history

Researchers continue to debate whether US President Abraham Lincoln was coming down with smallpox as he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, and if he had been immunized.

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

Analysis of DNA from remains found in an Indonesian cave provides new insight into human movements among the islands between East Asia and Australia.

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.

Researchers report chemical and molecular signatures of microbial activity from millions of years ago in mineral samples from abandoned mines in Sweden and nearby countries.

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

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.

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

The Scientist Social Club talked to the author and her dad, Chris Miller. 

A famous account of multiple personality disorder in the early 20th century foreshadowed a century of controversial diagnoses and debate among psychiatrists.

A forensic investigation of Seqenenre Taa II’s traumatic injuries suggests he died with his hands tied behind his back, perhaps the end result of fighting to liberate his kingdom.

Listen to a musicologist blow through the oldest known shell horn.

The Cardiff University researcher was famous both for his work on genetic disorders and for his documentation of the history of his field.

The “mother of plant virology and serology,” Helen Purdy Beale, developed techniques to understand the nature of viruses that went unappreciated for decades.

As a deadly smallpox outbreak ravaged Boston, one of the city’s leaders advocated for a preventive measure he’d learned about from Onesimus, an enslaved man.

Neuroscientist Rita Levi-Montalcini began her Nobel Prize–winning work in a makeshift laboratory in Italy during the Second World War.

Lore has always surrounded argonauts, pelagic octopuses that build shells and travel the seas.

Early investigations of the microbial communities in and around sunken boats reveal that there are patterns to where bacteria settle.