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The fuzz of the fingernail-sized rosy maple moth may remind you of a teddy bear.

These Moths Are So Gorgeous They ‘Put Butterflies to Shame’

To celebrate National Moth Week, bask in the beautiful variety of these oft-overlooked insects

Pure athletic prowess wasn’t really the point—the People’s Olympiad was about cultivating a spirit of equality, in direct contrast to Nazi ideals.

The Paris Olympics

The ‘Protest’ Olympics That Never Came to Be

A leftist response to the 1936 Games being held in Nazi Germany, the proposed competition was canceled by the Spanish Civil War

Researchers say that wild plants that gave rise to today’s three lineages of cannabis grew in present-day China.

New Study Suggests Cannabis’ Wild Ancestors Likely Came from China

The analysis identifies East Asia as a potential source of genetic diversity for the growing market for medical and recreational marijuana

The entrance to Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.

Fifty Years Ago, Berkeley Restaurant Chez Panisse Launched the Farm-to-Table Movement

‘Local, organic, sustainable’ are common buzzwords on American menus now, but it wasn’t always that way

Maui's Haleakala is the world's largest dormant volcano, and its summit is considered the quietest place on Earth.

Ridiculous Reviews of Some of the Best National Parks

A new book combines illustrations of the parks with laughably bad critiques from disgruntled tourists

The Covid pandemic prompted universities to rethink the value of standardized tests for admissions.

Has the Pandemic Put an End to the SAT and ACT?

Many colleges and universities stopped requiring the tests during Covid, and it is unclear if they will return to testing in the future

Robert McCurdy, Untitled, Jeffrey P. Bezos, 2019, oil on canvas

Jeff Bezos Gifts Historic $200 Million to the Smithsonian

The Amazon founder’s gift—the largest since the Institution was created in 1846—will support the Air and Space Museum renovation and a new education center

Good dogs often gets treats as rewards. A new experiment shows that dogs who get fed, when given the chance to reciprocate, usually won’t pay their owners back with food.

New Study Shows Dogs Don’t Return the Favor After Strangers Feed Them

A new lab experiment reveals pooches don’t pay humans back with a treat after the canines are fed

Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry, which famously depicts William the Conqueror's victory over the so-called Anglo-Saxons

The Many Myths of the Term ‘Anglo-Saxon’

Two medieval scholars tackle the misuse of a phrase that was rarely used by its supposed namesakes

The vestiges of two limestone tuberculosis huts can still be seen in Mammoth Cave.

When Tuberculosis Patients Quarantined Inside Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave

In the early 1840s, believing the air was therapeutic, Kentucky doctor John Croghan ran a consumption sanatorium deep underground

The Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a Schwalbe, meaning Swallow, held in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum was captured in 1945 by a special U.S. Army Air Force team led by Col. Harold Watson. The Americans and British, who were also developing jet aircraft, used captured Swallows to enhance their own programs.

The Day Germany’s First Jet Fighter Soared Into History

Allied pilots were surprised by the aircraft’s speed and armament; but it was a case of too little too late

Southern giant petrels have so far killed nearly 100 Atlantic yellow-nosed albatrosses on Gough Island in the South Atlantic.

Giant New Predators Killing Imperiled Albatrosses

Videos show southern giant petrels killing Gough Island’s beautiful endangered seabirds

Nine out of 10 malaria victims live in Africa, most of them children under the age of five.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

West African Scientists Are Leading the Science Behind a Malaria Vaccine

Researchers in Mali have been working for decades on the treatment that’s now in the final phase of clinical trials

The ancient mammal Gobioconodon (right) squabbles with a therian mammal over a meal in the Late Cretaceous.

Other Mammals, Not Dinosaurs, Kept Our Ancestors Down

The asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous gave our mammalian ancestors, the therians, an edge over their mammalian competitors

Map of Nova Scotia made in 1755 by provincial chief surveyor Charles Morris

Unraveling the Colonialist Myths of Nova Scotia

Planners saw the region as a blank space ripe for transformation: the perfect canvas for imperial fantasies

Rain, waves, and seeping groundwater can destabilize seaside bluffs, making them prone to collapse.

The Science of Predicting When Bluffs in Southern California Will Collapse

Researchers are using lidar to better understand the erosional forces that cause oceanfront cliffs to crumble

B.B. King is among the performers featured in the documentary Summer of Soul.

The Story Behind the Harlem Cultural Festival Featured in ‘Summer of Soul’

Jesse Jackson, Nina Simone, B.B. King and 100,000 spectators gathered for a concert worth remembering

An Atlantic White Shark Conservancy boat and crew work to tag a great white shark in the waters off the shore in Cape Cod, Massachusetts on July 13, 2019.

Can New Tools Help Beachgoers Predict the Likelihood That a Shark Is Nearby?

Great whites have returned to Cape Cod, and efforts are underway to help people coexist with them

A seabird known as the white tern or Manu-o-Kū has surprised birders by taking up residence in Honolulu, Hawai‘i.

Future of Conservation

Meet the White Tern, a Seabird Surprisingly Thriving in a Big City

The bird—also known as Manu-o-Kū—has excited ornithologists, its population growing within Honolulu, the busiest of Hawai’i’s urban landscapes

In 1939, at age 13, Villa played for the East Los Angeles girls’ community team, the Garvey Stars. Over the next few years, she played for the semiprofessional Orange Lionettes team in Southern California and was signed to play in the AAGPBL in 1946.

The Record-Setting Latina Player Marge Villa Leveled the Playing Field

The Mexican American utility player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League receives a curtain call

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