Harvard University Press Blog

Inside the Perfumed World of Bohemian Paris with Theresa Levitt

In her new book Elixir: A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life, Theresa Levitt tells the story of two scientific outcasts whose work rewrote the boundary between life and nonlife—and in so doing, takes us on a sensory journey through nineteenth-century Paris. Here, we asked Levitt a few questions about some of the unexpected things she discovered while writing this fascinating history.

 What first brought you to writing a book about the history and chemistry of perfume?

I had been interested for a while in the question of whether there is anything “special” about life. People often think that once you get the development of modern chemistry, everyone accepts that living and non-living things are made up of the same matter, and there is no difference between them. But I was seeing plenty of people in the nineteenth century who remained convinced there was a fundamental distinction (and who ultimately turned out to be right!). Two of my favorites were a grouchy, reclusive physicist named Jean-Baptiste Biot and a down-trodden, oft-ignored chemist named Auguste Laurent. One day, I noticed that both of them mentioned working with a certain perfumer, Edouard Laugier. I decided to try pulling on that thread to see who he was, and it revealed a whole world where aroma and essential oils were at the center of one of the liveliest scientific debates of the time.

I think when people hear the word “perfume,” they sometimes think of an esoteric, even frivolous, luxury product. But it was really part of one of humankind’s oldest endeavors: to capture and preserve the ephemeral qualities of plants. And its pursuit helped revise our understanding of life itself.

Could you describe what it was like to work in a Parisian distillery in the 18th/19th century?

Distilling was one of the most skilled and delicate operations of the time. For centuries, it had been part of the alchemists’ practice, with recipes written in secret code involving sometimes over a hundred ingredients. By the eighteenth century, it was taught in the apothecaries’ guild. Distillers and perfumers emerged as more specialized offshoots of the apothecaries, but their practices were largely the same. They would have a variety of different stills and alembics in the back room, suited to different purposes. In some they might try to capture the volatile essential oils of a plant directly. In others, they might pass brandy through again and again, adding different botanicals each time, or pausing for stages of maceration or infusion. Everything had to be exactly right—the timing, the sequence, the materials—for the product to turn out.

The distinction between natural and synthetic chemicals continues to be a scientific mystery. How can that be?

It does seem wild that there are big, fundamental questions that science is still trying to figure out. But this is one of them. Organic molecules can come in both right-handed and left-handed varieties, and when chemists make them in a lab, both kinds appear in equal numbers. Chemically speaking, they are identical to one another. But right-handed molecules can’t interact the same way with left-handed molecules. Since our bodies are made up of these asymmetric molecules, this has a huge impact on how food is digested, medicines affect the body, and even how things smell. It was quite a detective story to figure this out, especially coming at a time when chemists thought it was naïve to talk about atoms as physical objects that had a particular spatial arrangement.

This book is not just about perfume—it also tackles revolution, the vibrant culture of bohemian Paris, shifting trends in health and hygiene, scientific breakthroughs, and more. How did all these aspects of your research and writing come together?

The bigger story here is the invention of the modern world. It’s an intensely exciting time period, seeing the end of a social structure that had been in place for centuries and the foundations of an entirely new one. Science and technology were at the center of all this change, kicked off by the magic trick of being able to turn fossil fuels into usable energy. There was hope that this technological bounty could bring about a new era of liberty and equality, and that things that had been hoarded by the elites would be available to everyone. In particular demand were the resources for health and hygiene, which included perfume in this period. And perfume does have a front-seat to all these changes. It’s among the first products to be artificially synthesized from petroleum products—another exploitation of fossil fuels that profoundly shaped the modern world.

Elixir features a wide cast of characters, including Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, and Louis Pasteur. What surprising things did you uncover about some of these figures?

Well, they all relied on the restorative powers of perfume! There are letters from Pasteur’s father telling him to put drops of cologne in his hair to keep from getting headaches while he studied. And Napoleon went through nearly a bottle a day, crediting it with giving him superhuman energy. He would empty a bottle of cologne in the bath, and then spend hours there, reading letters and conducting business. Marie Antoinette, meanwhile, was so concerned with being surrounded by fine scents, that she used perfume not only on herself, but also on the sheep and cows she kept at her Petit Trianon retreat.

When we think about the Palace of Versailles and its opulence, we usually aren’t thinking about how it smelled as part of that. What was the role of perfume in the royal residence?

The scents of Versailles were as central to its function as its mirrors and gold paneling. Nearly everything in the palace was perfumed—the people, the wigs, the fabrics, the air itself—and every interaction was informed by the competing aromas. Much of this had to do with status, of course. Members of court could spend a good portion of their budget on signature perfumes. But I’m convinced there was a deeper impulse as well. I was shocked by just how much effort went into supplying the court with perfume. There was an entire industry devoted to growing fragrant plants in the south of France, concentrating them into small vials, and sending them to Versailles. This was motivated not just by vanity, but by an impulse to life itself. Medical theories of the time held that bad smells brought disease and promoted decay, while good ones were associated with growth and vitality. For the residents of Versailles, these little bottles thus held their best bet for preserving their life and youth.

Order your copy of Elixir »

International Women’s Day 2021: Women You Should Know About

In celebration of both International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we spoke to HUP’s Executive Editor for History, Kathleen McDermott, and Executive Editor for Science, Janice Audet, to learn more about some exceptional women who challenged the societal standards in their fields, from groundbreaking astronomers to a seventeenth-century African Queen.

Vera Rubin

When some people hear the name Vera Rubin, they might think of Rubin’s pioneering work on galaxy rotation rates, or her data that provided evidence for dark matter. For others, a new facility in Chile comes to mind, recently named the National Science Foundation Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the first large observatory in the world to be named after a woman. And for still others, Rubin’s legacy is for her support of other women in science. When writing Vera Rubin: A Life, Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton were the first people to have access to Rubin’s papers and correspondence, now preserved in the US Library of Congress. This gave them unique and in-depth insight into her character and her fascinating life as she dealt with discrimination and combined family life with an outstanding career.

