He has done research on the early development of the natural sciences in Russia in the 18th century, biological warfare in the Soviet Union, the relationship of Russian literature to the natural sciences, Lysenkoism, Immanuel Velikovsky and pseudosciences, the early history of the atomic bombs and the Cold War, Albert Einstein in Prague, history of global scientific languages, and the life of Dmitri Mendeleyev and the history of the periodic table.