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Latest Features

The museum's curator Ryan Lintelman says the egg is emblematic of the cultural import of Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley, who battles the magnificently ugly "xenomorph."

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Smithsonian Curator Reveals New Details on an Egg From Sigourney Weaver’s Iconic ‘Alien’ Franchise

Wong Kim Ark's departure statement

HISTORY

How the Fight for Birthright Citizenship Shaped the History of Asian American Families

Lego Caveman comes armed with a toy wooden club.

SCIENCE

Did Our Ancestors Actually Wield Clubs?

This functional connectivity map, a kind of “fingerprint” of the brain, displays how different regions interact with each other in 12-year-olds. The map was constructed from resting-state MRIs, where participants were lying down and not completing a task. Larger red circles denote brain “nodes” with more connections.

SCIENCE

Can a ‘Fingerprint’ of Your Brain Help Predict Disorders?

Frederick Douglass once said, “Samuel R. Ward has left no successor among the colored men amongst us, and it was a sad day for our cause when he was laid low in the soil of a foreign country.”

HISTORY

Frederick Douglass Thought This Abolitionist Was a 'Vastly Superior' Orator and Thinker

Richard’s life has long sparked debate, with two competing views of the last Yorkist king emerging in the centuries after his reign ended in 1485.

HISTORY

'The Lost King' Dramatizes the Search for Richard III's Remains. The Monarch's Life Was Even More Sensational

The rocky beach in Wrangell, Alaska, is decorated with more than 40 petroglyphs.

TRAVEL

The Mystery of This Petroglyph-Covered Alaskan Beach

Many of the reptiles that thrived during the Triassic were crocodile relatives that dinosaurs would later mimic through evolutionary happenstance, such as Postosuchus (back) and Desmatosuchus (front).

SCIENCE

Dinosaurs Were Evolutionary Copycats of These Long-Lost Look-Alikes

Current Issue

Smithsonian magazine March 2023 issue cover

Most Popular

1.

History

The Lesser-Known History of African-American Cowboys

One in four cowboys was black. So why aren’t they more present in popular culture?

2.

Smart News

Coywolves are Taking Over Eastern North America

Coywolves are not 'shy wolves'—they are coyote-wolf hybrids (with some dog mixed in) and now number in the millions

3.

Smart News

James Webb Telescope Spots Raging Dust Storms on an Exoplanet

The far-off world also has signs of water, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide

4.

Smart News

DNA From Beethoven's Hair Reveals Clues About His Death

The composer was predisposed to liver disease and had hepatitis B at the end of his life, a new study finds

5.

Smart News

How to Watch Five Planets Align in the Night Sky This Week

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus will appear as if in a parade in the Western sky on Tuesday

Smithsonian Voices
Smithsonian Channel

When Disaster Strikes, the Human Spirit Rises to the Occasion

National Museum of Natural History

Peer Through the Glare to Glimpse the Night Sky in New Smithsonian Exhibition

Office of Academic Appointments and Internships

Of Cables and Serpents

Smithsonian Education

Ten Education Resources to Explore this Women’s History Month

Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery

David ​'Dave' Drake: Potter and Poet

National Museum of Natural History

A Bounty of Butterflies Arrives at the Smithsonian

See All

Special Report
The sun sets over the Susquehanna River in northern Pennsylvania.

America's Waterways: The Past, Present and Future

Scientists endlessly study lakes and rivers, historians document them, artists paint them, and travelers continue to explore them. In a series of articles, Smithsonian magazine highlights all that draws our eyes to our nation's fresh and coastal waters.

View Full Report

Featured Stories

How 'Daylighting' Buried Waterways Is Revitalizing Cities Across America

What Makes the Buffalo River the Jewel of the Ozarks

See Thousands of Sandhill Cranes Gather in Nebraska

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Smithsonian Channel

Preview thumbnail for video 'Unfathomable Cruelty at the Heart of Hitler’s Russian Invasion

Unfathomable Cruelty at the Heart of Hitler’s Russian Invasion

Play
Preview thumbnail for video 'African-Americans Came out of the Civil War and Ran into Jim Crow

African-Americans Came out of the Civil War and Ran into Jim Crow

Preview thumbnail for video 'Drones Now Play an Active Role in Sea Turtle Census

Drones Now Play an Active Role in Sea Turtle Census

Photo of the day

A great horned owl on a windy day. Taken at a raptor rescue photoshoot. Windblown

History

Richard’s life has long sparked debate, with two competing views of the last Yorkist king emerging in the centuries after his reign ended in 1485.