Rubin’s fascination with the stars and the night sky began as a child and expanded as she studied the motion of the galaxies. An astute observer, her research provided evidence for the existence of galactic superclusters and corroborated theories about dark matter. Rubin surpassed society’s conventional ideas about women in astronomy and female scientists, especially those with children. Indeed, while breaking new ground as the first female astronomer at Palomar Observatory, Rubin and her husband, Bob, were also raising four children. When Rubin discovered there were no women’s restrooms at Palomar, she took action, establishing the first women’s restroom at the observatory and promptly kicking an outdated conception of who an astronomer could be out the door. As Rubin’s reputation and experience grew, she raised her voice for other women in science. She participated on committees and wrote reports sharing data about discrimination against women in science. She challenged colleagues to cease using sexist language and prioritize female representation and recognition whenever scientists were honored or invited to speak. Furthermore, she advocated to increase women’s representation in the leadership of astronomical associations and other scientific societies, championing equality within the most prestigious scientific organizations. From her early days as a girl who stayed up late to gaze out the window to her honor as a National Medal of Science recipient, Rubin was fueled by her love of the stars. For her contributions to research and to women in science, Vera Rubin continues to be an inspiration.

—Janice Audet

Henrietta Szold

Henrietta Szold is certainly a familiar name to members of Hadassah and to most Israelis, but she deserves even wider recognition as one of the most influential women in the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Baltimore in 1860, one of eight daughters of immigrant Jews from Hungary, Szold from a young age sought to alleviate the social ills she saw around her. As Dvora Hacohen shows in To Repair a Broken World, she aimed especially to better the lives of women and children.

As an intelligent, ambitious teenager, Szold desperately wanted to attend university, but Johns Hopkins University did not accept women and her parents could not afford to send her away to college. It was a bitter disappointment and her first significant encounter with the exclusion of women, although she would face similar discrimination throughout her life. At age seventeen, Szold began working as a teacher and became a weekly columnist for The Jewish Messenger. She established a night school in Baltimore for immigrants, raising funds, providing materials, and even teaching there herself. In her thirties, she worked as an editor at the prestigious Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia, where she translated works from German and French and edited the American Jewish Year Book. Yet her title remained “secretary.” At the age of 42, Szold moved to New York and became the first woman to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where a love affair with the scholar Louis Ginzberg ended in heartbreak. To her lifelong sorrow, she would never marry or have children.

In 1912, Szold founded Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. It led to the second major chapter of her life, which began in 1920 when at age 60 she traveled to Palestine, now under British mandate, to set up a healthcare system, dramatically reducing rates of disease and infant mortality. Under her leadership, hospitals and clinics established by Hadassah offered medical services to Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. The only woman elected to the Zionist executive, Szold served in the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency, overseeing its health and education departments and working tirelessly to improve the educational system and social welfare network. In 1933, in response to the growing threat to Jews in Europe, Szold founded Youth Aliyah, which would provide homes for 30,000 children, including orphaned survivors of the Holocaust.

Scholar, feminist, and activist, Henrietta Szold was a visionary leader whose devotion to helping others remains a source of inspiration to thousands.

—Kathleen McDermott

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

In early twentieth-century England there were few female scientists, let alone astronomers. Often the lone woman in her courses and the observatory, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin faced constant skepticism from her peers and a lack of recognition for her work. And still, clear-eyed and determined, she went on to pen what fellow astronomer Otto Struve would call “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy.” In it, she proposed a theory that was eventually proven true: Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin revealed the atomic composition of stars. Now, for any astronomer it was difficult to posit a revolutionary theory, but for a woman in science it was almost impossible. As Donovan Moore reveals in What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a notable male colleague dismissed her work, stating that her conclusions were wrong. But Payne-Gaposchkin was not deterred by her critics, and eventually, she was duly recognized for correctly theorizing what stars are made of.

This discovery was one of many illustrious firsts throughout the course of Payne-Gaposchkin’s life. She became the first woman to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College. She was the first woman to be promoted to full professor by Harvard and the first woman to head a department at Harvard. Throughout a lifetime of facing obstacles and closed doors, Payne-Gaposchkin rose to the challenge time and again, and through her commitment to science, she cut a path for others to follow.

—Janice Audet

Queen Njinga

Asked to name one of the most powerful ruling women of the early modern era, many people might point to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Few would likely name her near contemporary Queen Njinga, ruler of Ndongo, a large territory in central Africa. But they should. Born in 1582, descendant of a royal line reaching back to the founding of the kingdom of Ndongo, Njinga learned statecraft at her father’s court. After her brother assumed the throne, she served as his envoy to the Portuguese, who were conducting relentless wars of conquest in the region for land and slaves. Njinga proved more adept than her brother in both diplomacy and strategy. Upon his death, she became the real defender of Ndongo’s independence.

In Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen, Linda Heywood recounts the dramatic twists and turns in the life of this fascinating and complex woman. After a short reign as ruler of Ndongo, Njinga was forced into exile and lived in the bush, where she transformed herself into a fierce military leader who fought alongside her soldiers. She conquered the neighboring state of Matamba and established a court that was a powerhouse in the region. Njinga upended traditional gender norms, declaring herself “king” and keeping many young male consorts. She owned slaves and engaged in slave trading. She converted to Christianity and corresponded with the Vatican, even concocting a clever plan to have the pope recognize her as a Christian monarch and Matamba as a Christian state. Once, during peace negotiations with the Portuguese, she refused to sit before them on carpets, which signaled defeat. She instead ordered a slave on all fours to act as a chair, on whom she sat before the Europeans as an equal.

This astute and innovative leader, named one of UNESCO’s twenty-five most influential women in African history, became an icon of resistance and a folk hero throughout the African diaspora in the Atlantic. Daring warrior, master diplomat, and crafty politician, Queen Njinga was a force to be reckoned with. We should all know her story.

—Kathleen McDermott

We’ll be highlighting other books for Women’s History Month across our social media channels throughout March. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter, and be sure to follow our international office on Twitter, too.

