When Rebekah and Evan Lockard's daughter, Naomi, was diagnosed with a devastating ultra-rare genetic disease, they didn't know where to turn. Then they found Terry Pirovolakis, an IT professional who had made a gene therapy for his son with the same disease. But the process of getting Naomi treated has been an uphill battle, full of financial and logistical obstacles. The Lockard's story flips the
Gene Therapy's Dark Ages
Gene therapy is based on a simple-sounding, yet deceptively complicated premise: adding or replacing faulty genes to fix medical problems. A compelling idea that came out of breakthroughs in DNA research, the field grew lightning fast. But the death of teenager Jesse Gelsinger after a gene therapy clinical trial left the public and scientists questioning the field's promise. Why did researchers p
'The Andromeda Strain': An Interview with Luis Campos
Producer Mariel Carr talks to historian of science and former Science History Institute fellow, Luis Campos, about his article "Strains of Andromeda: The Cosmic Potential Hazards of Genetic Engineering." He shares how Michael Crichton's first novel and the subsequent film influenced the conversation and controversy around recombinant DNA research in the 1970s. Credits Host: Alexis Pedrick Executiv
The People vs. Recombinant DNA
In 1976, Harvard University wanted to build a specialized lab for recombinant DNA research. But first, it had to get permission from the city of Cambridge. The resulting city council hearings drew TV stations and captured the attention of the whole country. At the center of the controversy? A wise-talking mayor, a young outspoken molecular biologist, and an important question: in scientific resear
Science, Interrupted: Part 2
Genetic engineering breakthroughs in the late 1960s and early 1970s came with a lot of promise—and peril too. Fears about what could happen with recombinant DNA experiments put scientists in the middle of a moral dilemma. Did they have a responsibility to consider how others might use their work? Or was their place simply to be on the lab bench? In this two-part episode, we'll share the story abo
Science, Interrupted: Part 1
Genetic engineering breakthroughs in the late 1960s and early 1970s came with a lot of promise—and peril too. Fears about what could happen with recombinant DNA experiments put scientists in the middle of a moral dilemma. Did they have a responsibility to consider how others might use their work? Or was their place simply to be on the lab bench? In this two-part episode, we'll share the story abo
New Season Trailer! Coming August 5th.
Check out our new season, dropping weekly on Tuesdays, starting August 5th.
The History of the School Lunch
Feeding kids a healthy lunch every school day is a feat of science and logistics. Molded into shape by nutrition scientists who wanted to optimize children's health, the school lunch has endured war, economic depression, and even a global pandemic. Some might say it's all the stronger for it. So how did all these crises shape school lunch? And is there any room to give our rectangle pizzas and fro
ALS Patients Take on the FDA
ALS is a fatal neurological disease that kills motor neurons. Even though it was first described more than 150 years ago, there is no cure, and the few drugs available only dampen the symptoms or slow the progression by a few months. In recent years new drugs have emerged. However, there is one problem: the life expectancy is just two to five years after diagnosis. This timeline is incompatible wi
The Fraud that Transformed Psychiatry
In 1973 a bombshell study appeared in the premier scientific journal Science. It was called "On Being Sane in Insane Places." Its author, a Stanford psychology professor named David Rosenhan, claimed that by faking their way into psychiatric hospitals, he and eight other pseudo-patients had proven that psychiatrists were unable to diagnose mental illness accurately. Psychiatrists panicked, and,
Cancer Virus Hunters: An Interview with Gregory J. Morgan
For more than 100 years, biologists who suggested that some cancers may be caused by viruses were the pariahs of genetics. However, they persevered and incrementally built their knowledge, leading to the discovery of retroviruses, the development of a test to diagnose HIV, and the creation of the HPV vaccine. Join us as we interview Gregory J. Morgan about his book Cancer Virus Hunters: A History
The Ames Test
In 1973 biochemist Bruce Ames created a simple test that showed if chemicals had the potential to cause cancer. The Ames test made him a hero of the emerging environmental movement. But then he completely changed course and said concerns about chemicals were overblown. So what happened? Did Ames change? Or did our understanding of what causes cancer change? Featured Oral History Bruce N. Ames, "B
Is Ozempic Different?
