Distillations | Science History Institute

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.

Chasing Shiny Things 10/13/2026

The Acid Queen: An Interview with Susannah Cahalan 10/06/2026

The Acid Queen: An Interview with Susannah Cahalan A conversation with the author of The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary. If you've ever read anything about the history of psychedelics, the name Timothy Leary will probably sound familiar. He was a Harvard psychologist who researched psychedelics within academia before getting fired in 1963 and taking his experiments underground. But you might never have heard of Timothy's wife, Rosemary Woodruff Leary. We talk with author Susannah Cahalan about her book on Rosemary and how she played a quiet but foundational role in our early understanding of LSD. We also talk about our history of pinning our hopes on a miracle chemical and why some people are skeptically embracing psychedelics today. Credits Host: Executive Producer: Senior Producer: Sound Design: Samia Bouzid Fact-Checking: Alexandra Atiya Music by . Corrections In this interview, the Timothy Leary Papers were described as consisting of 400 boxes. The collection actually includes 610 boxes, 11 oversized folders, 22 tubes, 67 audio files, and 1.78 Gigabytes of computer files. A full list can be found . In this interview, the Rosemary Woodruff Leary Papers were described as ancillary. Technically, the New York Public Library does not refer to the collection as “ancillary” or “secondary.” Rosemary’s collection has its own separate call number. More information can be found . In this interview, the Rosemary Woodruff Leary Papers were described as consisting of 25 boxes. The collection actually includes 24 boxes, 1 volume, and 11.75 mb of computer files. A full list can be found . In this interview, Rosemary’s mystical experience was described as taking place when she was seven years old. The incident actually took place in 1943 during the summer after her 8th birthday. In this interview, Martin McLuhan was described as having told Timothy Leary to sell the LSD experience like Coca-Cola. Martin actually told Leary to sell it like Pepsi. /episode/index/show/chemheritage/id/43192768

Jersey City’s Secret Water Experiment 09/28/2026

Cigarettes in America, Part 2: The Reckoning 09/22/2026

Cigarettes in America, Part 1: The Rise 09/15/2026

American Vice: New Season Coming September 15th 08/31/2026

The History of Clinical Trials: From Fake Exorcisms to Testing Today 06/30/2026

Agnes Pockels and the Kitchen Sink Myth 03/19/2026

Agnes Pockels and the Kitchen Sink Myth This episode is a co-production with . Agnes Pockels did pioneering work in surface science. Her invention, the Pockels Trough, became the basis for an instrument that helped 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 tropes about women’s domestic roles, assumptions about how science gets done, and what it looked like to do science as a woman in the 19th century. Agnes's story invites us to rethink how we define success for scientists. Is our definition too narrow? And what might we gain if we crack it open a bit wider? Credits Host: Executive Producer: Producer: Additional Reporting: Sophia Levin Art Design: Lily Whear Fact-Checking: Alexandria Attia Sound Design: Ana Tuirán Guests Brigitte Van Tiggelen is the Science History Institute’s director of international affairs, working from the Institute’s office in Paris. Trained as both a physicist and a historian, she is the coeditor of Women in Their Element: Selected Women’s Contributions to the Periodic System (2019), a volume that brings together more than two decades of research and publication of the life and work of women in science. Donald L. Opitz Donald L. Opitz is a historian of science who teaches in the School of Continuing and Professional Studies and Department of History at DePaul University. He is writing a book that traces the international movement for the advancement of women in agriculture and horticulture from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Petra Mishnik Petra Mischnick was a professor of food chemistry at Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. There she founded and ran the Agnes Pockels Student Lab to inspire young children, especially girls, to pursue science. Resource List Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory and Opitz, Don. “,” The Changing Image of the Sciences. 2002. Pockels, Agnes. "." Nature, 1892. Sella, Andrea. "." Chemistry World, 2015. Tiggelen, Brigitte Van. "Fräulein Agnes Pockels: The Shaping of a 'Forschende Hausfrau’,” paper presented at the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. Bergwik, Staffan; Opitz, Donald L.; Tiggelen, Brigitte Van. . 2016. A full transcript is available on our . /episode/index/show/chemheritage/id/40529760