Sceptobius beetles groom ants to steal the pheromones that they produce. The beetles cloak themselves in those pheromones to match the scent of the ant colony, gaining the ability to live among the ants undetected.

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Rove beetles cloak themselves in ant pheromones to sneak into the insects’ nests for protection. But in an odd catch-22, that makes them forever reliant on their hosts

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A third-century B.C.E. plaque unearthed at Ai-Khanoum in Afghanistan depicts the mother goddess Cybele in a chariot driven by Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

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Afghanistan Was a Crossroad of the Ancient World, Where Hellenistic Culture Blended With Buddhist Influences

February 4, 2026

The Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the national anthem, on view at the National Museum of American History

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Fervent Fans of ‘Moby-Dick’ Flock to This Massachusetts City to Read the Book Cover to Cover

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Medieval Monks Wrote Over a Copy of an Ancient Star Catalog. Now, a Particle Accelerator Is Revealing the Long-Lost Original Text

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Sunrise over the Chapel of the Transfiguration in Grand Teton National Park.

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Smithsonian Podcast: There’s More to That

Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only it can — through a lens on the world that is insightful and grounded in richly reported stories. In There’s More to That, meet the magazine’s journalists and hear how they discover the forces behind the biggest issues of our time.

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History

Afghanistan Was a Crossroad of the Ancient World, Where Hellenistic Culture Blended With Buddhist Influences

Alexander the Great conquered the region around 329 B.C.E., leaving behind Greek and Macedonian settlers who intermarried with locals. Their descendants eventually formed new kingdoms whose legacies continue to be debated today

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The British Crown Enslaved Thousands at the Height of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. New Research Reveals Their Stories

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Science

These Beetles Are Entirely Dependent on Ants for Survival. Here’s Why That’s Not an Evolutionary Death Sentence

Rove beetles cloak themselves in ant pheromones to sneak into the insects’ nests for protection. But in an odd catch-22, that makes them forever reliant on their hosts

February 5, 2026 11:01 a.m.

Seals Are Seemingly Vanishing Off the Dutch Coast. These Scientists Are Trying to Get to the Bottom of the Mysterious Disappearances

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Small, Stubby-Armed Dinosaurs Have Confounded Paleontologists. Are Answers Finally Within Reach?

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Innovation

MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum developed Eliza in the mid-1960s. His views on artificial intelligence were often at odds with many of his fellow pioneers in the field.

Why the Computer Scientist Behind the World’s First Chatbot Dedicated His Life to Publicizing the Threat Posed by A.I.

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The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is finally set to open in L.A.’s Exposition Park on September 22.

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A written description (left) of New Zealand flax (illustrated on the right) references an Indigenous name for the plant: “haragag.”

Newly Digitized Records Reveal How Indigenous People Shared Their Knowledge of New Zealand’s Plants With Captain Cook’s Crew

Long-overlooked documents housed at London’s Natural History Museum testify to the exchange of information between 18th-century European botanists and their Indigenous counterparts

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