Ozempic and others in this family of drugs are nothing short of miraculous. Meant to treat Type 2 Diabetes, the drug exploded in popularity after researchers found that patients were reporting losing 15-21% of their body weight in clinical trials. There were some side effects, but none so severe that it raised concerns. Doctors began prescribing it to people who weren't diabetic but could benefit
Traffication: An Interview with Paul Donald
The impact of cars on wildlife extends beyond roadkill, affecting species that never venture near roads. Car noise disrupts bird communication and behavior, and tire and brake dust from pollutes waterways with microplastics. In this wide-ranging interview, we talk to the author of Traffication: How Cars Destroy Nature and What We Can Do About It, Paul Donald about how he coined the term "trafficat
Dyes, Drugs, and Psychosis
In 1856, Henry Perkin's attempt to synthesize quinine led to something very different: a vibrant purple dye. Perkin's mauve revolutionized the fashion industry when Queen Victoria wore a dress of the color to her daughter's wedding. And in an ironic twist, synthetic fabric dyes ultimately led to synthetic drugs, including the first antipsychotic. This drug, known by its trade name Thorazine, was a
Pink: An Interview with Dominique Grisard
The color pink has long been in vogue, and when Barbie hit theaters in 2023, its appeal only increased. But its popularity dates back much further than the Mattel doll. In this bonus episode, Dr. Dominique Grisard, a gender studies professor at the University of Basel, discusses the hue and its ties to femininity, class, and Whiteness, as well as how pink has been used to subdue men in detention c
Can Color Heal Us?
For centuries people have been drawn to the potential healing powers of colored light. From a civil war general to a Thomas Edison wannabe, people have touted it as a medical miracle. Despite claims to the contrary, though, colored light won't regrow limbs or heal burns. And yet, we are still drawn to the idea that somehow it can fix us. Today there are actual medical studies investigating the hea
The Word for Blue
In his epic poem, The Odyssey, Homer mentions the colors black, white, red, and yellow. But despite numerous mentions of the brilliant Greek sea and sky, the word blue never makes an appearance. This omission set off a debate between perception and language that would repeat itself over and over again throughout history: was there something wrong with the ancient Greek's eyes? If they didn't name
New Season Trailer! Coming June 4th
Check out our new season, dropping weekly on Tuesdays, starting June 4th.
Exploring 'Health Equity Tourism'
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a new public interest in health inequities research. With this new focus, there also has come new funding with many researchers and institutions clamoring to receive lucrative funding and recognition in the field, but there are no official guidelines to distinguish a health equity expert. In this episode we sit dow
The Mothers of Gynecology
Of all wealthy countries, the United States is the most dangerous place to have a baby. Our maternal mortality rate is abysmal, and over the past five years it's only gotten worse. And there are huge racial disparities: Black women are three times more likely to die than white women. Despite some claims to the contrary, the problem isn't race, it's racism. In this episode we trace the origins of t
Correcting Race
Certain medical instruments have built-in methods of correcting for race. They're based on the premise that Black bodies are inherently different from White bodies. The tool that measures kidney function, for example, underestimates how severe some Black patients' kidney disease is, and prevents them from getting transplants. Medical students and doctors have been trying to do away with race corre
"That Rotten Spot"
When the plague broke out in San Francisco in 1900 the public health department poured all of their energy into stopping its spread in Chinatown, as if Chinatown were the problem. This episode reveals why they did it, what it has to do with race science, and what it tells us about the history of public health. Credits Host: Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Her
Black Pills
In 2005 the FDA approved a pill to treat high blood preassure only in African Americans. This so-called miracle drug was named BiDil, and it became the first race-specific drug in the United States. It might sound like a good a good thing, but it had the unintended consequence of perpetuating the myth that race is a biological construct. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Se
Bad Blood, Bad Science
The word "Tuskegee" has come to symbolize the Black community's mistrust of the medical establishment. It has become American lore. However, most people don't know what actually happened in Macon County, Alabama, from 1932 to 1972. This episode unravels the myths of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Syphilis Study (the correct name of the study) through conversations with descendants and hist
The African Burial Ground
