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Articles

Scrapped fishing boats in Fort Bragg (salvagers Bruce Abernathy and his son David) testify to the sharp decline of chinook salmon.

On California’s Coast, Farewell to the King Salmon

For the first time there’s no fishing for chinook salmon on the California coast. The search is on for why the prize catch is so scarce.

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How Breast Cancer Genes Work

Though we may talk of cancer as one disease, skin cancer has little in common with pancreatic cancer and breast cancer is something else entirely

Still life: Fall chum

For Salmon Fishermen, It’s Fall Chum to the Rescue

For the Yup’ik people of Alaska, fall chum is the answer to a troubled fishing season and a link to the outside world

Amid the city’s ribbons of freeway and corporate spires, says the author, the sky offers "a huge, open relief."

Southern Comfort

Celebrated poet Mark Doty succumbs to Houston’s humid charms

Iran's anger over decades of foreign meddling in its internal affairs reached its apex in the 1979 revolution.

Inside Iran’s Fury

Scholars trace the nation’s antagonism to its history of domination by foreign powers

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Letters

Readers respond to the August Issue

"No one else would be up here"—Montana's Little Belt Mountains in winter—except Gerald Mack, with his horse, Sky, and dog, Cisco Kid, a rancher told the photographer.

The Cowboy in Winter

Gerald Mack lived the life—and photographer Sam Abell went along for the ride

Paradisea raggiana is one of the many images at the Galaxy of Knowledge Web site.

Life Lines

"Spirits are taking up residence in the museum; nothing is as it seem, even in this photograph," says game director John Maccabee

Get Your Game On

At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, tech-savvy players gather clues in the alternate reality game “Ghosts of a Chance”

Parade with banner showing head and shoulder portraits of Grover Cleveland, Adlai E. Stevenson and Gov. John Peter Altgeld.

Musical Mudslinging on the Campaign Trail

Before TV came on the scene, presidential candidates relied on campaign songs for negative advertising

Bonnie Erickson with Statler in 1975.

The Woman Behind Miss Piggy

Muppet designer Bonnie Erickson on puppet storytelling and inspiration

An Underwood's long-tongued bat feeds on Mucuna flowers while in flight.

Making History: Bats to the Rescue

Scientists discover insect-eating bats may help sustain forests

Vintage pop-up book.

What’s Up

Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers

Bernini’s Genius

The Baroque master animated 17th-century Rome with his astonishing sculpture and architecture

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Stephen Kinzer on “Inside Iran’s Fury”

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Jeff Wheelwright on “The Secret of San Luis Valley”

Author of "Bernini's Genius," Arthur Lubow.

Arthur Lubow on “Bernini’s Genius”

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Puzzlers

Stonehenge’s purpose and a noble fish’s demise

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October Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

Carved sarsens-enormous blocks of hard sandstone-were used to build the towering trilithons that dominate the landscape of Salisbury Plain in southern England. But archaeologists Timothy Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright believe the smaller so-called bluestones hold the key to unraveling Stonehenge's mystery.

New Light on Stonehenge

The first dig in 44 years inside the stone circle changed our view of why—and even when—the monument was built

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