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Science
Gimme Shelter
Best Friends Animal Society has a sprawling campus in the canyons of Utah, but its influence has grown to reach almost every shelter in the country
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Jane Austen’s Letters Are the Closest We Can Get to Her. What Do They Reveal About the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Author?
This year marks the English novelist's 250th birthday. Her hundreds of surviving letters—both real and fictional—offer valuable insights into her imaginative wit and enduring appeal
Smart News
Louvre Robbers Escaped With Less Than a Minute to Spare Due to Major Security Fumbles
The Iconic ‘Rocky’ Statue at the Philadelphia Art Museum Steps Is Still Stirring Up Strong Feelings
Scientists Engineered Cancer-Fighting Cells Inside Patients’ Bodies—and Two Early Trials Show Promise
This Landscape Inspired Some of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Best-Known Works. Now, It’s Receiving New Protections
Trail Cameras in Vermont Captured Something Strange: Moths Sipping a Moose’s Tears
Latest Features
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History
The Lost City of the Silk Road
Researchers are uncovering what they think is the metropolis of Marsmanda, an iron-making city that could rewrite the history of the famed trade route
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History
A Grand New Design
A train wreck that caused the death of more than a dozen commuters near the turn of the 20th century was the impetus behind a monumental project that changed the urban landscape
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Most Popular
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Special Report
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America’s 250th Anniversary
To mark the 250th anniversary of America’s founding on July 4, 1776, Smithsonian magazine is highlighting the people, places and events that shaped the United States’ fight for independence from Great Britain
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Photo of the Day
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To Be Young
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Podcast
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.
Latest Episodes
The ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ Sank Half a Century Ago. We’re Still Fascinated.
November 6, 2025 | 28 minutes
History
Jane Austen’s Letters Are the Closest We Can Get to Her. What Do They Reveal About the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Author?
This year marks the English novelist’s 250th birthday. Her hundreds of surviving letters—both real and fictional—offer valuable insights into her imaginative wit and enduring appeal
Science
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The High-Stakes Quest to Make Snakebites Survivable Took Leaps Forward This Year, With Promising New Avenues to Safer Antivenoms
A wave of fresh science is challenging a century-old treatment and offering hope to the people snakebites harm most—often far from hospitals and help
Innovation
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Two College Students Are Building a Robot to Replant Burned Forests
Marta Bernardino and Sebastião Mendonça invented Trovador, a four-legged, A.I.-powered robot that can plant trees in hard-to-reach, wildfire-damaged terrain
Travel
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Meet the Daredevils Chasing Down Speed Records at the Bonneville Salt Flats
Race officials, tinkerers and competitors converge in Utah every fall to test both metal and mettle
Arts & Culture
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A Famed Street Photographer Chronicled What Christmas Looks Like Across America Over the Course of Decades
Lee Friedlander’s new book, “Christmas,” collects his work from all over the country on the topic of our sentimental and materialistic connection to the holiday
At the Smithsonian
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Sixty Years Ago, When Instruments Were Played in Space for the First Time, It Was ‘Jingle Bells’ All the Way
Astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra delighted mission control with their rendition of the Christmas classic