In 1991, as crews broke ground on a new federal office building in lower Manhattan, they discovered human skeletons. It soon became clear that it was the oldest and largest African cemetery in the country. The federal government was ready to keep building, but people from all over the African diaspora were moved to treat this site with dignity, respect, and scientific excellence. When bioarchaeolo
Return, Rebury, Repatriate
In 2019, Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, a community organizer and journalist, learned that the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology had a collection of skulls that belonged to enslaved people. As Muhammad demanded that the university return these skulls, they discovered that claiming ownership over bodies of marginalized people is not just a relic of the past—it continues to this day. Credits Host:
The Vampire Project
In the 1990s a liberal population geneticist launched the Human Genome Diversity Project. The goal was to sequence the genomes of "isolated" and "disappearing" indigenous groups throughout the world. The project did not go as planned—indigenous groups protested it, and scientists and anthropologists criticized it. This episode examines what went wrong and asks the question: can anti-racist scienti
Keepers of the Flame
In the 1970s Barry Mehler started tracking race scientists and he noticed something funny: they all had the same funding source. One wealthy man was using his incredible resources to prop up any scientist he could find who would validate his white supremacist ideology—and make it seem like it was backed by a legitimate scientific consensus. About Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race "Keep
Calamity in Philadelphia
In 1793 a yellow fever epidemic almost destroyed Philadelphia. The young city was saved by two Black preachers, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, who organized the free Black community in providing essential services and nursing the sick and dying. Allen and Jones were assured of two things: that stepping up would help them gain full equality and citizenship, and that they were immune to the diseas
BONUS EPISODE: Cheddar Man
In 2018 ancient DNA researchers revealed their analysis of a 10,000 year old skeleton called Cheddar Man. He was the oldest complete skeleton ever discovered in England, and the revelation that he had dark skin challenged assumptions many people had about what the earliest people in Britain looked like.
Origin Stories
It might seem as though the way we think about race now is how we've always thought about it—but it isn't. Race was born out of the Enlightenment in Europe, along with the invention of modern western science. And it was tied to the politics of the age—imperialism and later slavery. This episode traces the origins of race science to the Enlightenment, examines how the Bible influenced racial theori
New Season Trailer! Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race
Our new season, Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race, drops on February 7th.
Mechanochemistry
What comes to mind when you think of a chemistry lab? Maybe it's smoke billowing out of glassware, or colorful test tubes, or vats of toxic substances. Chemistry and hazardous solvents just seem to go hand in hand. But chemists like James Mack think there's a greener way: It's called mechanochemistry, a kind of chemistry that uses physical force to grind materials instead of solvents. And it's get
Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by Our Genetic Code
The Disappearing Spoon, a podcast collaboration between the Science History Institute and New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean, returns for its third season on March 8, 2022. To celebrate, our producer, Padmini Parthasarathy, sat down with Kean to talk about his book The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code. This interview is a gre
The Sinister Angel Singers of Rome
In this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean talks about Alessandro Moreschi, the so-called Angel of Rome. His voice earned him fame and money. So what's the secret behind the voice? What was his trick? It turns out that his trick can also make you taller and prevent baldness. The only catch: it requires castration. Credits Host: Sam Kean Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Her
Disappearing Spoon: The Murderous Origins of the American Medical Association
In this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean talks about the strange origin story of the American Medical Association. The creation of this powerful medical society can be traced back to a duel between two doctors at Transylvania University in Kentucky. Credits Host: Sam Kean Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer
The Big 'What If' of Cancer
In this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean talks about Hermann Muller, a geneticist who in the 1920s discovered that radiation causes genetic mutations. This discovery happened around the same time that other geneticists were starting to link cancer with genetic mutations. Had both of these parties communicated they would have gotten a 50-year head start in cancer research. So why didn't
Disappearing Spoon: The Harvard Medical School Janitor Who Solved a Murder