Q&A with Jacqueline Mitton, coauthor of Vera Rubin: A Life

While astronomer Vera Rubin made significant contributions to our understanding of dark matter and championed the advancement of women in science, she is not that well known outside of the scientific community. HUP Executive Editor for Science, Janice Audet, spoke with Jacqueline Mitton, coauthor (with her husband) of  Vera Rubin: A Life, about Rubin’s remarkable life and work and the writing of the book.

Vera Rubin: A Life is the first official biography of Rubin, even though many astronomers are familiar with her scientific findings and as an advocate for women in science. Why do you feel her work and leadership should be known by more people outside of scientific circles? 

There aren’t many celebrities who achieve their fame through science. The number of women who do is tiny and Vera Rubin is one of them.

People who don’t know much about her might have a preconception that the life of a scientist can’t be very interesting to a general reader or have any relevance to the everyday lives of other women and men. After all, her name is usually spoken in the same breath as that totally baffling concept “dark matter.” But when she died in 2016, Rubin was described as “a national treasure” and no one gets that kind of accolade for being dull or ordinary.

Rubin persevered against the odds to achieve the dream of being an astronomer she’d cherished since her teens, while at the same time raising four children. How she managed it, with the support of her family, especially her husband Bob, is an inspiration to anyone. She was possessed of a certain stubbornness and capacity for hard work, and yet it was her warm personality, kindness, and willingness to give unstintingly of her time and support to others, especially aspiring female astronomers, that endeared her to all who knew her. And with persistent doggedness, she led the way in the battle to improve the status of women in astronomy. She was funny, literate, and passionate about trees, nature, and old astronomical globes.

To Rubin, almost everything she did was “fun.” Her sense of joy in her work was so palpable that one of her young sons once asked her if she had to pay to be allowed to do it. Her astronomer daughter, Judy, described her mother’s life as a “love story”: love of astronomy, love of learning, and love of family and friends. We agree, and that’s the story we set out to tell.

I greatly appreciate how clearly you explain astronomy for the reader, allowing even those readers without scientific background to understand Rubin’s findings. How did you balance the personal and scientific sides of Rubin’s story?

A biography is a special kind of book. You are writing not just about a person, but also about their world—what they did every day—as well as charting events in history. And the challenge is to weave all that together into an interesting read. With Rubin, it wasn’t difficult because she never compartmentalized her science and her personal life. They were always inseparably entwined into one colorful fabric. So we took the lead from her. It really wasn’t about balancing two aspects, but trying effectively to capture the whole person and what made her the remarkable woman she was.

Between us, Simon and I felt very well equipped to do that. We both have many years of experience bringing astronomy to a wide range of audiences. We’ve written popular books, worked with the media, taught outreach classes, and talked to community groups. And we’ve found that getting people interested in astronomy is nearly always like pushing on an open door because it is so fascinating, amazing—inspiring even. Many of the ideas and discoveries are not really difficult to understand when someone explains them properly. It’s all a question of putting yourself as a writer in the position of the readers, though, of course, we have had to make some assumptions about our readers’ knowledge. On the other aspect, writing about people and history, Simon brought considerable expertise to our joint project, having taken up a new career as a historian of astronomy since retiring as a publisher. He’s written a book-length biography of the cosmologist Fred Hoyle and has been researching and writing on the lives of other 20th century astronomers.

What aspects of your own lives inspired this book?

Although I did not go on to have a research career, I strongly identify with many of Rubin’s feelings and experiences, both positive and negative. Like Rubin, I became fascinated by the stars as a child and had formed the ambition of making astronomy my life by my mid-teens. Like her, I had a small backyard telescope and read as many astronomy books as I could get my hands on. For me it was always a “calling” rather than a job. I know from personal experience what it is like to pass a long night observing in a cold dome, to spend hours at a measuring machine poring over a spectrum on a glass plate. And I remember very well just how difficult it was to be a woman in the male-dominated world of physics and astronomy.

Like Vera, I met my future husband (and coauthor) when I was just 18—unsurprisingly, perhaps, at an Oxford University Astronomical Society meeting. Like Vera Rubin and her husband Bob, we have enjoyed a long marriage, which has also been a supportive partnership in which we share our mutual passion for astronomy, and—in our case—our equally strong commitment to reaching out to others so they can share our enthusiasm.

When I became the first woman President of the Oxford University Astronomical Society, my first move was to look for women speakers. There were so few women astronomers in the United Kingdom at that time it was a real challenge, but I succeeded in finding two. One of them, Carole Jordan, went on to be the first female President of the Royal Astronomical Society. I was a student at Somerville College at the time. That connection with the greatest woman scientist in 19th century Britain, Mary Somerville, later became one of my inspirations for doing all I could to make women astronomers and scientists more well known. How could I have resisted the opportunity to be the first biographer of Vera Rubin?

What do you hope readers take away from this book?

We hope our readers will feel they have come to know Vera Rubin as the remarkable scientist and human being she was. And we’d like them to remember what Rubin herself would often repeat: “There is no problem in science that can be solved by a man that can’t be solved by a woman,” and “half of all brains in the world are in women.”

We hope, too, that our readers may learn some science they didn’t know before and something about how the advancement of astronomy works, partly by diligent hard work and partly through serendipitous discovery. Above all, we hope readers will feel they have been entertained as well as informed, and maybe even persuaded that a life in science really can be—in Vera’s own word—“fun.”

Fall Reading List

Fall is the perfect time to settle in with a good book for our Executive Editor for Science, Janice Audet. Here she suggests some recent and forthcoming books she finds informative and fascinating.

The fall season shepherds in the beginning of a new school season, a time to begin or resume routines and learn new things. The fall season can also be a time to take stock, become introspective, and prepare for the indoor time ahead. For me it often means I tuck into a corner of the couch with a blanket, a cup of tea, and a book. Whatever the fall season means for you, we have a group of compelling science titles to meet your interest. These books guide us through the natural world, human behavior and the mind, and, if you just need a mental escape, an exploration of space. Open up one of these books and find a new connection with the world.

