Series: Synthesis

In the fall of 1980, Genentech, Inc., a little-known California genetic engineering company, became the overnight darling of Wall Street, raising over $38 million in its initial public stock offering. Lacking marketed products or substantial profit, the firm nonetheless saw its share price escalate from $35 to $89 in the first few minutes of trading, marking the largest gain in...

Today's science tells us that our bodies are filled with molecular machinery that orchestrates all sorts of life processes. When we think, microscopic "channels" open and close in our brain cell membranes; when we run, tiny "motors" spin in our muscle cell membranes; and when we see, light operates "molecular switches" in our eyes and nerves. A molecular-mechanical vision of...

A 400-year history of the development of alchemy in England that brings to light the evolution of the practice. In medieval and early modern Europe, the practice of alchemy promised extraordinary physical transformations. Who would not be amazed to see base metals turned into silver and gold, hard iron into soft water, and deadly poison into elixirs that could heal...

A surprising look at how modern capitalism changed sugar from a natural food to a scientific commodity. Sugar is everywhere in the western diet, blamed for epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and other modern maladies. Our addiction to sweetness has a long and unsavoury history. Over the past five hundred years, sugar has shaped empires, made fortunes for a few, and...

How an early modern surgeon and his accessible writings changed medical expertise and the communication of medical knowledge. Between 1497 and 1512, Hieronymus Brunschwig (ca. 1450–ca. 1530), an obscure craftsman from Strasbourg, wrote books on surgery and pharmacy that transformed medical expertise, how it was codified in print, and how it was communicated to new audiences. Brunschwig was an unlikely...

Shows how the widespread use of food dyes influenced understanding of food, science, and technology, as well as trust in science. We live in a world saturated by chemicals—our food, our clothes, and even our bodies play host to hundreds of synthetic chemicals that did not exist before the nineteenth century. By the 1900s, a wave of bright coal tar...

The first book-length history of gems in early modern science offers a thought-provoking new take on the Scientific Revolution. In Gems and the New Science, Michael Bycroft argues that gems were connected to major developments in the "new science" between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. As he explains, precious and semi-precious stones were at the centre of dramatic shifts in...

For centuries, historians have speculated about the life of Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh. Dominant depictions show her either as a maternal figure to her younger brother Robert Boyle, one of the most significant scientists of his day, or as a patroness of the European correspondence network now known as the Hartlib circle—but neither portrait captures the depth of her intellect...

How an early modern surgeon and his accessible writings changed medical expertise and the communication of medical knowledge. Between 1497 and 1512, Hieronymus Brunschwig (ca. 1450–ca. 1530), an obscure craftsman from Strasbourg, wrote books on surgery and pharmacy that transformed medical expertise, how it was codified in print, and how it was communicated to new audiences. Brunschwig was an unlikely...