On this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean talks about a murder mystery that rocked Boston in 1849. Harvard University alum and physician George Parkman had gone missing. The last place he was seen alive was at the Harvard medical building, which had plenty of bodies, but police couldn't find Parkman's there. That is until a janitor intervened and implicated a medical school professor. Th
Disappearing Spoon: Burn After Watching
In this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean breaks down the history of nitrocellulose. This thick, transparent liquid was the world's first plastic and could be shaped into anything, including billiard balls and photography film. With nitrocellulose film, you could run reels of pictures together quickly, which gave birth to the first movies. The only fatal flaw with this plastic is that it
History's First Car Crash Victim
In this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean talks about Mary Ward, a budding naturalist and astronomer from Ireland. She spent a lot of time observing plants and animals through a microscope and published a book of detailed sketches that dazzled readers and colleagues in the 1800s. However, her career was cut short by a strange curiosity of that time period: the automobile. They weren't th
Real Life Zombies
In this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean talks about memory fugues, a psychological disorder that wipes out biographical information from people's brains. It is estimated that roughly 1 in 100,000 people seeking help for mental disorders have them. This disorder happens worldwide and it usually afflicts people in their 20s. Scientists have only recently started to piece together what is
How Climate Change Will Remake the Human Body
On this episode of The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean delves deep into the science behind the evolution of animal and human bodies. Like animals, human bodies have also evolved to adhere to the demands of ever-changing climates. This raises a question: how will human bodies respond to climate change? Credits Host: Sam Kean Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jo
The 'Mary Poppins' Cancer
In this episode of Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean discusses the horrors of a particular genetic disease that was, literally, sweeping through London in the 1700s. In 1666, the Great Fire of London consumed about 13,000 homes and caused the modern equivalent about $1.3 billion in damage. After the Great Fire, London officials made chimneys mandatory in all homes and buildings. All these new chimneys
Disappearing Spoon: Kangaroo (and Pig and Monkey and Dog and Donkey) Courts
Animal trials have always been part of society, but we are not talking about the ones with lab mice. In medieval times dozens of animals were tried in human courts for committing human crimes. It sounds silly, but the practice raises an uncomfortable question that we are still grappling with today: if we hold animals accountable in court, doesn't that mean that they deserve some sort of legal prot
Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science
The Disappearing Spoon, a podcast collaboration between the Science History Institute and New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean, returns for its second season on October 5, 2021. To celebrate, our producer, Rigoberto Hernandez, sat down with Kean to talk about his new book The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science. This
What Causes Alzheimer's?
The human brain is mysterious and complicated. So much so, one might be tempted to argue that it only makes sense that we still don't have a cure for Alzheimer's disease, despite decades of research. But this isn't the whole story. We've partnered with Vox's Unexplainable science podcast to talk about how Alzheimer's researchers have been stubbornly pursuing a single theory for decades. The Amyloi
What the All Souls Trilogy Teaches Us about Alchemy, Family, and Knowledge Hierarchy
Ever since the book A Discovery of Witches debuted in 2011, the All Souls franchise has taken on a life of its own with devoted fans all over the world. The TV show and annual All Souls Con—which the Science History Institute occasionally hosts—is based on the trilogy of books about witches, vampires, and demons by author Deborah Harkness. Distillations sat down with Jen Daine and Cait Parnell, t
Chasing Immortality
Since humans have been living we've also been dying—best case scenario: after eight or nine decades and plenty of good times. But we're not wholly content with that. Never have been, probably never will be. In fact, working on how not to die is one of the most human things about us. It's occupied the minds of everyone from ancient Chinese emperors and medieval European alchemists to now, Silicon V
Interview with Jeremiah McCall
Jeremiah McCall is a history teacher at Cincinnati Country Day School and the author of Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary School. He talked to Distillations about what it's like to use video games in his history classes, the criteria he uses in choosing games, and why he likes his students to question the media they are consuming. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Ber
Learning History with Video Games
