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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

Bacterial Dragon (Paenibacillus dendritiformis), by Eshel Ben-Jacob

Colonies of Growing Bacteria Make Psychedelic Art

Israeli physicist Eshel Ben-Jacob uses bacteria as an art medium, shaping colonies in petri dishes into bold patterns

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Ten Years of Flying High with Air and Space Art

The Air and Space Museum showcases the art of air and space. Check out photos of some of the works here

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Nobel Prize Winners Are Put to the Task of Drawing Their Discoveries

Volker Steger photographs Nobel laureates posing with sketches of their breakthrough findings

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Asian-Latino Artwork “Pops Up” in Outdoor Museum

See works by Asian American and Latino artists, presented by the Smithsonian Asian-Latino Festival

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Iconic Photography by the Legendary Irving Penn Comes to the American Art Museum

The Modernist photographer pushed the boundaries of art and fashion

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The End of the World Might Just Look Like This

Artist Ron Miller presents several scenarios—most of them scientifically plausible—of landscapes imperiled and of Earth meeting its demise

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Inside the Alien’s Guide to the Ruins of Washington, D.C.

To us, the architecture of the Lincoln Memorial is an iconic callback to ancient Greece. But what would extraterrestrials make of it?

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What the Handwriting Says About the Artist

A new exhibition by the Archives of American Art examines the handwriting of more than 40 American artists

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When Lettuce Was a Sacred Sex Symbol

For nearly 3,000 years lettuce was associated with the Egyptian god of fertility, Min, for its resemblance to the phallus

Rina Banerjee’s “A world Lost…” is now on view in the Sackler Gallery pavilion.

“A world Lost…” Is the Stuff of Dreams and Nightmares

Rina Banerjee weaves personal and global history into her new Sackler Gallery installation, opening July 13

The city of Shanghai presents A True Story (above), an impressive work of mosaïculture, at Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal 2013.

Horticultural Artists Grow Fantastical Scenes at the Montréal Botanical Garden

Take a peek at some of the living artwork entered in an international competition in Quebec this summer

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Sneak Peek: Artist Rina Banerjee Creates “A world Lost…” at the Sackler

Debuting later this week, the new installation at the gallery incorporates everything from shells to ostrich eggs

What do you see?

Fruits and Veggies Get a Close-Up

In the darkroom, photographer Ajay Malghan creates abstract art by casting light through thin slices of produce

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The Amazing Public Art Deep in the Heart of Texas

Houston has a healthy allowance for beautifying its streets and parks. See how it spends it

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These Bright Webs Depict Flight Patterns Around Major Airports

Software engineer Alexey Papulovskiy has built Contrailz, a site that generates visuals of flight data over cities around the world

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Announcing Our Video Contest Finalists

View our judges’ top 25 picks, and help us select the Readers’ Choice Award winner!

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Two Faces, One Portrait

A collage artist combs through glamour shots of forgotten Hollywood actors to create compelling celebrity mashups

Fornaciari’s analysis of an anonymous 13th- to 15th-century female skeleton showed evidence of severe anemia.

CSI: Italian Renaissance

Inside a lab in Pisa, forensics pathologist Gino Fornaciari and his team investigate 500-year-old cold cases

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The Big Bang: Enthralling Photos of Exploding Bullets

Houston photographer Deborah Bay captures the violent power of projectiles lodged in bulletproof plexiglass

The early 20th-century obsession with child prodigies was well documenting in tabloid newspapers, turning the kids into national celebrities.

The Child Prodigies Who Became 20th-Century Celebrities

Every generation produces kid geniuses, but in the early 1900s, the public was obsessed with them

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