Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

A humpback whale breaches the surface of the ocean on a sunny day as three birds fly overhead.

10 Popular Scientific Discoveries From 2021

Read about the year's most attention-grabbing findings by scientists at the National Museum of Natural History

Headshot of paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner in a red sweater holding an early human skull up text to her face on white background.

Meet the Scientist Studying How Humans Started Eating Meat

A pile of gourds spilling out of a tipped over container onto a brick floor with a bale of straw in the background.

Say Hello to the Scientist Harvesting Clues About Ancient Gourds and Maize

A group of seven squashes and an ear of corn on grass littered with fallen leaves.

How Ancient Humans Helped Bring Pumpkins to Your Thanksgiving Table

Historic black and white photograph of Sitting Bull sitting down with a feather in his hair and holding a pipe.

New Study Adds to Decade-Old Repatriation of Sitting Bull's Belongings

While this year’s Arctic sea ice extended further than last year’s, there still wasn’t as much of it as there was only two decades ago. Thinner and younger sea ice in winter and less ice in the summer are two of the many elements of the Arctic’s new reality. (Credit: Patrick Kelley, U.S. Coast Guard. Public domain.)

Climate Change Redefines What 'Normal' Means in the Arctic

Landscapes have been managed by humans for thousands of years – some sustainably, others less so. The Martu people of Australia burn the grasses in continent’s Western Desert. The practice yields food, but also increases biodiversity in the area. (Rebecca Bliege Bird)

New Study Pushes Origins of Human-Driven Global Change Back Thousands of Years

All modern dogs are descended from a wolf species that when extinct around 15,000 years ago. Grey wolves, pictured here fighting for food with now extinct dire wolves (red), are dogs’ closest living relative. (Art by Mauricio Antón)

Meet the Scientist Studying How Dogs Evolved From Predator to Pet

There are over eight million feet of film in the Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA), which is part of the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives. HSFA specializes in storing ethnographic footage created by anthropologists, filmmakers and travelers. (Brittany M. Hance and James Di Loreto, Smithsonian Institution)

How Film Helps Preserve the World’s Diversity

Sylvester Musembi Musyoka, a Kenyan colleague and field crew leader, recording a large mammal fossil bone during a virtual field project to collect fossils in Kenyan excavation sites that were in danger of being damaged by severe weather. (Nzioki Mativo/Smithsonian)

How the Pandemic Changed Scientific Exploration

These walrus ivory carvings were collected in the mid-1880s. They were featured in a catalogue for the exhibition

How Arctic Anthropologists are Expanding Narratives about the North

Scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History sequenced the genomes of 363 bird species in 2020. (Brian Schmidt, Smithsonian)

10 Popular Scientific Discoveries from 2020

Sequencing entire genomes from ancient tissues helps researchers reveal the evolutionary and domestication histories of species. (Thomas Harper, The Pennsylvania State University)

How Ancient DNA Unearths Corn’s A-maize-ing History

Plants and animals around the globe use a wide variety of evolutionary strategies to survive harsh winters.

How Seven of Nature’s Coolest Species Weather the Cold

Although pumpkins and other gourds have become staples at Thanksgiving, they were not the only original crops in the Americas. Other crops domesticated around the same time, like sumpweed, little barley and goosefoot, are now gone from today’s palates. (Smithsonian)

Our Thanksgiving Menu Has Lost a Few Crops

Smithsonian anthropologists hold up the world’s longest beard after it was donated to the National Museum of Natural History in 1967. (Smithsonian)

Five of Nature’s Best Beards for World Beard Day

Joshua Bell is the curator of globalization at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. He is working on a new exhibit about the global history of cellphones. (Smithsonian)

Meet the Scientist Studying How Cellphones Change Societies

The Chaco Canyon chocolate-drinking jars have a distinct shape, with connections to similarly shaped Mayan vessels. After testing distinguishable jar fragments from an excavated trash pile in in the canyon, archaeologists determined all of the drinking jars were used to consume cacao. (A336494, A336499, A336493, James Di Loreto, Smithsonian)

What Chocolate-Drinking Jars Tell Indigenous Potters Now

Some of the most exciting discoveries in human evolution happened in the last decade. (Human Origins Program, Smithsonian Institution)

These are the Decade’s Biggest Discoveries in Human Evolution

Sabrina Sholts is the curator of biological anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. (Paul Fetters, Smithsonian)

Get to Know the Scientist Studying Ancient Pathogens at the Smithsonian

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Get to Know the Geologist Collecting Antarctic Meteorites

How Five Hibernators Chill Out During Winter

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