Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Stories from REPRINT AUTHOR PLACEHOLDER

A baby gray whale surfaces in Magdalena Bay, Baja, Mexico.

A Whale’s Baleen Bristles Reveal the Story of Its Life

Like tree rings, these layered plates hold chemical clues to how the animals adapt to a changing world

The H.L. Hunley, a confederate Civil War era submarine, sits in its water tank at the Hunley Lab in North Charleston, SC.

One Scientist May Have Finally Figured Out the Mystery of Why a Civil War Submarine Sank

A Navy engineer used creative modeling and her knowledge of underwater explosions to tackle the century-old Hunley conundrum

Humpback whales sounding in Windham Bay, Alaska.

What Humpback Whales Can Teach Us About Compassion

Are these orca-fighting, seal-saving good Samaritans really just in it for themselves?

A "flukeprint" is a patch of calm water on the surface created when a whale flaps its tail as it cruises along just out of sight.

How to Spot a Hidden Whale

Just as a hunter leaves a trail in the snow, a whale forms prints on the water’s surface

The sun may get all the attention, but our lunar lodestar helps creatures navigate the swells and tides of ocean life.

How Moonlight Sets Nature’s Rhythms

Lunar luster triggers mating orgies, guides travelers and even can even provoke magical transformations

Each time you use your phone's weather app, you're indebted to a self-taught computer scientist named Klara von Neumann.

The Unheralded Contributions of Klara Dan von Neumann

Despite having no formal mathematical training, she was a key figure in creating the computer that would later launch modern weather prediction

Interior and sand floor of the Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue in Willemstad, Curacao

Why Sand Covers the Floor of One of the Western Hemisphere’s Oldest Synagogues

Fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe, Jews found unexpected shelter on the island of Curaçao

The tentacles of the Portuguese man o' war, (which is technically a siphonophore, a group related to jellyfish), contain harpoon-like cells called nematocysts that deliver painful doses of venom.

Forget What You’ve Heard About the Pee Cure, Here’s How to Really Fix a Jellyfish Sting

Scientists studied what to do and what not to do when stung by a jellyfish. The result? Folk remedies are bad.

This celestial chart from 1687 is one of many illustrations from books, charts, and maps showing artists’ imaginings of polar bears.

How Polar Bears Became the Dragons of the North

Renaissance maps depicting the “white bears” say more about our own fears and fantasies than about the predators themselves

25 Marie Antoinette-Inspired Destinations

Destinations in Vienna, Paris and beyond for travelers interested in tracing the footsteps of the infamous French queen

Environmental chemists are developing a method that could suck toxic metals out of marine environments.

How Electrified Steel Could Suck Toxic Metals From the Ocean

After a century of strip mining and deforestation, New Caldonia researchers are working to de-contaminate marine waters

Seahorses are valued for their use in traditional medicine.

The Secret Massacre of Millions of Seahorses

Millions of seahorses meet their doom each year as by-catch in a fisherman’s net. Less-charming fish may share the same fate

Busting apart this aging dam on the Jeremy River in Connecticut opened up 27 kilometers of salmon habitat and spawning gravel for the first time in close to 300 years. Other fish will benefit too, including the eastern brook trout, sea lamprey, American eel, and river herring.

The Environmental Price of Dams

Why some conservationists are demolishing dams in the name of rivers and fish

Outside of the U.S., international whale capture is alive and well.

What Will It Take to End International Killer Whale Capture?

The West may have rejected whale captivity, but the painful relationship between humans and orcas is far from over

While excavating at Bluefish Caves in northern Yukon during the 1970s and 1980s, Canadian archaeologist Cinq-Mars found cut-marked horse bones and other traces of human hunters that seemed to date to 24,000 years ago—thousands of years before the Clovis people.

What Happens When an Archaeologist Challenges Mainstream Scientific Thinking?

The story of Jacques Cinq-Mars and the Bluefish Caves shows how toxic atmosphere can poison scientific progress

Three polar bears climbing on a snow-covered pile of bowhead whale bones on Barter Island near Kaktovik, Alaska.

The Politics of Viewing Polar Bears

Tourists flock to this coastal Alaskan town to photograph the vulnerable icons—raising hairy ethical questions

As his ancestors have done for generations, Icelander Árni Hilmarsson catches an Atlantic puffin in a net called a háfur.

Disappearing Puffins Bring an Icelandic Hunting Tradition Under Scrutiny

Historically, hunting seabirds has been a distinctive feature of Nordic coastal culture. Should it still be?

Ocean Legacy has a task not even Sisyphean would envy: picking up, sorting and recycling the vast amount of plastic that ends up on our shores.

Turning Ocean Garbage Into Gold

From the common plastic water bottle to the shoes of tsunami victims, one recycling organization tries to find a home for all ocean refuse

The shipworm, scourge of sailors everywhere, is actually a kind of ghostly saltwater clam.

How a Ship-Sinking Clam Conquered the Ocean

The wood-boring shipworm has bedeviled humans for centuries. What’s its secret?

Mustard gas from wars past is decaying in the world's oceans—but scientists don't yet know how dangerous it could be. Here, U.S. Navy ship prepare for scheduled deployment in the Pacific Ocean in 2014.

Chemical Weapons Dumped in the Ocean After World War II Could Threaten Waters Worldwide

How worried should we be? Chemists are racing the clock to find out

Page 25 of 28