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Innovation

Because of their honeycomb shape, the huts can fit together like a beehive, expanding to fit growing needs.

Innovation for Good

The World’s First 3-D Printed School May Soon Be a Reality

Thinking Huts, a nonprofit founded by a 15-year-old, plans to kick off construction in Madagascar this summer

Ida Holdgreve answered an ad for "plain sewing"–a typo that turned a new page in women’s history.

Women Who Shaped History

How Ida Holdgreve’s Stitches Helped the Wright Brothers Get Off the Ground

In 1910, Orville and Wilbur Wright hired an Ohio seamstress, who is only now being recognized as the first female worker in the American aviation industry

Children participate in a hands-on science activity with the Smithsonian Latino Center for a Dia del Niño festival hosted by LA Plaza de Cultura y Arte in Los Angeles, California.

Smithsonian Voices

How to Take the Museum to Learners Who Can’t Be There

Educators can make a big difference in the lives of young students who have never met a scientist, seen a microscope, or been to a museum

Smithsonian Summer Virtual Adventures will be held from June 21 through Aug. 27.

Smithsonian Voices

Smithsonian Summer Virtual Adventures Offer Live Learning Experiences for Kids

These online experiences offer children opportunities to explore, discover, create and go behind the scenes at the museums—online

Grooming miles of track is a job that starts long before January, when drivers start taking to the ice.

Why Automakers Flock to This Small Swedish Town Every Winter

From January to April, the population of Arjeplog more than quadruples, as almost every brand test drives its vehicles on the region’s frozen lakes

Sea beans, otherwise known as sea asparagus and pickleweed, belong to the genus Salicornia, marsh plants that thrive in salty soils.

How One Farmer Is Introducing Americans to Sea Beans

In Charleston, South Carolina, Heron Farms is attempting to grow a gangly, salt-tolerant plant in the face of sea level rise

What if literature was an invention for making us happier and healthier?

Eight of Literature’s Most Powerful Inventions—and the Neuroscience Behind How They Work

These reoccuring story elements have proven effects on our imagination, our emotions and other parts of our psyche

Jennifer Doudna, a Nobel Prize recipient for her work on the gene-editing tool CRISPR, and the "life sciences revolution" are the dual subjects of Walter Isaacson's latest biography.

How Scientist Jennifer Doudna Is Leading the Next Technological Revolution

A new book from Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson offers an incisive portrait of the gene editing field that is changing modern medicine

Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse with Northwell Health, was the first person known to receive the approved vaccine in the United States on December 14, 2020.

Covid-19

First Vial Used in U.S. Covid-19 Vaccinations Joins the Smithsonian Collections

The empty vial, a vaccination card and scrubs worn by nurse Sandra Lindsay, first to be injected, will go on view in a new exhibition in 2022

Artificial Intelligence has been used to help caregivers focus on patients most at-risk, sort threats to patient recovery and foresee spikes in facility needs for things like beds and ventilators.

How Doctors Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Battle Covid-19

Software is helping to shape treatment, but experts worry that some tools are approved too soon and others are biased

Anthony Fauci, age 80, says museum director Anthea Hartig, “defines service at the highest level and exemplifies the true meaning of a great American.”

Covid-19

Anthony Fauci Donates His 3-D SARS-CoV-2 Model to the Smithsonian

The nation’s doctor is awarded the Great Americans Medal by the National Museum of American History in virtual ceremony

Theodore Roosevelt scholar and historian Clay Jenkinson tells the story of Roosevelt’s beloved west and the national park that bears his name in a Smithsonian Associates Streaming program on March 4.

Smithsonian Voices

Theodore Roosevelt’s North Dakota and 27 Other Smithsonian Programs Streaming in March

Multi-part courses, studio arts classes and virtual study tours produced by the world’s largest museum-based educational program

Women in early modern Europe collected recipes for balms, distillations and elixirs to treat all manner of ailments.

Part of Being a Domestic Goddess in 17th-Century Europe Was Making Medicines

Housewives’ essential role in health care is coming to light as more recipe books from the pre-Industrial Revolution era are digitized

Left, a portion of the patent plan designed by Marie Van Brittan Brown and her husband Albert, right.

Women Who Shaped History

A Brief History of the Invention of the Home Security Alarm

A hardworking nurse envisioned a new way to know who was at the door

The health of corals on the Great Barrier Reef is routinely being threatened by hot water temperatures. The Australian government is investigating a range of techniques to try to protect the corals and stave off warming.

Could Flushing Cold Water Over the Great Barrier Reef Save Corals?

Lack of action on climate change is forcing scientists to devise ever more elaborate ways to stave off damage

Artist's rendering of "Futures," an upcoming exhibition at the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building

Futures

From Floating Cities to Biodegradable Burial Pods and Flying Cars, the Smithsonian Envisions a Multitude of Futures

The Arts and Industries Building will reopen this November with a thought-provoking exploration of what lies ahead for humanity

Album cover, Sound, 1966; Designed by Laini Abernathy (American) for Delmark Records (Chicago, Illinois); Lithograph on folder paper; 31.8 × 31.8 cm (12 1/2 × 12 1/2 in.)

Smithsonian Voices

Why Cooper Hewitt Is Seeking Works by the Innovative Black Graphic Designer Laini Abernathy

Cooper Hewitt is collecting album covers designed by this important designer, who contributed to the Black cultural scene in the late 1960s

Researchers in France are testing which fish eggs are best suited to being launched to the moon. So far, European seabass are among the leaders.

Could Astronauts Rear Fish on the Moon?

Researchers in France aim to boldly farm fish where no one has farmed fish before

Could humans be visiting Venus in the future?

Ask Smithsonian

Will We Ever Send Humans to Venus?

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

Waikiki, by Hawaiian filmmaker Christopher Kahunahana, will kick off this year’s Mother Tongue Film Festival, a free, Smithsonian-sponsored event that begins Sunday, February 21.

Pandemic Can’t Stop the Mother Tongue Film Festival

The much-loved event kicks off this weekend online with the first indigenous film from Hawaii and extends through May with 45 offerings

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