The pandemic made gamers out of many Americans, including our producer, Rigoberto Hernandez. He played a lot of historical video games and it got him thinking: can you learn history from video games even though they are obviously fiction? Throughout history there have been many moral panics about people consuming historical fiction and taking what they read and watch as fact, so how do video games
Ladies Talking to Ladies about Ladies (in Science)
Anna Reeser is a historian of technology and Laila McNeil is a historian of science. Together they co-founded and are editors-in-chief of Lady Science, an independent magazine about women, gender, history, and popular culture of science. Now the duo has a new book titled Forces of Nature: The Women Who Changed Science. They talked to us about moving beyond biographies, how women who had knowledge
Paradise Is Burning
For decades, the official fire policy of the Forest Service was to put out all fires as soon as they appeared. That might seem logical, but there is such a thing as a good fire, the kind that helps stabilize ecosystems and promotes biodiversity. Native American communities understood this and regularly practiced light burning. So why did the Forest Service ignore this in favor of unabated fire sup
Interview with Colin Dickey
Ghost hunters on television all seem to have a common goal: to prove that ghosts are real using sophisticated, yet inexact technology. Colin Dickey, the author of Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, says this is not an accident. The relationship between technology and ghosthunters is as old as the telegraph. But Dickey is not interested in proving they are real; he is fascinated with
Ghost Hunting in the 19th Century
The 19th century was a time of rapid technological leaps: the telegraph, the steam boat, the radio were invented during this century. But this era was also the peak of spiritualism: the belief that ghosts and spirits were real and could be communicated with after death. Seances were all the rage. People tried to talk to their dead loved ones using Ouija boards and automatic writing. Although it mi
Vampire Panic
In the 19th century a mysterious illness afflicted rural New England. Often called the Great White Plague for how pale it made its victims, it was also called "consumption" because of the way it literally consumed people from the inside out, gradually making them weaker, paler, and more lifeless until they were gone. Today we know it as tuberculosis, an infectious bacterial disease that attacks th
We're Back! Distillations Summer Season Preview
This summer leave reality behind and join Distillations for an entire season about fantasy! We're talking vampires! Ghosts! Witches! And we promise, it all has to do with the history of science. Season launches on June 29.
Interview with Stéphane Bancel
Last year Distillations talked to people who have special insight into the coronavirus crisis—biomedical researchers, physicians, public health experts, and historians. In this episode we talk to Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, a biotech company that developed one of the three emergency-approved COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. The Moderna vaccine is unique in that it uses a new technology
The Disappearing Spoon: The Anatomy Riots
In the 1700s human dissection was a big taboo—people feared that it would leave their bodies mangled on Judgment Day, when God would raise the dead. As a result, government officials banned most dissections. This led to some unintended consequences, most notably a shortage of bodies for anatomists to dissect. To meet the heightened demand, a new profession emerged: grave-robbers. These so-called r
When a Hole in the Head is a Good Thing
Credits Host: Sam Kean Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Music: "Trois Gnossiennes 3," "Stately Shadows," "Darklit Carpet," "Vernouillet," and "Tossed" by Blue Dot Sessions. "Conjunto Sol del Peru," by Pockra (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos). "Conjunto Sol del Peru," by Wuaylias Tusy (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos). "Conjunto S
The Disappearing Spoon: When Mosquitoes Cured Insanity
How an early 20th century doctor pitted one scourge (malaria) against another (syphilis). Credits Host: Sam Kean Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer Music: "Delamine" by Blue Dot Sessions. All other music composed by Jonathan Pfeffer.
The Death of the Lord God Bird
The ivory-billed woodpecker is sometimes called the Lord God bird, a nickname it earned because that's what people cried out the first time they ever saw one: "Lord God, what a bird." Even though the last confirmed sighting was in the 1930s, birders have been claiming they have seen the Lord God bird throughout the years, turning it into a myth. The sad part is it didn't need to be this way. And i
Disappearing spoon: Chewing it Over—and Over and Over and Over
If Ted Talks were around in the early 1990s, Horace Fletcher would have given his fair share of them. Fletcher was a health reformer who thought people didn't chew their food nearly enough. He believed that most swallowed food way too quickly. This had all sorts of detrimental health consequences, he said, including nasty bowel movements. So he over-chewed his food. He once chewed a green onion
The Disappearing Spoon: What's the Longest Word in the English Language?
