history of science

Political activist and Nobel winner Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin pioneered X-ray crystallography to discover the molecular structures of penicillin and insulin.

Public bathing, ubiquitous around the world and through the ages, plays an often-unappreciated role in public health.

The father-and-son duo Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka crafted thousands of scientifically accurate models of plants and sea creatures as teaching aids. 

The father-and-son duo, the last generations of a long line of renowned glassworkers, crafted thousands of realistic models of plants and sea creatures.

A puzzle for millennia, the movement of blood through the body was solved by an English physician in the 17th century, paving the way for modern medical technologies.

A Stone Age individual’s left leg healed after being amputated just above the foot, allowing them to survive for six to nine years after the procedure was performed, researchers say.

The newly authorized intradermal vaccination only requires one-fifth of the usual vaccine dose. This will help stretch out the limited vaccine supply, experts say, but only if healthcare personnel receive sufficient training.

Elaborate annotations hidden in a copy of Sir James Edward Smith’s The English Flora hinted at the life of a mysterious woman botanist.

Beyond The Scientist’s coverage of COVID-19’s molecular underpinnings were many other stories highlighting the advances made in scientists’ understanding of the biology of cells.

Intrigued by an optical illusion he experienced while traveling in Scotland, Robert Addams wrote what is now considered one of the definitive observational accounts of so-called motion aftereffects.

Every medical intervention—even one with a centuries-long history—brings dangers, some of which become clear only later.

Centuries of folklore backed by scientists in the early 1900s have perpetuated the idea that menstruating women can exert dangerous forces.

Soranus of Ephesus’s manual shaped the way midwifery was practiced for more than a millennium.

A contaminated ham put bacteriologist Émile Pierre-Marie van Ermengem on the path to discovering the microbe that produces botulinum toxin.

Ruth Ella Moore had a trailblazing career, overcoming barriers of racism and sexism as she pursued her interest in microbiology.

A controversial idea from the mid-20th century is attracting renewed attention from researchers developing theories for how cognition arises with or without a brain.

Trofim Lysenko’s attacks on geneticists had long-term effects on Russian science and scientists, despite a lack of evidence to support his beliefs about biological inheritance.

Historical and modern experiments have hinted that unicelluar organisms can learn from their experiences, but the idea still has its critics.

One hundred years after its invention, BCG has stood the test of time as a vaccine against tuberculosis.