Month: October 2012

At Distillations, we love science writer Sam Kean. He was on our show in 2010 to talk about his book The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements. And we invited him back to talk about his new book: The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code. This time he reveals the quirky—and sometimes crazy—history of human understanding of our DNA.

In this episode of Distillations, a conversation with two experts on alchemy: CHF’s rare book curator James Voelkel, who created CHF’s new exhibit The Alchemical Quest, and his colleague and old friend Lawrence Principe, author of The Secrets of Alchemy. Principe recreates alchemical experiments to see what the alchemists saw – so cool!

Image: In Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Liber de arte Distillandi . . . (Strasbourg, 1512) two figures work with one of alchemy’s more grounded practices: distillation. From the Donald and Mildred Othmer Collection, CHF. Photo by Will Brown.

In this episode of Distillations we look at the history of smog. Today, of course, we recognize smog as the thick, toxic air pollution that often chokes the skies in places like Los Angeles and Beijing. So it’s hard to believe that smog was once looked at as a sign of progress—visual proof that the gears of industry were churning for a more prosperous future. First, we learn about a painting in CHF’s museum (shown here) commissioned to show the beauty of industrial smokestacks. Then Daniel Tkacik and Ellis Robinson travel to Donora, Pennsylvania, where, in 1948, a deadly smog descended for four days. The aftermath of that event helped kickstart the environmental regulations that ultimately lead to the Clean Air Act.

Arthur Henry Knighton’s Caustic Pot House Stacks, “A” Power Stack, “A” Pump Station, and “A” Evaporator Building. Image courtesy of the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation. On view in CHF’s museum.