Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

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Discover How Domesticating Dogs Influenced Human Evolution and Other Natural History Programs This May

Participate in a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and more this month at the National Museum of Natural History

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How Lugging a Liquid Nitrogen Tank into the Amazon Helped Spark Ornithology’s Genetic Revolution

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Turning Off Your Lights Could Save Millions of Birds Each Year from Deadly Building Collisions

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Peer Through the Glare to Glimpse the Night Sky in New Smithsonian Exhibition

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In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt Won a Presidential Election…And a Pair of Ostriches

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How Leafcutter Ants and Other Culinary Creatures Prepare a Feast

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Four Reasons Why There Is More to the Hummingbird Than Meets the Eye

A black-and-orange orchard oriole perches on a bright red flower and uses its beak to peck at the petals.

A Bird in the Hand: How a Smithsonian Zoologist Spent the Pandemic Tracking Nectar-Robbing Orioles

A flower with bright pink petals and a yellow interior blooms on the surface of a water near several green and brown lily pads.

New Smithsonian Exhibition Explores the Intersection of People and Nature

Several grey, white and orange king penguins perch on top of their eggs, which are snuggly sheltered under a flap of their flabby skin between their feet.

Get To Know the Natural World’s Most Devoted Dads

Baby turtles emerge and scatter from a small hole in the sand

Meet Some of the Animal World’s Marvelous Moms

A gray and white bird perches among leafy branches

Celebrate Black Birders Week and More Natural History Programs This May

A small bonfire burns in the foreground with a sunset in the background.

Explore How Fire Shaped Human Evolution and More Natural History Programs This March

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

10 Popular Scientific Discoveries From 2021

Male acorn woodpeckers, like the one on the left, have more offspring over their lives when they’re polygamous, according to new research. (Vivek Khanzode)

Study Finds Polygamy Helps Male Acorn Woodpeckers Thrive

The National Museum of Natural History’s 146 million objects and specimens are studied by researchers worldwide who are looking to understand all aspects of the natural world. (Chip Clark, Smithsonian)

How Museum Collections Advance Knowledge of Human Health

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

By studying recent mass extinctions on islands like Hawaii, Dr. Helen James is painting a picture of bird biodiversity today. Her research involves digging up fossils in caves to study bygone species, like the Kioea. (Johnny Gibbons)

Meet One of the Curators Behind the Smithsonian’s 640,000 Birds

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 Smithsonian’s Division of Birds provided about 40% of the tissue samples for the new bird genomes in a landmark study. (James Di Loreto, Smithsonian)

Landmark Study Shares Smithsonian Bird DNA Collected Over Three Decades

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I Spy… A Giant Squid Eye

Meet the Smithsonian Scientist Untangling the Branches of Hawaii’s Evolutionary Tree

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