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Stories from Alicia Ault

Ask Smithsonian: How Do Colors Affect Our Moods?

Whether you are feeling green with envy or you’re singing the blues, the link between color and feeling is a highly individual thing

Ask Smithsonian: How Do Spiders Make Their Webs?

Learning exactly what those spinnerets are doing might just generate a whole new web of understanding

Anonymous Donor looms, at more than ten feet tall. “As you are walking through it you’re just engulfed by the object,” says curator Nicholas Bell.

Artist Chakaia Booker Gives Tires a Powerful Retread

Booker empowers her monumental sculptures with new life, shaped by the shearing and bending and folding of repurposed rubber

Ask Smithsonian: What Is a Freckle?

Those adorable and charming spots splayed across the nose and cheeks might also be an indicator of sun damage

Dawe says he loved having to work with the Renwick building’s 19th-century architectural details as a backdrop.

Artist Gabriel Dawe Made a Rainbow Out of 60 Miles of Thread

The artwork is an optical illusion that delights the senses; as if the artist embroidered the air

A detail of Jennifer Angus' work In the Midnight Garden, 2015

How Thousands of Dead Bugs Become a Mesmerizing Work of Extraordinary Beauty

With much love for the insect world, artist Jennifer Angus crafts an installation made entirely out of beetles, cicadas, katydids and weevils

Ask Smithsonian: How Do You Make a Mummy?

Mummification has been practiced for eons and the Egyptians are the best known, but not the only practioners

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Ask Smithsonian: Is the World Due for Another Massive Plague Outbreak?

It is highly unlikely, experts say, but a plague-based bioterror assault is another matter

Ask Smithsonian: How Does Night Vision Work?

The ability to see in the dark is becoming more accurate and more portable

How does skin heal? You'll never look at a scab the same way again.

Ask Smithsonian: How Does Skin Heal?

The skin is an organ system that is unique to each individual, so not everyone heals the same way

Ask Smithsonian: Why Do Flamingos Stand on One Leg?

Flamingos may be doing their one-legged tree pose to stay warm or just because it’s comfortable

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Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Get Prune Fingers?

Some researchers say that, like tire treads, our fingers and toes could get better traction in wet conditions

Ask Smithsonian: What Makes Us a Righty or a Lefty?

Scientists are interested in studying why some of us are non-right-handers because it might offer insight into how the brain develops

The 7-by-6-foot video wall on view at the National Air and Space Museum closes the 93 million mile gap between the Earth and the Sun.

These Two Scientists Turned Data From the Sun Into a Work of Art

After collecting real-time data from the sun, two astrophysicists got to tinkering with video game components and the outcome is breathtaking

Ask Smithsonian: Why Does Rain Have A Distinctive Smell?

Summertime humidity—and our own memories—help create the conditions for how we perceive the sharp, fresh odor of a rain storm

Ask Smithsonian: What Makes Skunk Spray Smell So Terrible?

When the omnivorous cat-size mammals take aim, the malodorous spray can hit with pin-point accuracy up to 20 feet away

Ask Smithsonian: What Happens When You Get a Concussion?

It’s scary what we don’t know about the lasting effects after a knock to the noggin

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Ask Smithsonian: How Many Rings Does Saturn Have?

The age, origin and purpose of Saturn’s rings have mystified scientists since the days of Galileo

Ask Smithsonian: Are Cats Domesticated?

There is little genetic difference between a tabby and a wild cat, so scientists think the house cat is only domestic when it wants to be

The oceans are teeming with tetrapods—“four-legged” birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians—that have repeatedly transitioned from the land to the sea, adapting their legs into fins.

Take a Deep Dive Into The Reasons Land Animals Moved to the Seas

Synthesizing decades of discoveries, scientists have revealed links between changing environments and animal movements

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