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Distillations is the Science History Institute’s critically acclaimed flagship podcast. We take deep dives into stories that range from the serious to the eccentric, all to help listeners better understand the surprising science that is all around us. Hear about everything from the crisis in Alzheimer’s research to New England’s 19th-century vampire panic in compelling, sometimes-funny, documentary-style audio stories.
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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, P…
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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. T…
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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 h…
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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 ther…
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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 w…
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Check out our new season, dropping weekly on Tuesdays, starting June 4th.
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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 …
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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…
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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 d…
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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 Se…
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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 Ho…
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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 stud…
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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, res…
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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 …
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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 wr…
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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 I…
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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 ci…
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