Shakespeare had a go at at the longest word in the English language with "honorific-abilitude-in-i-tat-i-bus." If you play the game of stacking suffixes and prefixes together, you can get "antidisestablishmentarianism," one letter longer for a total of 28 letters. But the longest word by far appeared in 1964 in Chemical Abstracts, a dictionary-like reference for chemists. The word describes a prot
The Disappearing Spoon: Why Don't We Have a Male Birth Control Pill Yet?
The debut of the female birth control pill in 1960 was revolutionary. The combination of progesterone and estrogen allowed women to control their reproductive lives much more easily and effectively. But the pill had many unpleasant and even dangerous side effects. In fact, some doctors argue that it wouldn't win government approval today. So why haven't scientists tried to create a birth control p
The Disappearing Spoon: Crowdfunding Radium
From the Disappearing Spoon, our new podcast! Radium was once the trendiest element in the world. It glowed alluringly in the dark and was hailed it as a medical panacea. It was also the basis of Marie Curie's research—for which she won her second Nobel Prize in 1911. But by 1920 radium was scarce and its cost was eye-popping: one hundred thousand dollars per gram. When Curie's research ground to
The Disappearing Spoon: Parking lot or Peking lot?
From our new podcast, the Disappearing Spoon: The so-called "Peking Man" fossils are some of the first ancient human remains discovered in mainland Asia. So when they disappeared during World War II, it was called one of the worst disasters in the history of archaeology. Now some archeologists claim to have tracked them down. The only problem is they're underneath a parking lot. Credits Host: Sam
The Disappearing Spoon: Orphan Vaccines
The Science History Institute has launched a second podcast! We've teamed up with New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean to bring you even more stories from our scientific past. Don't worry, Distillations podcast isn't going anywhere; we're still producing the in-depth narrative-style episodes you know and love! We've just doubled your history of science listening pleasure. For the next 10 we
Tales of Love and Madness from the Periodic Table
Did you know that Gandhi hated iodine? Or that Silicon Valley was almost called Germanium Valley? Our producer Rigoberto Hernandez talked about these stories and more with Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon, a book about the stories behind the periodic table. The New York Times best-selling author and regular Distillations magazine contributor described how Dmitri Mendeleev's publisher acc
Predicting the Pandemic: An interview with Wendy Zukerman, Host of "Science Vs." Podcast
Distillations is hard at work on our next season. It's not quite ready, but we have a treat for you in the meantime. We interviewed Wendy Zukerman, the host and executive producer of one of our favorite podcasts, Science Vs. In normal times the show pits facts against fads—they talk about everything from detox diets to the supposed benefits of Cannabidiol, or CBD. Since early 2020, however, they'v
COVID's Hidden Toll on Nurses
As the pandemic began raging again this fall we talked with nurse Linda Ruggiero about what it's like to be on the front lines for a second wave. She talks about how treatment has changed, what we still don't know about the disease, and how every nurse she knows is suffering from PTSD. Host: Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Music by Blue Dot Session
Between Us and Catastrophe
We've collaborated with Philadelphia photographer Kyle Cassidy to tell the stories of our city's essential workers. This fall his large-scale portraits of nurses, sanitation workers, Instacart shoppers, mask-makers, and delivery drivers will be on display on the exterior of the Science History Institute, in Old City Philadelphia. Find out more at sciencehistory.org/pandemic. Hosts: Alexis Pedrick
Space Junk
Outer space is crowded. Satellites, pieces of rocket, and stuff that astronauts left behind, such as cameras and poop, are just floating around. This space junk can pose a threat to our communication systems. In this episode we talk with Lisa Ruth Rand, a fellow at the Science History Institute, about her upcoming book on space junk. She tells us how space weather—that's right, there's space weath
Who Owns Outer Space?
Outer space belongs to everyone and no one, at least that's what the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 says. On its face, this seems like an uncontroversial statement. But in the 1970s a group of equatorial countries challenged this idea. Only the richest and most powerful countries can afford to reach outer space in the first place, they argued, so in principle these nations controlled it. The protestin
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