As the days grow shorter and the sunlight wanes, deciduous plants begin preparations for winter. As I’ve learned from Beronda Montgomery’s forthcoming book, Lessons from Plants, dropping leaves in autumn is a seasonal, energy-saving behavior. To prepare for winter days with less sunlight, plants reduce chlorophyll production for a quieter metabolic state. When the temperature drops and the amount of sunlight declines, the plant’s green pigments recede and other pigment colors emerge. The leaves transform into a fiery display of red and gold before drifting to the ground. The changing colors of the leaves is but one example of plants’ incredible ability to sense their environment. There is so much we can learn from plants on how to engage with our environments and adjust our behaviors accordingly. Just as plants thrive after a period of dormancy, we can also be more resilient if we take time to rest.

Without leaves and stems, humans are left to use our five senses to make sense of the world. One of the most crucial tools is as plain as the nose on our face: our sense of smell. But what does the nose tell the mind? How do we recognize certain scents? In other words, how does your mind know that you smell apple, not pumpkin, pie? If you pause and sniff, you’ll notice that everything around you has a smell. The room has the lingering scent of the last meal you ate, your sneakers have an aroma, and your clothes may smell like laundry detergent or something less pleasant! And to that point, why is smell often thought of as a highly subjective sensation, especially in comparison with vision? The same scent can cause a completely opposite reaction and opinion in two different people. In Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind, A. S. Barwich explores what the nose knows and asks us to reconsider our individual and collective ideas about the sense of smell. Consider, Barwich explains, that we don’t perceive smells in cognitive isolation. Our nose and our minds respond to contextual cues, as well as physiological and affective states. Would the aroma of garlic be as pleasing at 7 a.m. when you are drinking your coffee, as it would be at 6 p.m. when your stomach is rumbling with hunger for dinner? There is great complexity that underlies how people experience smells, and A. S. Barwich is an excellent guide for us to better understand our perceptions and consider our assumptions.

Our senses also play an important role in our detection of fear. Our ability to smell, see, and hear signs of danger has been carefully honed over time. It all began about 550 million years ago with the evolution of specialized nervous systems in worms. A cocktail of neurochemicals that selectively modulate and coordinate activity led to the worms taking control of responses to life threatening experiences. Whether it’s slithering away or balling up to hide, animals and humans have developed complex behaviors to survive. Dan Blumstein’s The Nature of Fear: Survival Lessons from the Wild shows us how we can learn how to better respond to fearful situations. For example, animal alarm calls offer early warnings about a predator—a cat is coming close. But if those calls become screams, the high-fidelity distortion escalates the warning. Screams may not necessarily be louder in volume, but they sound ‘noisier,’ with rapid amplitude and frequency fluctuations. This is the sound of fear. Through experimental research, Blumstein has found that such nonlinearities, like noise, tap into the human emotion of fear as well. Upon hearing this kind of sound, humans’ eyes widen rapidly and often the heartbeat increases. Horror films and haunted houses have used nonlinear, noisy sounds for years to frighten audiences, and in recent decades, political advertisements have also found them effective when attempting to discredit an opponent. Our biology heeds this noise and then signals the need to make a decision: fight or take flight.

Should we need to flee, we are fortunate that navigation skills are also deeply embedded in our biology. In prehistoric times we learned how to find our way over large distances, to the farthest regions of the planet, and this occurred through recognition of landmarks or from a memory associated with an experience. As Michael Bond writes in From Here to There, “the experience of a place can never be explained in coordinates or in terms of the firing patterns of your spatial neurons; you only really know where you are if you can tell a story about that place or remember how you found your way there.” While lately my navigation has been mostly limited to my local neighborhoods and bike trails, I’ve noticed how freeing it has been to leave the GPS or map apps behind. The spatial representations I carry in mind of these new neighborhoods and trails—the mental maps—are filled with turns in the road, houses with yellow exteriors, and soccer fields. I’ve found some comfort in Bond’s discussion: by navigating without technology’s assistance, I am bolstering my skills and cognitive health. As Bond states, “There is still a world out there to explore, and we need to find a way through it.”

But, if you’re feeling like you want to leave the world behind, I recommend a witty and compelling look at space travel, Christopher Wanjek’s Spacefarers. Most plans for space settlements look good in your imagination, on paper, or in an animated video. But what would it really take to live beyond Earth? On the Moon we would need to solve the problems of no breathable air, no atmospheric pressure, and no protective atmosphere, but it is relatively close to Earth and, as we’ve found, suitable for encampment. The red planet, Mars, is the most earthlike planet in the solar system and has the only other surface suitable for human settlement with our current technologies. But Mars also has no breathable air, little atmospheric pressure, and it would take anywhere from six to nine months to get there. Venus is nearly identical to Earth in air pressure and gravity if one stays above the Venusian clouds, but we may not want to subsist in balloon-lofted cities for the rest of our lives. How about Mercury then? There is unlimited solar energy which could provide for “green” living, but life would need to be subterranean since there are wild temperature fluctuations and a lack of breathable air or atmospheric pressure. Wanjek explores the moons of planets, orbital habitats or islands in the sky, searching among our solar system’s frontier for livable space. While settlements may be currently out of our reach, Wanjek gives us something to marvel at, aspire to, and dream about in the meantime.

Regardless of what this season means for you or where you are this fall, physically and mentally, I wish you rest, resilience, and travels into the far reaches of your mind. The universe is at our fingertips…and between the covers of a book.

New and Noteworthy Science Books for Our Times

Beginning this October 8th, the History of Science Society and the Society for the History of Technology will convene virtually for the first time. This annual meeting, appropriately enough, focuses on science within the context of history and society. In a similar spirit, we at Harvard University Press are highlighting five recent and forthcoming books that offer a valuable perspective on the history of science, but also the current moment. We are offering a discount on these and other books related to the conference.

