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Chilean devil rays swim in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azores. 

What Are Scientists Learning About the Deepest Diving Creatures in the Ocean?

Animals-turned-oceanographers are helping biologists find out what they do when they get to the cold, dark depths

In a 1929 column, Amelia Earhart name-checked Keating as an example of a woman in aviation who had beaten the odds, writing, "She photographs from the air and helps make the beautifully accurate maps which compose aerial surveys."

Untold Stories of American History

In 1920s New York, This Woman Typist Became a Pioneering Aerial Photographer

Edith Keating survived the Halifax Explosion and eventually took to the skies, marking a path for other women to fly in her wake

Located alongside New Jersey’s southernmost point, Cape May is a stunning Victorian shore community that once played a role in guiding Black enslaved laborers to freedom.

The 15 Best Small Towns to Visit in 2022

From the alleged birthplace of Paul Bunyan to the original gateway to Yellowstone, these towns are buzzing with activity

On May 20, the artist KAWS, also known as Brian Donnelly (above at Rockefeller Center in August 2021), received from the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden an award for "his contributions to art and popular culture."

Is a KAWS Celeb Sighting Cause for Speculation?

The ex-street artist turned art-world sensation receives a warm reception and an award from the Hirshhorn

A baby receives a mallaria vaccine from a nurse at the maternity ward of the Ewin Polyclinic in Ghana in 2019.

Why Did It Take 35 Years to Get a Malaria Vaccine?

The parasite’s complex biology played a role in the delay, but experts say there was also a lack of urgency and funding

A new study shows that children who play individual sports, like tennis, may have more mental health issues than those that play team sports or don’t participate in sports at all.

The Future of Mental Health

Should Parents Worry About New Research Linking Kids’ Mental Health and Individual Sports?

According to the study, children who played team sports had fewer mental health difficulties than those who didn’t play sports

Recreational fishers have discovered a new way to scout for fish and cast a line.

Is Fishing With a Drone the Way of the Future?

Not everyone is on board. The technology is dividing the fishing community and drawing the ire of some politicians and scientists

Hassinger's video (above: Birthright by Maren Hassinger, 2005) is a powerful history of seven orphaned children, a story of stolen labor and stolen lives, a family chronicle “that came out of being enslaved, the aftermath of slavery,” says the artist.

Join in a Meditation on the Twists of Memories Handed Down From One Generation to Another

A new commission, based on the acclaimed video ‘Birthright’ by artist Maren Hassenger, explores the legacy of slavery in family history

Li Shiu Tong and Magnus Hirschfeld at the 1932 conference for the World League for Sexual Reform

LGBTQ+ Pride

The Gay Asian Activist Whose Theories on Sexuality Were Decades Ahead of Their Time

In the 1930s, Li Shiu Tong’s boyfriend, Magnus Hirschfeld, was a prominent defender of gay people. But Li’s own research has long been overlooked

Paleontologists are just beginning to uncover the evolutionary backstory of armored dinosaurs like the ankylosaur Euoplocephalus.

New Fossil Finds Track When Armored Dinosaurs Spread Around the World

Discoveries in Asia and Africa are rewriting the backstory of dinosaurs like Stegosaurus

At a time of widespread public health crises and evolving ideas about how illnesses spread, kissing was an easily avoidable vector of disease. Unfortunately for Imogene Rechtin, most people proved unwilling to give it up.

Untold Stories of American History

The Woman Who Fought to End the ‘Pernicious’ Scourge of Kissing

New understandings of how disease spread informed Imogene Rechtin’s ill-fated 1910 campaign to ban a universal human practice

This year, sixteen bakers delivered on the challenge.

Good News

This Museum Is Asking People to Remake Famous Artworks With Cake

Through its annual bake-off, the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, provides a fun way for the public to engage with its collections

The House of Slaves on Senegal’s Island of Gorée is one of 284 significant African coastal sites included in a recent assessment of climate risk.

Climate Change Threatens Important African Coastal Sites

Dozens of important cultural, social, and ecological places are already at risk from climate hazards.

According to author Christopher A. Thomas, the dedication "was a microcosm of the strained race relations of its day, marked by the rhetoric of good intentions and the behavior of bigotry."

A Century Ago, the Lincoln Memorial’s Dedication Underscored the Nation’s Racial Divide

Seating was segregated, and the ceremony’s only Black speaker was forced to drastically revise his speech to avoid spreading “propaganda”

Tom Cruise revives his Top Gun role as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the new film arriving in theaters May 27.

‘Top Gun’ Is Back. But Is the Elite Navy Fighter Pilot School Really Like the Movies?

The Smithsonian’s Chris Browne flew the much-feared F-14, and as a former TOPGUN student, knows well the power of a Navy-trained fighter pilot

The archive of written work and speeches delivered by suffragists simply doesn’t indicate that abortion was at the forefront of discussions about women’s rights during the mid-19th to early 20th centuries.

History of Now

What Did the Suffragists Really Think About Abortion?

Contrary to contemporary claims, Susan B. Anthony and her peers rarely discussed abortion, which only emerged as a key political issue in the 1960s

In August 1994, Cuba's leader Fidel Castro announced a reprieve in the enforcement of laws governing emigration (above: a homemade raft sets off from the coast near Havana on August 22, 1994) and as a result nearly 35,000 left the island.  

A Makeshift Raft Speaks to the Risks Cubans Took to Escape Their Homeland

In the mid-1990s, tens of thousands left in boats or handcrafted floats facing treacherous waters in search of a better life

A 3D animation created using data from LiDAR shows the urban center of Cotoca.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

Lost Cities of the Amazon Discovered From the Air

Mapping technology cut through the canopy to detect sprawling urban structures in Bolivia that suggest sophisticated cultures once existed

The Blue-Haired Fairy and the Talking Cricket try to make Pinocchio drink a medicine in an illustration for the children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi (1826-1890).

Who Was Pinocchio’s Mysterious Blue-Haired Fairy?

Author Carlo Collodi may have drawn inspiration from one—or a few—female figures in his life

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Untold Stories of American History

Escape From the Gilded Cage

Even if her husband was a murderer, a woman in a bad marriage once had few options. Unless she fled to South Dakota

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