Articles

Italian company Beeing’s B-Box is small enough to keep on even a modest urban balcony.

Nine Attention-Grabbing Inventions Unveiled at This Year's CES

Held virtually, the Consumer Electronics Show still debuted plenty of new gadgets, from an easy-to-use beehive to a Bluetooth mask

Three of Yosl Cutler’s surviving puppets: two Jewish characters and one Russian. These were constructed circa 1933.

Smithsonian Voices

The Life and Death of a Yiddish Puppet Theater

Puppets weren’t a common form of entertainment in Jewish culture

Lightning strikes over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.

Why Are Lightning 'Superbolts' More Common Over the Ocean?

Salt seems to be the reason why bolts are brighter over seas than over land

Scientists estimate this pig painting was drawn 45,500 years ago.

45,000-Year-Old Pig Painting in Indonesia May Be Oldest Known Animal Art

Ice Age cave painters flourished in Southeast Asia, where their work adorned rock walls

Portrait of Charles Curtis

Who Was Charles Curtis, the First Vice President of Color?

A member of the Kaw Nation, Curtis served under Herbert Hoover, but he left a troubling legacy on Native American issues

A meteorite in the process of being recovered by volunteers in the Antarctic Search for Meteorites program. The shiny fusion crust on this meteorite suggests it may be an achondrite.

Smithsonian Voices

What Antarctic Meteorites Tell Us About Earth's Origins

Each year, Smithsonian scientists collect hundreds of meteorites from Antarctica that reveal details about the origins of Earth and our solar system

Intense visions and confusion about the reality of hospitalization can be especially scarring, leaving patients with intrusive thoughts, flashbacks and vivid nightmares. If such responses persist for more than one month and cause functional impairment or distress, it may be diagnosed as PTSD.

Why PTSD May Plague Many Hospitalized Covid-19 Survivors

Scientists warn about the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder for patients discharged from the intensive care unit

None

From His Tattered Chair, TV's Archie Bunker Caricatured America's Divides

The 1971 show aired the fraught political differences that were "All in the Family"

Bellerby & Co. is a studio in London that makes globes by hand.

Take a Peek Into One of the Last Studios Still Making Globes by Hand

Spinning a globe is one way to 'travel' the world during the pandemic

The brown tree snake slithers through vegetation.

Invasive Brown Tree Snakes Stun Scientists With Amazing New Climbing Tactic

The successful predator, which has decimated bird populations on Guam, lassoes its body around poles in order to propel itself upwards

Shef, which currently operates in the Bay Area and New York City, features meals made by chefs specializing in dozens of cuisines and hundreds of dishes.

Sick of Quarantine Cooking? New Companies Let Chefs Prepare Homemade Meals for You

Startups like Shef and WoodSpoon give Covid-impacted professional chefs and excellent home cooks a platform for sharing their food

This month's book picks include Icebound, A Shot in the Moonlight and The Eagles of Heart Mountain.

Books of the Month

A Doomed Arctic Expedition, Number-Free Math and Other New Books to Read

These five January releases may have been lost in the news cycle

Every mark in Robert McCurdy’s portraits, above: Untitled (The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso), is meticulously rendered from the baby hairs that frame his subjects’ temples to the crow’s feet that border their eyes.

Why Robert McCurdy's Photo-Realist Portraits Stop Viewers in Their Tracks

The key to these singular portraits of influential leaders of our time rests in the gaze and the exacting details of the clothing

Researchers are hoping to track the conditions lobsters experience as they travel through the supply chain with an eye to reducing the number that die along the way.

A New Device Tracks Lobsters as They Move Through the Supply Chain

Researchers hope the technology can be used to reduce the number of the crustaceans that die along the way

The depiction of corsets in the premiere episode of "Bridgerton" is more of the same mythmaking from popular culture.

Based on a True Story

What 'Bridgerton' Gets Wrong About Corsets

Women's rights were severely restricted in 19th-century England, but their undergarments weren't to blame

After composing and transcribing music for my wedding day, Red Baraat was born. Dave Sharma leads the baraat (wedding procession) on dhol, as I walk with my mother, family, and friends. August 27, 2005.

Smithsonian Voices

Musician Sunny Jain Reflects on Jainism, Jazz and the Punjabi Dhol Drum

While the originations of the dhol are not known with complete certainty, what is known is that it is a sound that has migrated

(Top row) Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg, Barron Ryan, Arturo Elizondo, (middle row) Samantha Pratt, Gitanjali Rao, Anitra Belle Henderson, (bottom row) Kennyjie, Andrea Ponti and Brett Phaneuf

Innovation for Good

Ten Innovators to Watch in 2021

These visionaries are imagining an exciting future with chicken-less eggs, self-piloting ships and more

A Perseid meteor burns up against the night sky over Big Bend National Park.

Ten Celestial Events to Look Forward to in 2021

Eclipses, meteor showers and dazzling views of planets will excite amateur and professional astronomers alike in North America

The Aranui 5 is a passenger-freighter vessel that makes 14-day voyages between Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.

This Polynesian Cruise Ship Has a Resident Tattoo Artist

Sailing between Tahiti and the Marquesas, Eddy Tata provides passengers with Polynesian-style tattoos based on their life stories

From left: “Left Side Right Side” (still) by Joan Jonas, 1972. Alice Walker by Bernard Gotfryd. Louis Armstrong (detail) by Philippe Halsman.

Smithsonian Voices

Warm Up Your Winter With the National Portrait Gallery's Online Events

Visitors and families can enjoy all the museum has to offer from the comfort of their own homes

Page 117 of 1262