History will remember 2020 as a year of war. A technoscientific battle against a previously unknown threat. A year when an invisible virus challenged the world. And despite the uniqueness of the current battlefield, it presents familiar uncertainties, rationalities, and emotions, inescapably similar to what Carl von Clausewitz termed the ‘fog of war.’ As M. Susan Lindee writes in Rational Fog: Science and Technology in Modern War, Clausewitz viewed wartime actions as both measurable and shadowy, cost-benefit calculations made during a twilight haze. Choices are often made with gaps in information, with the hope that the unknown consequences will skew favorably toward survival. The similarities to our struggle against COVID-19 are painfully clear. Lindee continues, “scientific ideas and technological innovations can help us understand cultures and systems of power.” Awareness of how science and technology has been applied to past military struggles provides invaluable insight into how it can, and should, be applied to our current fight. The choices leaders make on what to do with the power of human innovation and industry can lead to a future of lifesaving vaccinations just as easily as it has to historical violence.

The current pandemic highlights how arguments over science underlie most of our divisive and consequential policy debates, such as genetic modification, climate change, and immigration. Andrew Jewett’s Science under Fire: Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America recounts a century of battles over the cultural implications of science in the United States. He traces the history of the widespread indictment that science has been too often compromised by political ideology, with dire consequences for the country. By piecing together its development, varied expressions, and ultimate consequences, Jewett reveals how suspicion of science has been a major force in American politics and culture.

But, as we know, tension between politics and science is not unique to 20th-century America. As Henry Cowles states, “science as a way of thinking had a politics of its own.” The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey explores the intertwined politics and histories of evolution and experiment in an unexpected history of how modern science took shape. Evolution, once viewed as a natural adaptation, itself evolved into the scientific method and soon became a controversial symbol of science’s power over nature. Instead of being a kind of knowledge deduced from observations and principles, “the method” became a way of thinking.

The 19th century soon saw the rise of yet another kind of thinking: visual problem solving. The forthcoming (Spring 2021) A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication by Michael Friendly and Howard Wainer tells the story of the 400-year evolution of an intellectual framework that has become essential to both science and society at large. From its origins in statistical data during the 17th century to the 19th century “golden age” of data display, visual and graphic communication was used for everything from tracking disease outbreaks to understanding social phenomena. Across countless disciplines, people realized that information could be more effectively conveyed through visual display than solely through use of words or tables. This trend continues to accelerate into the 21st century and has become integral to how we understand, retain, and use information.

The increase in utilization of graphics and illustration have also contributed to the evolution of scientific research. In The Black Box of Biology: A History of the Molecular Revolution, Michel Morange writes, “Open a book on molecular biology or glance at an online article, and you will be struck by the quantity and quality of the graphical representations…the pages will teem with illustrations of macromolecules, intracellular pathways, and networks.” Morange further maintains that few areas of science that have seen such an incredible transformation in such a short span of time as molecular biology. From new advancements like CRISPR and genetic engineering to the development of new scientific programs such as synthetic biology and systems biology, the past few decades of biological progress can only be understood within the context of the larger molecular paradigm. As this paradigm fosters new disciplines, the fundamental importance of molecular biology only becomes more pronounced.

Remembering Hiroshima

On this day 75 years ago, the United States dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. James L. Nolan, Jr.’s grandfather was a doctor who participated in the Manhattan Project, and he writes about him in Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, an unflinching examination of the moral and professional dilemmas faced by physicians who took part in the project. Here is the introduction to Nolan’s book.

On the morning of June 17, 1945, Captain James F. Nolan, MD, boarded a plane in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In his briefcase was a highly sensitive report prepared by Nolan, along with other Manhattan Project physicians and two physicists, that expressed concerns about potential radioactive fallout from what would be the first nuclear bomb ever exploded. The plutonium bomb, or Gadget, as it was called, was scheduled for detonation in the Alamogordo bombing range of New Mexico in less than a month. Nolan and his colleagues hoped to persuade General Leslie Groves, military head of the Manhattan Project, to approve safety and evacuation procedures for the so-called Trinity test. After a flight delay, a missed connection, and a long train ride from Cincinnati to Knoxville, Nolan finally arrived at the Oak Ridge Site of the Manhattan District at six thirty the next morning. At Oak Ridge, about twenty-five miles outside Knoxville, Nolan eventually met with the large and imposing Groves, who was not at all pleased to receive the report.

Groves made Nolan sit outside his office while he read the document and discussed it with his aides. When he finished, Groves called Nolan in and addressed him dismissively: “What are you, some kind of Hearst propagandist?” The comment—with its reference to William Randolph Hearst, known for his sensationalist journalism—was indicative of Groves’s overriding concerns with security and secrecy. He feared that if the proposed plan were implemented, information about the top-secret Manhattan Project might leak out to people living near the Alamogordo bombing range. Such a response from Groves was not unexpected. In Nolan’s view, the military was concerned only with making a bomb for the purposes of warfare; worries about radiation hazards “were entirely secondary.” Groves, in Nolan’s words, “had rifle-barrel vision,” which “made him a great soldier” but limited him to “thinking only of the security aspect.” As it turned out, the Manhattan Project physicians were right to be worried about fallout from the Trinity test. Groves eventually approved some of the safety measures, but concerns about the long-term effects of radiation on the region around the test site persist to this day.

Although the Manhattan Project doctors warned the military about dangerous fallout from the Trinity test, they also participated in downplaying the harmful effects of radiation following the test. The doctors’ complicated role in this instance is emblematic of what happened a number of times at the dawn of the nuclear age. Manhattan Project doctors would offer warnings, particularly with respect to the dangers of radiation exposure. Military leaders would not take the warnings seriously, giving greater weight to military and scientific concerns. Doctors would then be put in a position of helping the military to hide or minimize the negative consequences of radiation exposure, often out of fear of litigation.

 Atomic Doctors focuses on the physicians who were involved in the Manhattan Project, paying particular attention to Nolan, as well as his colleagues Louis Hempelmann and Stafford Warren—all of whom were part of the project from its earliest days and then played important roles in the unfolding drama of the atomic age. All three doctors had training in radiology and thus knew more than most about radiation—the critical and defining, yet mysterious, feature of the new weapon. How they gained and managed their knowledge about radiation, and how they treated (or didn’t treat) those who were affected by it, is a central theme of this book. It’s a theme that intersects with the continuing debate about the necessity and morality of detonating, and then continuing to develop and stockpile, atomic weapons. We will see how the doctors were used, with or without their cooperation, either to support or to refute competing historical narratives about the atom bomb.

