Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

National Museum of Natural History

Walrus_Publicity-Still_08-scaled.jpg

Meet the Museum Director Who’s Wild About Walruses

In celebration of World Walrus Day, National Museum of Natural History director Kirk Johnson talks about his new documentary on the saber-toothed seals

IMG_0424.jpg

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

Smithsonian researcher Ingrid Romero studies fossil pollen to reconstruct ancient climates and predict future changes

NHB2010-02039 LucyDiorama.jpg

After 50 Years, Scientists Still Love Lucy

Paleoanthropologists have learned a lot about Lucy, the world’s most famous hominin fossil, since she was discovered in 1974. And her fossils are still yielding new insights

bci_flowering_canopy.jpg

Through the Fossil Grapevine: Museum Scientist Helps Untangle How the Fruit Thrived in the Aftermath of Extinction

The batch of newly-described fossils includes a species named after Smithsonian botanist Jun Wen

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

As climate change alters ocean ecosystems, scientists look to marine mammal ecology and morphology to predict how recovering species will fare in an uncertain future

In an aerial shot of the desert, a dry lakebed is surrounded by swaths of white salt flats.

Clay-Encrusted Microbes Provide Clues to How Early Life Developed on Earth and Potentially Mars

Smithsonian scientists study saline lakes in the Chilean desert to travel back in time to ancient Earth and beyond

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

The research puts modern oceanic climate change in context

1_-_matthew_carrano_-_opisthiamimus_use_this_one.jpg

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

An Ichthyosaur graveyard, oyster middens and other headline-grabbing findings by scientists at the National Museum of Natural History

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

Kirk Johnson highlights the vital climate context museum collections provide at international COP conferences

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

A new study finds that plants around the world moved poleward during a dynamic period of rising temperatures 56 million years ago

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

The findings confirm that carbon dioxide plays a significant role in any climate change.

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

Paleobiologists use fossil plants to reconstruct Earth’s past climate and inform climate change research today.

As the ocean continues to warm, scientists look to the past for answers on how to manage today’s environmental problems. (Sophie McCoy/NOAA)

Get to Know the Scientist Reconstructing Past Ocean Temperatures

Meet the scientist reconstructing past ocean temperatures to solve today's environmental problems.

The Smithsonian’s new fossil hall includes myriad stories and details – big and small – about Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history. (Smithsonian Institution)

Five Things You Shouldn’t Miss in the New Fossil Hall

Here's what the experts behind "Deep Time" don't want you to miss.

Smithsonian paleobiologist Scott Wing digs for plant fossils in Wyoming. (Tom Nash)

Old Fossils, New Meanings: Smithsonian Exhibit Explores the History of Life and What it Means for Our Future

For Earth Day, Smithsonian paleobiologist Scott Wing reminds us that we can look to the fossil record to better understand how ecosystems and organisms today respond to human-caused global changes.

The National Museum of Natural History’s “Earth Temperature History Symposium” convened leading paleoclimate scientists to draw a comprehensive temperature curve of Earth’s past climates. (Lucia RM Martino, Smithsonian)

Leading Scientists Convene to Chart 500M Years of Global Climate Change

The National Museum of Natural History’s “Earth Temperature History Symposium” convened the world's leading paleoclimate scientists to synthesize the latest scientific research in a comprehensive temperature curve of Earth's past climates.

Foraminifera from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur. (Ernst Haeckel)

Here's How Scientists Reconstruct Earth's Past Climates

Scientists apply different methods to the geologic record with the goal of better understanding and quantifying ancient Earth's temperatures.

Categories
Archive