Synthetic Voices Shed Light on the Deep-Rooted Gender Biases Embedded in our Tech
An expert on the impacts of information technologies on society considers how talking machines got their male- and female-sounding voices
How the Misrepresentation of Tomatoes as Stinking ‘Poison Apples’ That Provoked Vomiting Made People Afraid of Them for More Than 200 Years
The long and fraught history of the plant shows that it got an unfair reputation from the beginning
You Might Think of Shrimp as Bugs of the Sea. But a Remarkable Discovery Shows the Opposite: Bugs Are Actually Shrimp of the Land
A recent study suggests that insects branched out from crustaceans on the tree of life
We Rediscovered Robert Caro’s Abandoned Novel About an Intrepid Journalist Buried in His Archives
A deep dive into the legendary biographer’s papers leads to the surprising revelation of a work he has all but forgotten
The Long, Strange History of Nitrous Oxide, a Popular Drug Users Have Been Inhaling for Hundreds of Years
Galaxy Gas has brought the drug back into the spotlight, and scientists are raising alarms about its health risks
History-Hunting Mudlarks Scour London’s Shores to Uncover the City’s Rich Archaeological Treasures
A new exhibition at the London Museum Docklands spotlights hundreds of mudlarking finds, from Bronze Age tools to Viking daggers to medieval spectacles
The TikTok-Famous Dubai Chocolate Traces Its Origins to the 13th-Century Middle East
Generation Z is putting its own spin on knafeh, a dish first designed to quash a caliph’s hunger pangs
How ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ Introduced the ‘First Lady of Children’s Music’ to a Large National Audience
When musician Ella Jenkins appeared on the show, she brought Black diasporic music and her signature songs to televisions across America
How Do Cancer Cells Migrate to New Tissues and Take Hold?
Scientists are looking for answers about how these confounding trips, known as metastases, occur throughout the human body
A Field of Dreams Built in an Unlikely Place: A Japanese American Internment Camp
A baseball diamond buried long ago at Manzanar has been rebuilt to honor the Americans who once played the sport there
Ten Exceptional Ancient Elephants, From Small Swimming Creatures to Shovel-Tusked Beasts
A wide variety of the exotic animals evolved on Earth over the past 60 million years
How an American Merchant, a French Official and a Pioneering Chemist Smuggled Much-Needed Gunpowder to the Continental Army
The trio’s scheming became a crucial element of the fledgling nation’s success in the Revolutionary War
Through Good Teams and Bad, Wrigley Field Remains the Coziest Park in Baseball
The Chicago landmark represents the purest form of the American pastime
Carrots Can’t Help You See in the Dark. Here’s How a World War II Propaganda Campaign Popularized the Myth
The British government claimed that eating carrots helped its fighter pilots shoot down German planes at night. In truth, the Royal Air Force relied on top-secret radar
Two Great Empires Traded for Financial Gain and Achieved a Brilliant Cultural Exchange as Well
A new show illuminates the rich artistic wonders that arose out of the 400 years of commerce between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire
What Spurred the South to Join the American Revolution?
How a disagreement with a Scottish lord over westward expansion, a cache of gunpowder, and the future of enslaved labor helped kick-start the southern colonies’ embrace of the radical cause
![Senator Joseph McCarthy “comes along really chronologically halfway through the story [in the early 1950s], and there’s a lot that happened before he was even on the scene,” says author Clay Risen.](https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/ee-zkNhyyeZSehRcxDnYUB-QAj4=/450x300/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/dd/f0/ddf0fc8a-56de-40d6-ae40-efcb46ac804b/gettyimages-515261284.jpg)
Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare, a Hunt for Communists in Postwar America
In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation
From Worlds That Look Like Cotton Candy to Others Covered in Volcanoes, These Are the Strangest and Most Captivating Exoplanets
Scientists are using an array of instruments to detect other planets, some of which may harbor life—and others that most definitely don’t
This New Book Reveals the Daredevil Lives of Four Italian Women Who Stood Up to Hitler and Mussolini
By delivering newspapers, munitions and secret messages to resistance groups, among many other incredible tasks, the brave fighters strove for a freer world
How a Forgotten Bean Could Save Coffee From Extinction
One leading botanist is scouring remote corners of the earth to find new species that could keep our mugs full
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