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National Museum of Natural History

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Microscopic Fossils Reveal the Culprit of an Ancient Extinction Is Still at Large

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Meet the Museum Director Who’s Wild About Walruses

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To Survive Mass Extinctions, Reef-Building Corals Retreat to the Deep Blue Sea

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Meet the Scientist Digitizing Millions of Fossilized Pollen Grains to Reveal Earth’s Climate History

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Top Discoveries at the National Museum of Natural History in 2024

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Our Planet On the Big Screen: New Museum Exhibition Explores Ever-Changing Earth from Space and on the Ground

Trees line a winding river, and the blue sky is reflected in the water

Building a Library of Life: How Smithsonian Collections Are Revolutionizing Ocean eDNA Research

Yellow and white lichens are pictured against a back background on a tree branch.

Meet the Smithsonian Fellow Alumni Helping to Save the Planet

A giant eye sits in a clear, glass container next to a smaller octopus and squid in glass containers on either side of the eye.

I Spy… A Giant Squid Eye

A man wearing a ripped white shirt stands among thick greenery, holding a plastic sample bag

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

A multitude of sea lions sit very close together on a crowded beach.

Reading Between the Bones: New Research Reveals an Unexpected Growth Spurt in California Sea Lions

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

A large research vessel with a cell tower on top sails across a dark blue stretch of ocean that expands towards a paler blue sky along the horizon.

Smithsonian Scientists Unearth Signs of an Ancient Climate Calamity Buried Beneath the Seafloor

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2022 in Review: The Year’s Top Discoveries by Museum Researchers

A man wearing a white hard hat, neon vest, dark gray pants and yellow gloves sits in a pit of dark rock. Just below his knees is a boulder with a piece of lighter gray fossil sticking out of the top.

Meet the Smithsonian Director Bringing a Deep Time Perspective to the International Climate Discussion

Under the waves swirls a bed of sea grass. Above the water is a coastal home attached to a dock.

New Study Puts Smithsonian Conservation Efforts to the Test

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

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

A green ridged cactus towers vertically over the camera with a deep blue sky in the background

How a Smithsonian Botanist Cracked the Cactus Code a Century Ago

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Say Hello to the Scientist Using DNA to Track Plankton Diversity

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