Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

A variety of dark gray to black magnetofossils shaped like ovals, cubes and needles cluster around each other.

Meet the Scientist Who Uses Magnetic Fossils to Navigate Changing Oceans

Geobiologist Courtney Wagner uses giant magnets and microscopic fossils to make sense of ancient climate change

A grey, orange, and brown expanse of layered rock formations under a gray sky.

Ancient Pollen Offers Clues to How Plants Adapted to Climate Change in the Past — and Potentially the Future

Pages and jars of preserved plant specimens cover a counter in the foreground while cabinets full of pages of preserved plants line the background.

Iconic Photos Give Rare Glimpse of Smithsonian's Storage Rooms

Close-up of a black and yellow hornet preserved on a pin

What Mummified Shrews and Giant Hornets Reveal About Biodiversity

Rain falls from a small group of clouds over the open ocean as the sun shines behind the clouds.

From Clouds to Currents, What Is the Water Cycle?

Two small fossil fragments of ancient brittle stars appear green as they rest on Ben Thuy's fingertip.

Scientists Describe Two New Species of Ancient Brittle Star

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

10 Popular Scientific Discoveries From 2021

A humpback whale breaches the surface of the ocean on a sunny day.

World's Biggest Whales Eat Three Times More Food Than Scientists Thought

White-colored, fossil ammonite laying horizontally on top of a rock with a black background

What's Next for the 1.2 Million Prehistoric Fossils Now at Smithsonian

Fossilized weigeltisaurid skeleton on beige background

The Oldest Airborne Vertebrate Animal Was a Reptile With 'Weird' Wings

Tyrannosaurus rex was first discovered in 1900, and named in 1905. But not much was known about how it lived or died. (USNM 555000 and USNM 500000, Smithsonian)

What We've Discovered About the 'Tyrant Lizard King' Since the Nation's T. rex Was Unearthed

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing global warming. This means glaciers in Antarctica are melting. Those same glaciers were originally made when carbon dioxide dropped 34 million years ago. (NASA/Jim Ross)

Drop in Greenhouse Gas Caused Global Cooling 34 Million Years Ago, Study Finds

Smooth pearls in the shape of orbs and ovals are usually created by bivalves, like mussels, in pearl farms. As with all gems, the less blemishes they have, the more valuable they are. (Chip Clark, Smithsonian)

The True Story Behind How Pearls Are Made

Fossil plants reveal information about the temperature and precipitation of past climates. Scientists use what they learn from fossil plants to inform their research on modern climate change (USNM PAL 606436, Smithsonian)

What Fossil Plants Reveal About Climate Change

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

This fossilized dinosaur head and vertebrae were discovered in 1883 but only recently gained its name, Smitanosaurus agilis. (Smithsonian)

Scientists Give Old Dinosaur a New Name

The broad-tailed hummingbird uses its fiery throat feathers, called a gorget, to attract a mate. (Kati Fleming, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Eight of Nature’s Wildest Mating Rituals

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

Tens of millions of years of bird evolution guided some of the most important elements of human-powered flight. (Pixabay)

How We Lifted Flight from Bird Evolution

The National Museum of Natural History’s newest curator in the paleobiology department, Dr. Stewart Edie, opens a drawer with mollusk fossils in the museum’s invertebrate paleobiology collection. (Katie Collins, National History Museum, London)

Say Hello to the Smithsonian’s Newest Mollusk Expert

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