National Museum of Natural History

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has hundreds of scientists, researchers, curators and collection managers who connect people everywhere to life’s unfolding story. Here is a sampling of the unique voices that make up the chorus of ideas at the museum.

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

April 19th, 2021, 3:00PM

/ BY Emily Leclerc

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

January 26th, 2021, 6:00AM

/ BY Abigail Eisenstadt

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

December 14th, 2020, 3:00PM

/ BY Erin Malsbury

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

November 24th, 2020, 6:00AM

/ BY Abigail Eisenstadt

Scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History discovered all sorts of cool things in 2019 including the first North American medicinal leech (Macrobdella mimicus) in more than 40 years. (Anna Phillips, Smithsonian)

10 Popular Scientific Discoveries from 2019

December 31st, 2019, 6:00AM

/ BY Miguel Montalvo

With more disciplines working together, better use of big data, and more computer simulations and other quantitative approaches, archaeologists may be able to make meaningful predictions of the future. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Cegielski and Jay Etchings)

Convergence May Help Scientists Predict the Future

March 1st, 2018, 12:53PM

/ BY J. Daniel Rogers & Wendy Cegielski

A team of Smithsonian scientists excavating the Hart Chalet site found a double tournois copper coin minted for French King louis XIII in 1634. In pristine condition, it would have looked similar to this 1638 double tournois coin. (Images courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Image composite by Anna Torres)

Some Archaeological Dating can be as Simple as Flipping a Coin

October 20th, 2017, 11:52AM

/ BY William W. Fitzhugh

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