James F. Nolan was my grandfather. I first became aware of the nature and scope of his contribution to the Manhattan Project when my mother visited me several months after my dad had passed away. She brought with her a box of materials that no one else in the family even knew existed. When I opened the box and began sorting through its contents, I was astonished by what I found. The box contained a treasure trove of data about my grandfather and his role in the Manhattan Project. I discovered photographs of the Trinity test, the USS Indianapolis, Tinian Island, Bikini Island, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki (taken just weeks after the bombs were dropped on the two cities). Also inside were my grandfather’s military papers, travel itineraries, artifacts, souvenirs, weather maps, newspaper clippings, written accounts of his experience, and correspondence, including with Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific head of the Manhattan Project.

Discovery of this material marked the beginning of my own journey through the early nuclear age, with my grandfather acting as my guide. In a sense, Nolan served as my Virgil, taking me through a divine comedy of sorts. He introduced me to fascinating people, including those who had visions of a technophilic new paradise. He also showed me a horrifying inferno—the image conveyed by the Japanese doctors with whom Nolan interacted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately after the war. The contents of my grandfather’s secret box of materials led me on exploratory trips to a number of archives across the United States, to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, to the San Ildefonso Pueblo, to a reunion in Indiana with the still-living survivors of the USS Indianapolis, and to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The more I explored, the more interesting and troubling the story became. The Virgil image also works in the sense that the story is not so much about Nolan—though he is clearly a central figure—as it is about the dramatic and utterly transformative historical period he lived through.

My grandfather participated in many of the crucial events of this period.

He was involved in some way with the first eight nuclear bombs ever detonated. He was there at Los Alamos—indeed, he was one of the first recruits. He helped plan the safety and evacuation measures for the Trinity test. He was one of two men tasked with escorting Little Boy, the bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima, from Los Alamos to the Pacific Islands. He was one of the first Americans to visit Japan and investigate the bomb sites after the war. He was present for the subsequent atomic tests on the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the Marshall Islands. And, at the very end of his life, he joined about one hundred others to attend the fortieth reunion of the start of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, an event that provided the scientists who built the bomb an opportunity for tortured reflection on all that had become of their invention. This book follows Nolan through these episodes and considers the ethical and medical issues faced by the doctors working on the project.

My interest in my grandfather’s journey is more than personal and more than historical. As a sociologist with a long-standing interest in the role of technology in modern society, I find that Nolan’s story provides insights into our fraught relations with technology. Discovery of the bomb generated a host of nuclear technologies—in the military, in energy, and in medicine—along with a variety of related technologies that continue to shape our lives. Lessons from the early atomic age help us deepen our understanding of how humans engage not only with nuclear and nuclear-engendered technologies but also with such emerging technologies as genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology. The forceful impact of technology, nuclear and otherwise, on human life is one of the multiple meanings of “delivering little boy” that will be explored as we follow Nolan’s passage through the early atomic age.

Q&A with Tom Siegfried, author of The Number of the Heavens: A History of the Multiverse and the Quest to Understand the Cosmos

In The Number of the Heavens, Tom Siegfried, the award-winning former editor of Science News, shows that one of the most fascinating and controversial ideas in contemporary cosmology—the existence of multiple parallel universes—has a long and divisive history that continues to this day. We spoke to him about the possible existence of a multiverse and the controversy surrounding it.

Trying to conceptualize something like the universe, let alone a multiverse, feels like a big undertaking. Where should people start in trying to comprehend the existence of something so vast?

You have to start small, say with the Earth. When H. G. Wells wrote his history of the world, he imagined shrinking the Earth to the size of a ball one inch across. The sun would then be a globe of fire, 9 feet across, a little more than 300 yards away. The planet Neptune, on this reduced scale, would be more than five miles away. The nearest star, the Alpha Centauri system, would be about 40,000 miles away. And the farthest objects observable in space would be something like 100 trillion miles away, even on the scale with the Earth smaller than a golf ball. Put another way, it takes light eight minutes to reach the Earth from the sun, four years to travel from the sun to the nearest star, and billions of years to travel to the farthest visible objects. That’s all within the universe we can see. If there’s a multiverse, countless other such spaces, of similar extent, exist beyond what we can see.

This book breaks down an eternal debate about whether there is one universe or many. You describe it like a long-running TV sitcom, where characters keep cycling out but common themes continue to reemerge. What are some of those common themes?

One common theme is that logic rules out more than one universe, because the universe contains everything so there can be only one. But the definition of “universe” at any point in time may turn out to be incorrect—it has often been the case that what people believed to be the universe was not, in fact, everything that existed. So the definition of universe needed to change.

Another common theme is that universes beyond our sight are not a proper subject for science—if we can’t see them, it is meaningless to believe that they exist. But advances in technology (such as better telescopes) can bring previously unseen objects into view. And in some cases the explanation for things that we can see unavoidably entail the existence of other things we cannot. Similar arguments were made against the existence of atoms—they could not be seen, so they could not be real. But plenty of evidence indirectly indicated their existence, and modern microscopes can image them. It’s not a coincidence, I think, that the ancient Greek philosophers who proposed the existence of atoms also believed in the existence of multiple universes. 

What is your favorite figure from this historic debate about the multiverse? Whose work have you found particularly compelling? 

Many to choose from. I guess I like Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle the best, because he was a popularizer of science like me. He articulated the 17th-century case for a plurality of worlds better than anyone. But I should also mention Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel. He single-handedly made Cincinnati the leading center for astronomy in America in the 1840s, and was a most enthusiastic advocate for the view that the distant fuzzy nebulae in space were “island universes” like the Milky Way.

You mentioned that many serious scientists today consider the theory of the multiverse to be unscientific. Please explain.

There is a widespread view among scientists that the multiverse is an idea that cannot be tested, or “falsified,” and therefore it is not scientific. Many other scientists challenge that view, however. For one thing, the requirement of falsifiability is no longer widely accepted by many scientists and philosophers. For another, the notion of a multiverse is not itself a theory, but is rather a prediction of other theories that can, in fact, be tested in various ways.

