Test tubes

The Invention of the Test Tube

Chemists learned to blow their own glass vessels in the nineteenth century. It definitely beat using wine glasses.
Rossia macrosoma, Stout Bobtail Squid

The Delicate Science-Art of the Blaschka Invertebrate Collection

The Cornell Collection of Blaschka Invertebrate Models includes hundreds of glass models of sea creatures, making it both a teaching tool and a metaphor.
Tiffany Illinois mosaic

What Can Tiffany’s Mosaics Teach us about Stereotypes?

Tiffany’s glass mosaics can teach us a lot about stereotypes and nineteenth-century ideologies, particularly in the Marquette Buildings mosaic friezes.
Prince Rupert Drops

Prince Rupert’s Drops of Mystery

400 years of trying to solve the mystery of Prince Rupert's Drops, bizarrely hard beads of glass that have long captivated scientists.
Maison de Verre Paris

What Makes a Glass House the Ideal Home for a Communist Gynecologist?

Paris’s Maison de Verre is a marvel of modernist architecture whose rarely seen interior was constructed to foster sociality.
Naples, National Archaeological Museum, Alexander Mosaic

Millennia of Mosaics

The mosaics in New York City's new 2nd Avenue subway stations follow a tradition thousands of years old.