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The basillica and its storied mosaics constitute a matchless and threatened treasure. Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank calls it a "sacred mountain of a building, vast and elemental."

A Monumental Struggle to Preserve Hagia Sophia

In Istanbul, secularists and fundamentalists clash over restoring the nearly 1,500 year-old structure

John White likely did this study of a male Atlantic loggerhead on a stop in the West Indies en route to "Virginia" in 1585. "Their heads, feet, and tails look very ugly, like those of a venomous serpent," wrote Thomas Harriot, the expedition's scientist, of New World tortoises. "Nevertheless they are very good to eat, as are their eggs."

Sketching the Earliest Views of the New World

The watercolors that John White produced in 1585 gave England its first startling glimpse of America

"Horses define Lexington in many ways," says Edwards (with Thoroughbred Park's statues).

Lexington Is Kim Edwards’ Old Kentucky Home

Far from her Northern roots, the best-selling novelist discovers a new sense of home amid rolling hills and Thoroughbred farms

Equatorial Africa's rain forests have sustained Pygmies for millennia. Now other peoples are competing for the forests' resources, displacing the Pygmies.

The Pygmies’ Plight

A correspondent who chronicled their lives in central African rain forests returns a decade later and is shocked by what he finds

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Sneak Peek at the film Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

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Sneak Peek at the film Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

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Picture of the Week – Is that Lettuce?

This is a sea slug, Elysia chlorotica, and it looks like a leaf because it has acquired chloroplasts from its algal prey and stored them in its gut lining

Dogfish Head Brewery, featured in the New Yorker.

In the News: ‘Green Thanksgiving,’ Futuristic Food, Extreme Beer, and Farmer in Chief

A roundup of recent food-related features worth checking out

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Your Black Friday Buy: KOTA the Triceratops

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Cook Your Bird with Thermite!

Thanksgiving Turkey.

Gobble, Gobble

Here’s a little theme music for your turkey dinner

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Annual Dinosaur Dissection Day

Seven Questions for Turkey Day

In preparation for tomorrow’s big day, I offer you a selection of articles on the theme of turkey science:How did the turkey in my oven get so big?

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The Eat-ymology of the Turkey

A proud turkey.

The Eat-ymology of the Turkey

What do you really know about where the turkey came from?

Turkeys Are Having a Pretty Bad Month

Animal-abuse scandal at a turkey-breeding farm in West Virginia

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What’s Cooking: Turkeys at the Smithsonian

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T. Rex: The Other White Meat?

Healthy Holiday Eating Strategies

Tips for navigating the treacherous terrain of holiday parties

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Mountain Gorilla Rangers Negotiate Safe Passage in Congo

One of the first Smithsonian articles I worked on was last year’s Guerrillas in Their Midst, about the endangered mountain gorillas of Rwanda and Congo

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