Books and movie often portray the idea of a parallel universe as this alternate reality, where another version of you is living a totally different life. Does this idea of alternate selves hold up with scientists, or is it wishful thinking?

The idea of alternate selves is most closely connected with the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. In that interpretation, each of us does split into additional versions of ourselves as quantum measurements are made. Some physicists advocate strongly for this view, while others reject it. It’s a debate that will not be resolved anytime soon.

It’s also possible that the universe is infinite, and in a multiverse there could be an infinite number of universes. If so, and if the number is truly infinite and not just really big, all possible combinations of atoms will occur over and over again in different places. And so there would be other combinations of atoms identical to those that make up you (and me, and everybody else). Whether that would count as another version of you or just somebody exactly like you is a good question.

You write, “The possibility of a multiverse implies larger lessons about how science should be done” and “The rules of science that work well for explaining nature in a lone universe may not apply in a multiverse.” Could you speak more to this? How would science change by taking the rules of a multiverse into account? 

The traditional goal of science (or at least of physicists) is to explain the world by deduction from a small number of fundamental laws and principles. Ideally, in this view, one deep theory would enable calculations of all the physical features of the universe. This view implicitly assumes that the universe is governed everywhere (and at all times) by the same laws. If so, and there is only one universe, then this is a sensible approach to doing science. But rigorously applying the rules that stem from this approach deny the possibility of other universes from the beginning. If, in fact, other universes exist, the premises upon which the standard approach rests no longer apply. In that case the explanation for phenomena we observe may be that multiple possibilities are realized in different universes, and ours is the way it is because its peculiar features permit us to live here. It’s like the way no fundamental law determines the Earth’s temperature. It’s not the only planet—it’s one of many, and its temperature is what it is because that’s the temperature suitable for habitation. 

Q&A with Jo Dunkley, author of Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide

Jo Dunkley combines her expertise as an astrophysicist with her talents as a teacher and writer in Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide, a lively and exceptionally clear introduction to the structure and history of the universe and its enduring mysteries. We spoke with her about the book and her seemingly limitless topic.

Needless to say, the universe is a big subject. How do you even start to explain something so vast?

The universe is really big but it turns out that it fits together in a pretty well-organized way, with planets around stars, collections of stars making up galaxies, then galaxies filling the bigger space around us. So I start here on Earth and move gradually out to the farther reaches of the universe, scaling down larger and larger sizes into manageable spaces like basketball courts that are easier to visualize. I also connect the big concepts to real people, telling the stories of the astronomers who have made, or are still making, our discoveries.

The book conveys the kind of wonder about astronomy that draws us to the stars as children. Is it easy to keep that kind of wonder in your daily work as you wrestle with cutting-edge technical debates?

Not always, no. I do often get sidetracked by the technical details of analyzing data. But that’s one of the reasons I love writing about my science for the general public—and talking about it, too. It reminds me of the bigger picture and brings back my wonder. And even in my daily research I do get regular reminders about how exciting the questions are that we are asking. For example, right now I am trying to work out how fast the whole of space is growing. There are a lot of technical challenges to doing that, but I love the fact that we can even ask this question.

Many of us who haven’t taken science courses since high school assume astronomy can’t possibly be for us. We think we’d get lost. Is it a subject that can or ought to appeal to those who don’t think of ourselves as scientific?

Absolutely. You don’t need difficult math or complex science to grasp the big ideas in astronomy and to appreciate how beautiful the universe is. Looking up to the skies and asking questions about what’s up there is something humans have been doing for millennia. It is a subject for all of us. 

The book makes it clear that we have a lot left to learn about the universe. What are some of the questions that you think are the most pressing or the most promising to pursue in the years ahead?

One very exciting question is how common planets like ours are in the universe: rocky planets that could perhaps host life. New telescopes will help enormously with that question. And we have found out that most of the universe is made of invisible stuff that we can’t see with our telescopes. We call it dark matter, and there seems to be much more of it than the normal atoms that we are made of. We suspect that it is a new type of particle as-yet unknown in nature. I hope we will soon find out!

The book features many of the great names we would expect to see—the Galileos and Einsteins—but you also draw attention to unheralded and underappreciated astronomers, many of them women. Is it fair to say that some of the lost remarkable work done over the past 100 years has been done by women, either as individuals or in teams, like the Harvard Computers?

They have had a huge impact. The Harvard Computers in the early twentieth century, including Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and later Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, were responsible for making sense of the different types of stars, understanding how to measure vast distances in the universe, and figuring out what stars are actually made of. Other pioneering women include Vera Rubin, who solidified the evidence for invisible dark matter, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell. She discovered an entirely new type of spinning star that is so dense that a teaspoonful would weigh as much as a mountain.

Celebrating Women in Science

On International Women in Science Day, the world celebrates the countless women who dedicated their skills, talents, and lives to the sciences. In this spirit, today we share books by some exceptional female authors. Executive Editor for Life Sciences Janice Audet pays tribute to each individual’s work and her efforts to advancing science.

Jo Dunkley, Professor of Physics & Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, studies the origins and evolution of the universe. She shares her passion for discovery with her students and the public, in particular with young women interested in scientific research. In recognition of her efforts to encourage and raise the profile of women in science she was awarded the 2017 Rosalind Franklin Award from the Royal Society. In Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide, we see Professor Dunkley at her best, tackling big questions in an approachable way that conveys her commitment to advancing our knowledge of the universe.

Cecilia Heyes authored Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking to challenge established ideas and stimulate new conclusions. Trained as an experimental psychologist, Dr. Heyes studies evolutionary biology, philosophy of mind, animal cognition, and cognitive neuroscience. With her incredible breadth of knowledge, Heyes questions entrenched views, examining different ways to understand how the world works. It is this curiosity that led her to examine how evolution, learning, and developmental and cultural processes shape human cognition. Heyes posits that humans learn what and how to think through cultural, rather than genetic, evolution. This thought-provoking publication was chosen as one of the Best Non-Fiction Books of 2018 by Marginal Revolution.

