Smithsonian Magazine: June 2013
Features
The Mind on Fire
A million or so years ago, the amazing evolution of the human brain was sparked by a breakthrough that people everywhere still enjoy every day: cooking
By Jerry Adler
Burning Desire
Chiliheads crave the heat that hurts so good, a pleasure-pain riddle science is solving. But nothing compares to the gutwrenching agony of the legendary superhot that spices life in remote India
By Mary Roach
10 Epiphanies
Sometimes a meal is just a meal. Other times, a single bite can change everything
By Mimi Sheraton
Rocket Fuel
For astronauts headed to the moon, NASA dreamed up meals that tried to mimic earth food
By Brett Martin
Accounting for Taste
You know what foods you like. But why? That’s always been one of the toughest questions in perception research. Now psychologists and others, from Ivy League labs to the U.S. Army, are serving up fresh answers
By Tom Vanderbilt
Yeasts of the Southern Wild
A star baker in New Orleans, the city of king cake and buttermilk drops, is about to deliver his sweet treats to Harlem
By Roy Blount Jr.
Two Kids in a Candy Store
How Philadelphia confectioners Eric and Ryan Berley are giving new life to America’s oldest sweet shop
By Franz Lidz
The American Table
What’s it like to have dinner with food writers Michael Pollan and Ruth Reichl as they discuss American food culture? Something like this. (Well, without the food.)
By Ruth Reichl
Welcome to the Dark Side
A cosmologist unveils her latest theories on the invisible universe, extra dimensions and human consciousness
By Ron Rosenbaum
Pyramid Scheme
The long-reigning king of Egyptian antiquities has been forced into exile—but he’s plotting a return
By Joshua Hammer
Departments
From the Castle
From the Castle
Secretary Clough explains how the Zoo’s chefs prepare food for 400 different species
By G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Phenomena
Water
We build our bodies with water, but build our homes and cities to resist it
By Brian Greene
Safe Harbor
To cope with a new round of sea level rise, the Dutch make room for the water.
By Brian Fagan
Fountain of Lies
Florida celebrates a hunt for healing waters that never even happened
By Matthew Shaer
Books
Books
A history of America’s ’36 Olympic rowers. Plus: lessons of King Tut, the math of life and astronauts’ wives
By Chloë Schama
Around the Mall
An Ark on Ice
A new tissue collection will save millions of DNA samples for deciphering
By Joseph Stromberg
Around the Mall
Playlist
Take a look back at an interview with Sir Edmund Hillary 60 years after he became the first man to summit Mount Everest
By Paul Bisceglio