'The Lost King' Dramatizes the Search for Richard III's Remains. The Monarch's Life Was Even More Sensational

A new film offers a sympathetic portrait of the 15th-century ruler, who seized the crown from his nephew before dying on the battlefield

Wong Kim Ark's departure statement

How the Fight for Birthright Citizenship Shaped the History of Asian American Families

Frederick Douglass once said, “Samuel R. Ward has left no successor among the colored men amongst us, and it was a sad day for our cause when he was laid low in the soil of a foreign country.”

Frederick Douglass Thought This Abolitionist Was a 'Vastly Superior' Orator and Thinker

Science

Many of the reptiles that thrived during the Triassic were crocodile relatives that dinosaurs would later mimic through evolutionary happenstance, such as Postosuchus (back) and Desmatosuchus (front).

Dinosaurs Were Evolutionary Copycats of These Long-Lost Look-Alikes

Before T. rex and ankylosaurus ruled the Earth, a host of similar Triassic reptiles reigned

Wandering albatross pair in courtship in South Georgia. Researchers have found some birds have bolder personalities than others.

Animal Personalities Can Trip Up Science

A halved slice of edible 3D-printed cake.

Scientists 3D Printed a Slice of Cake

Innovation

To collect a saliva sample, technicians instruct a person to tilt their head for two to five minutes and spit the accumulated saliva into a sterile tube. The saliva-filled tube is kept on ice and sent to the laboratory to test for the presence of biomarkers for cancer or other diseases.

Is Saliva the Next Frontier in Cancer Detection?

Scientists are finding tumor signals in spit that could be key to developing diagnostic tests for various types of cancer

A $25 million plan to uncover 1,100 feet of Jordan Creek and build three bridges is moving forward in Springfield, Missouri.

How 'Daylighting' Buried Waterways Is Revitalizing Cities Across America

The new suits will actually be all white, but Axiom Space showed off its prototype with a dark gray cover material.

See the New Moonwalk Spacesuit Designed for NASA's Artemis Program

Arts & Culture

Edward Brooke-Hitching's The Madman Gallery spotlights such artworks as John Singer Sargent's Portrait of Madame X, a statue of Glycon and Franz Xaver Messerschmidt's Character Heads.

The Most Enigmatic Works in Art History

A new book highlights 100 artistic curiosities, from the nude "Mona Lisa" to portraits of a dog-headed saint

On the show, experts give contestants advice about Vermeer’s lost paintings.

Dutch Artists Compete to Paint Like Vermeer in New Reality Show

A 1903 photograph of Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Brief but Shining Life of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a Poet Who Gave Dignity to the Black Experience

Travel

The rocky beach in Wrangell, Alaska, is decorated with more than 40 petroglyphs.

The Mystery of This Petroglyph-Covered Alaskan Beach

The 8,000-year-old rock carvings were likely created by the Tlingit

The sun sets over the Susquehanna River in northern Pennsylvania.

America's Waterways: The Past, Present and Future

More than 3,000 lunchboxes are on display inside the World's Largest Lunchbox Museum.

A Nostalgic Trip Awaits at the World's Largest Lunchbox Museum

At the Smithsonian

“A Window Suddenly Opens: Contemporary Photography in China” (above: Chinese Landscape Series No. 3 by Huang Yan, 1999) continues at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. through January 7, 2024.

A Window Opens on China’s Avant-Garde With This Explosion of Photographic Art

The Hirshhorn Museum displays dynamic works of Chinese self-expression

During World War II, Executive Order 9066 authorized the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans (above: In Los Angeles in April 1942, dozens of families wait for a train to Manzanar War Relocation Center in Owens Valley, California).

Japanese American Artists Recall the Trauma of Wartime Incarceration

"The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist" premieres Friday, March 3 at 9 p.m. ET on MTV, and on the Smithsonian Channel Tuesday, March 7 at 9 p.m.

Behind the Scenes of the New Reality Series, ‘The Exhibit’