Scientist, researcher, and admitted “fly pusher” Stephanie E. Mohr loves the common fruit fly. In her highly accessible book, First in Fly: Drosophila Research and Biological Discovery, Mohr reminds us the enormous impact tiny Drosophila has made. No other animal model has contributed as much, nor provided more answers to many of the most important and challenging questions in biology and medicine. First in Fly was chosen as a Forbes Best Book about Biology, 2018, and a Smithsonian Best Science Book of the Year, 2018. Through her unmatched skill as a science communicator, Mohr inspires us to re-appreciate the contribution of Drosophila and highlights the lasting value of research investment.

Pardis Sabeti and her laboratory members were already collaborating with colleagues when, in 2014, Sierra Leone suffered the largest Ebola Outbreak in decades. This opportune partnership would eventually lead to the sequence of 99 samples from 78 different patients during the first three weeks of the outbreak—invaluable research into the origins of Ebola and transmission of the virus. Sabeti, along with journalist Lara Salahi, coauthored the resultant Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic. Salahi’s critical interviews and investigative reporting highlighted scientific, medical, and social issues associated with an Ebola breakout. Sabeti and Salahi, together, tell a story of what went wrong during the Ebola outbreak. Through their timely work, they hope to increase the understanding of the contours of outbreak culture and what new approaches are necessary to ensure superior outcomes in the future.

Anna Marie Skalka began her career in science at a time, the 1960s, when female postdoctoral researchers were a rarity. After decades of determination and dedication Skalka was internationally recognized with the 2018 Sigma Xi William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement for her seminal research on the biochemical mechanisms of retroviruses. Long known as a pioneer researcher in virology and a trailblazing woman in science, Dr. Skalka’s engaging Discovering Retroviruses: Beacons in the Biosphere takes us on a journey into the world of retroviruses, from evolution to present day. Her unique exploration of humanity’s longstanding interconnection with viruses leaves the reader with the promise of retrovirus therapeutics in our not-so-distant future.

In each of these publications we honor women scientists. In their work, we see personal inspiration, long-term dedication, and the profound and unyielding search for answers. Each, in her own way, has had the courage to follow her own ideas, the patience to assist countless others, and the generosity to share her knowledge and passion. In appreciation, we honor these women in science who continue to make important contributions in the scientific community and across in the world.

Build a Better Flytrap

The tiny, innocuous fruit fly has been a subject of research for more than a century, and is discussed in upwards of 100,000 scientific publications. Its surprising parallels with humans—the fruit fly has a beating heart, a brain, and other organs comparable to our own; exhibits complex behaviors including sleep and aggression; and slows down with age—have made it an ideal subject for research that’s furthered our understanding of biology, health, and disease. In First in Fly: Drosophila Research and Biological Discovery, Stephanie Elizabeth Mohr celebrates the power and importance of curiosity-driven pure research conducted with fruit flies, providing historic and contemporary examples of the profound knowledge such work has afforded. After First in Fly, readers will have a new appreciation for the beauty of the fruit fly, and the common genetic threads that connect us to other creatures. And yet, for many of us, that recognition won’t likely dislodge the lived experience of the fruit fly as a miraculously multiplying kitchen nuisance. For that, Mohr offers up the flytrap described below.

-----

Although researchers take great care to contain fruit flies in a lab setting, some inevitably get free, and once free, the flies will follow enticing scents to places they are unwelcome, such as a lunchroom or a yeast research lab. Drosophila researchers are not likely to bring insecticides into the lab—we are for the most part trying very hard to keep fruit flies alive, after all, so that we can perform genetic crosses and do other types of studies. But even the most dedicated fly researchers recognize that rogue flies can be a nuisance. We have developed an effective strategy for capturing flies that have escaped from their culture vials: we place simple flytraps in strategic locations around the lab. The same approach can be used in a home to get rid of an unwanted infestation or to collect wild flies for study. In the 2014 BioSCAN project, volunteers in Los Angeles, California, placed flytraps in their backyards as part of a species survey. These backyard collections led to identification of several new species of phorid flies, as well as the observation that Drosophila flavohirta, a species not previously found in the Americas, has taken up residence in Los Angeles.

To make a trap, first gather the following: an empty bottle, a rubber band or tape, and a tablespoon of something attractive to the flies, such as fruit juice, cider, champagne, wine, red wine vinegar, mushy banana, tired grapes, or overripe mango. The materials should be assembled as shown, then placed in areas frequented by the flies. The paper cone or a similar cover with a single small opening is essential: an open jar constitutes a fly feeder rather than a flytrap. The opening in the paper cone or cover should be just large enough for the small flies to fit through. Flies will be attracted by the bait and enter the chamber. Once inside, they are unlikely to try to escape, and even if they try, it will be next to impossible for them to find the tiny hole through which they entered.

This is a live trap method. To get rid of the flies, seal and throw away the trap within a few days. If forgotten, the trap is likely to become the birthplace of a next generation of flies. Before tossing the trap out, the curious might examine the flies to determine what species of flies were caught and whether they have unusual or interesting attributes. Should you decide to culture the flies, sliced bananas with a sprinkle of baker’s yeast should suffice as a food source, and a piece of cloth secured with a rubber band or a plug of cotton can be used to stopper the top without depriving the flies of oxygen. Be careful not to let the food dry out or expose the flies to prolonged heat or cold. To anesthetize the flies for close examination, place the trap on ice for five to ten minutes. If the food is very mushy, put the trap on its side, so the anesthetized flies do not get stuck in the food, or use a funnel to transfer the flies to an empty bottle before placing them on ice. A small paintbrush, makeup brush, or crab pick can be used as a pusher, and a magnifying glass, macro lens attachment on a camera, or smartphone-compatible microscope can help you inspect your flies closely. Further information, including food recipes and video demonstrations, can be found online. Who knows? Isolation of a spontaneous mutation, observation of an interesting behavior, or some other chance finding might launch a groundbreaking study.

-----

You can read more about First in Fly at the Atlantic.