Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Articles

This pre-Inca chest ornament dates to between roughly 800 B.C. and 1 A.D. In 1986, the City of Cusco selected the disc's design as its official symbol and coat of arms.

A Golden Symbol of National Identity Returns to Peru

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has sent an ancient, pre-Inca breastplate back home

The tyrannosaur Nanuqsaurus with its young

Beyond Dinosaurs: The Secrets of Earth's Past

Dinosaurs Nested in the High Arctic

Tiny fossils of polar dinosaurs suggest that the reptiles stayed year-round

Townsend captured the Oregon dark-eyed junco, above, and the Townsend’s warbler, below, named after him—for now.

Birds Collected Nearly Two Centuries Ago Still Help Scientists Today

The specimens gathered during an illustrious expedition by naturalist John Kirk Townsend continue to provide value to researchers

Western lowland gorilla Moke eating a snack

Smithsonian Voices

The Science Behind the Snacks Animals Eat

Meals to please the palates of giant pandas, flamingos and fishing cats

The Algodón River flows through a forest of the Amazon Basin in the remote northeastern corner of Peru. Scientists collected and analyzed a series of ten roughly 3-foot-long soil cores from three sites, each located at least a half-mile away from river courses and floodplains.

Future of Conservation

In a Remote Amazon Region, Study Shows Indigenous Peoples Have Practiced Forest Conservation for Millennia

Smithsonian researcher Dolores Piperno says native people have always played an important role in sustainability

Here are 12 of the rarest doo-wop records ever made. “Can’t Help Loving That Girl of Mine” (1954) by Philadelphia’s Hide-A-Ways is, Shively says, the “holy grail of vocal group collecting.”

A Peek Inside the World’s Greatest Record Store

A lovable grouch, obsessed with the magic of American sidewalk harmony, runs the Philadelphia shop

Thirteen-year-old Pedro de Frutos stands inside a dormant volcano near Timanfaya National Park. A series of eruptions began in 1730 and lasted six years.

Learning to Love the Hardscrabble Life on Lanzarote

A photographic tour of those who eke out a life on the sunblasted island transformed by a volcano

Orange scalefin anthias fish swarm in front of a fire coral in the Red Sea's Ras Mohammed Marine Park, Egypt.

Smithsonian Voices

Will the Oceans of 2030 Brim With Reef Robots and Other Fancy Stuff?

Imagine a world where an Indigenous fisher can get forecasts of local marine life from a smartphone, or robots offer real-time data on coral reef health

Matt Shepard in high school, taken in Lugano, Switzerland

Smithsonian Voices

The Story of Matthew Shepard’s Life Is Told in Artifacts Held at the National Museum of American History

Being LGBTQ can dangerous and a personal burden, but theses objects show that it can also be joyful and fabulous

Custard apple trees—a freshwater version of mangroves once ringed Lake Okeechobee’s southern shore in a three-mile-wide belt. Today, barely 100 acres remain.

The Strange Beauty at the Edge of the Everglades

Chronicling the historic struggles of the Florida farming community known as Belle Glade

His exposés of New York City slums would “send a chill to any heart,” wrote Jacob Riis, who also covered crime.

A Sensational Murder Case That Ended in a Wrongful Conviction

The role of famed social reformer Jacob Riis in overturning the verdict prefigured today’s calls for restorative justice

Recent research has shown that most scientific papers on coral biodiversity are led by people in high-income countries with few coral reefs.

The Pandemic Showed What Can Be Done Without Parachute Science

With international scientists barred from traveling, local scientists in the Pacific islands are taking the chance to lead.

André Michaux, a French botanist, was an ambitious explorer whose legacy has largely been forgotten.

The Forgotten French Scientist Who Courted Thomas Jefferson—and Got Pulled Into Scandal

A decade before Lewis and Clark, André Michaux wanted to explore the American continent. Spying for France gave him that chance

Archaeologists excavated the White Monument, which stood north of the village of Igraya until the area was flooded in the late 1990s.

Archaeologists Propose 4,500-Year-Old Burial Mound Was World’s First Military Memorial

Mesopotamians turned a community tomb on the Euphrates into a battle monument

An artist’s illustration shows an asteroid hitting Earth. Large impactors hit the planet every one to three million years.

New Research of Impact Crater Blows Away Previous Estimates of Its Age

Scientists say the Boltysh crater in Ukraine formed well after the impact in Mexico that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct

DARPA's initial, modest goal is to alleviate jet lag.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

This Implant Could One Day Control Your Sleep and Wake Cycles

The so-called ‘living pharmacy’ will be able to manufacture pharmaceuticals from inside the body

Lacey Baker's personalized skateboards

Smithsonian Voices

How LGBTQ Skateboarders Have Carved Out a Place at the Park

The Smithsonian has collected from members of the diverse and fiercely dedicated LGBTQ skate community

A giant replica of the Aedes mosquito, a known vector for the disease yellow fever, has been waiting for visitors to return the National Museum of Natural History’s “Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World” exhibit.

Smithsonian Voices

Don’t Miss These Objects When the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum Reopens

See everything from a giant replica of a mosquito, to an Allosaurus fossil, to a pink fairy armadillo when the museum opens June 18

Beneath the ruins of the Bubasteion temple, archaeologists discovered “megatombs” crammed with burials. The coffins pictured date to more than 2,000 years ago.

Inside the Tombs of Saqqara

Dramatic new discoveries in the ancient Egytptian burial ground. A special report produced with Smithsonian Channel

An engineer demonstrates a car phone five months before the historic first call on a competing company’s commercial mobile telephone service in 1946.

The First Mobile Phone Call Was Made 75 Years Ago

The evolution of the cell phone illustrates what it takes for technologies to go from breakthrough to big time

Page 162 of 1327