Asia
Hemingway’s Old Man Inspires Shark Oil for HIV Vaccine
Two pharma giants are teaming up to test the latest HIV vaccine, taking a hint from Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, reports Bloomberg. People on the coasts of Norway and Sweden have used shark liver oil for centuries to help heal wounds and treat respiratory and digestive illnesses, according to the American Cancer Society. In Hemingway’s book, which [...]
June 29, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Adorable, Critically Endangered Baby Sumatran Rhino Born
As the planet bids goodbye to Lonesome George, the last of a subspecies of Galapagos tortoises, the world welcomes a new conservation-hope poster child. After a 15-month pregnancy, Ratu, a captive endangered Sumatran rhino, gave birth to a healthy male calf late Sunday night in Sumatra, Indonesia. Fewer than 275 of the critically endangered animals [...]
June 26, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Saudis to Send Women to London Olympics After All
The 2012 London summer Olympics will be the first time Saudi women athletes will be able to compete. According to the Associated Press, The discussions on sending women to the games have been wrapped in secrecy for fear of a backlash from the powerful religious establishment and deeply traditional society in which women are severely [...]
June 26, 2012 |
By Colin Schultz
High-Tech’s Crucial Rare Earth Elements Are Already Running Low
Rare earth minerals are used to make smartphones, flat-screen televisions, drills, electric vehicles, compact florescent bulbs, wind turbines, and military equipment. But now China, the world’s nearly-sole provider of rare earth elements, is warning that modern lust for high-tech toys and tools has caused the supply of these materials to plummet. According the a recent official [...]
June 22, 2012 |
By Colin Schultz
‘World’s Rarest Toad’ Not Extinct After All
A toad that pulled a disappearing act back in 1876 has miraculously reappeared in Sri Lanka. The Kandyan dwarf toad was discovered in a Sri Lankan stream in 1872, but almost as soon as the warty little guy turned up in the annals of biology, it was written off as a lost cause. Exhaustive surveys turned [...]
June 22, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
The Arc of History is Long, But it Bends Toward Asian Economic Dominance
Derek Thompson from The Atlantic manages to present 2,000 years of economic history in 5 paragraphs plus a colorful little graph by Michael Cembalest, an analyst at JP Morgan. In Year 1, India and China were home to one-third and one-quarter of the world’s population, respectively. It’s hardly surprising, then, that they also commanded one-third and [...]
June 21, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
China’s First Woman Astronaut: Progress or Propaganda?
At 2:30 am GMT on Monday, June 18, the Chinese spaceship Shenzhou-9 docked with the Tiangong-1 orbital space lab, the first time ever with a crew. Aboard the spacecraft was 33-year-old Liu Yang, the first female Chinese astronaut—or taikonaut—in space. The mission was only China’s fourth manned flight. The country’s space program got off to a [...]
June 18, 2012 |
By Colin Schultz
What the Taliban and Jenny McCarthy Have in Common
Jenny McCarthy and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander in Pakistan, have at least one thing in common: they are both paranoid about vaccination. Bahadur blocked a vaccination campaign, scheduled to start in a few days, that would have reached 161,000 children in North Waziristan. Unlike McCarthy, the Taliban commander is not worried that vaccinations [...]
June 18, 2012 |
By Sarah Laskow
Prospero’s Island in the South Pacific
Was it Bermuda—or the dreamy French Polynesian island of Huahine—that inspired the setting for Shakespeare's The Tempest?
June 11, 2012 |
By Susan Spano
Jaipur via The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
A delightful new film takes viewers to India’s picturesque western state of Rajasthan
June 07, 2012 |
By Susan Spano
The Great Books and Movies to Read and Watch Before Visiting India
A list of some of the best books and films about the subcontinent to take in before you go.
May 16, 2012 |
By Susan Spano
The Nastiest Critters Lurking Outside Your Tent
The bite of a Goliath bird-eater is hardly worse than a bee sting to a human---but this beast is among the nastiest things that could skitter across your face in the dark night of the Amazon. Zip up your tent
May 08, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
All Aboard the Beijing-Lhasa Express
The writer casts aside concerns about comfort and political correctness to take the rail trip of a lifetime
April 26, 2012 |
By Susan Spano
More Fruits Worth a Voyage Around the World
Pawpaws are scarcely cultivated and even more rarely sold in markets, so pack a machete and a fruit bowl and get thee to the backwoods of Kentucky
April 10, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
Exotic Fruits to Eat Locally When Traveling Globally
The crimson fruits occur by the millions, and fishermen, tequila-sipping cowboys, families from the city and even a few tourists take to the desert to pursue the pitahaya
April 06, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
The Greatest Diving Sites in the World
The vertiginous void of the Great Blue Hole offers divers the feeling of facing off with the edge of the world
March 28, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
Booze Cruise: The Best Local Liquors to Try While Traveling
Fermentation has been replicated independently in nearly every region of earth, and many of the drinks various cultures brew are well worth a journey
March 22, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
The World’s Best Uphill Bike Rides
Long, steady climbs on a bicycle are the holy grail of athletic conquests. We hill climbers measure the worth of a landscape by its rise over run
March 20, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
Why Do You Travel?
What is it we look for over mountains and across oceans? What do we find, or hope to find? Answer our survey and we'll publish responses in the May issue of Smithsonian
March 12, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
More Great Walks of the World
Which hikes are the best in the world, and which ones did we miss?
March 08, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
