Smithsonian.com

Features

Fire in the Hole

Raging in mines from Pennsylvania to China, coal fires threaten towns, poison air and water, and add to global warming

Young Eyes on Calcutta

British documentary filmmaker Zana Briski and collaborator Ross Kauffman's Academy Award winning documentary chronicals the resilience and vision of children in a Calcutta red-light district

The Seeds of Civilization

Why did humans first turn from nomadic wandering to villages and togetherness? The answer may lie in a 9,500-year-old settlement in central Turkey

Life on Mars?

It's hard enough to identify fossilized microbes on Earth. How would we ever recognize them on Mars?

Toulouse-Lautrec

The fin de sià¨cle artist who captured Paris' cabarets and dance halls is drawing huge crowds to a new exhibition at Washington, D.C.'s National Gallery of Art

Tribal Fever

Twenty-five years ago this month, smallpox was officially eradicated. For the Indians of the high plains, it came a century and a half too late

Homage to the Anchovy Coast

You may not want them on your pizza, but along the Mediterranean they're a prized delicacy—and a cultural treasure

Showdown on the Court

Buoyed by his reelection but dismayed by rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, a president overreaches

Digging Deep

For stome stories, the roots go way back, even to childhood

Science Matters

The Institution decides to focus on four basic questions

Model Family

Sally Mann's unflinching photographs of her children have provoked controversy, but one of her now-grown daughters wonders what all the fuss was about

Rocky Mountain High

After a canoe capsizes, the first sight of the mountainous "snowey barrier" lifts the corps' spirits

Rising from the Ashes

The eruption of Mount St. Helens 25 years ago this month was no surprise. But the speedy return of wildlife to the area is astonishing

Casualty of War

A sculptor's provacative memorial acknowledges the high cost of conflict

Fatal Triangle

How a dark tale of love, madness and murder in 18th-century London became a story for the ages