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According to the World Health Organization, some 42 "candidate vaccines" against the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 are undergoing clinical trials.

Covid-19

What Is the Best Strategy to Deploy a Covid-19 Vaccine?

Mathematicians are modeling different scenarios for a vaccine rollout to see what may work best

Lorna Truck and Tim Benson. Photograph documenting burning of Robert Pincus-Witten's book Postminimalism (1977) at the request of artist Buster Cleveland as part of the 1979 Des Moines Festival of the Avant-Garde, circa 1979.

Smithsonian Voices

Meet the Pioneering Virtual Artist Fred Truck

By using electronic tools to facilitate communications between artists and computer-based artworks, Truck established himself as a pivotal figure

A white cloud floats over the top of Mount Everest at dusk.

Into Thicker Air and Onto Thinner Ice: How Climate Change Is Affecting Mount Everest

Researchers have documented that the high-altitude air is gaining more oxygen and large glaciers are melting at rapid rates

The F/A-18C Hornet is ready to be exhibited, in near-perfect condition even after being put through a myriad of maneuvers with the Blue Angels: rolls, dives, loops, tight formations and synchronized passes, which did cause some wear and tear to the plane’s surface.

A Special Air Delivery From the U.S. Navy Arrives With Only a Few Dings

An F/A-18C Blue Angels Hornet just flew into D.C. to make its debut as a museum artifact at the National Air and Space Museum

Smithsonian locations closing November 23, 2020 include: The National Zoo, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Renwick Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Udvar-Hazy Center.

Smithsonian Museums and the National Zoo to Close Due to Increased Cases of Covid-19

In an official statement, the Institution announced a temporary closing of all its public facilities beginning November 23

A new exhibition "Every Eye Is Upon Me: First Ladies of the United States" is on view at the National Portrait Gallery; clockwise from top left: Mamie Eisenhower, Lady Bird Johnson, Grace Coolidge, Nancy Reagan, Dolley Madison, Abigail Fillmore, Frances Cleveland and Sarah Polk.

How History Records the Peculiar Role of America’s First Ladies

A new exhibition, “Every Eye is Upon Me,” pays tribute to the ever-changing role of the women who hold this unelected office

Waimea Bay takes its name from the Hawaiian word for "reddish-brown waters."

What the Survival of the Hawaiian Language Means to Those Who Speak It

A Smithsonian curator recalls his own experience learning the native tongue

One of Tyrus Wong's popular holiday cards.

How Tyrus Wong’s Christmas Cards Captivated the American Public

The unlikely Hollywood visionary of ‘Bambi’ fame designed what would become some of the most popular holiday stationery of all time

Daphne, an autonomous solar-powered vessel developed by British Columbia–based Open Ocean Robotics, is part of a wave of new ocean robots designed to police illegal fishing.

A New Generation of Autonomous Vessels Is Looking to Catch Illegal Fishers

A design challenge has tech companies racing to build a robot that can police illegal fishing in marine protected areas

Bee species are more diverse in dry regions where pollen is abundant.

Scientists Create a Buzz With the First Ever Global Map of Bee Species

Most of the insects avoid the tropics and choose treeless environments in arid parts of the world

Erle Stanley Gardner is best remembered as a novelist. But he was also a lawyer deeply concerned about victims of injustice. “It is too easy to convict innocent persons,” he wrote in a 1959 letter to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

The Case of the Autographed Corpse

The author of the Perry Mason novels rose to the defense of an Apache shaman who was falsely convicted of killing his wife

To keep Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit from degrading, conservators designed a custom mannequin that allows air to circulate inside.

Secretary Lonnie Bunch on the Invisible Work of the Smithsonian’s Conservators

From deep cleaning to painstaking repairs, caring for Smithsonian’s 155 million objects requires serious TLC—and steady hands

Border collie Chaser had the largest tested word memory of any animal (other than a human).

The Most Famous Dogs of Science

These iconic canines have helped scientists make key discoveries, from archeological finds to cures for disease

Magnavox’s Odyssey cost $99.95 in 1972—about $625 in today’s money. By comparison, today’s web-ready, famously portable Nintendo Switch sells for around $300.

The Failure of the Magnavox Odyssey Led the Way for the Future of Gaming

The first console reached homes 11 years before Nintendo, marking the beginning of a multibillion-dollar industry

The Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems working group combines expertise from paleontologists and ecologists to improve our understanding of ancient and modern ecosystems

Smithsonian Voices

A New Study Shows How Evolution Was Driven by How Different Species Interacted

Competition for resources, symbiosis or predation shapes the evolution and survival of species

Reconstruction of a titanosaur with ulcerations

First Evidence of Parasites in Dinosaur Bones Found

A team of paleontologists used CT scans and tissue samples to uncover blood pathogens in an infected titanosaur

Jimi Hendrix, 24, in his breakout set at Monterey in 1967.

The Exotic Vest That Introduced America to Jimi Hendrix

The fashionable garment conjures the guitarist’s dazzling performance at the Monterey County Fairgrounds

One of the oldest living organisms on Earth is a colony of Neptune grass in this vast meadow of the plant in the Mediterranean Sea.

Planet Positive

Why Seagrass Could Be the Ocean’s Secret Weapon Against Climate Change

A vast, mostly invisible ecosystem crucial to our life on Earth is in trouble, but efforts to save the ‘prairies of the sea’ are finally coming into focus

Left, Self-titled Adaptation of Le Rêve (1932), by Niko Luoma, 2015. Right, Le Rêve, by Pablo Picasso, 1932.

Recreating Modernist Artwork by Photograph

Niko Luoma takes a fresh look at paintings that may seem stale

"Poetry is about those lyric transcendent moments," says Kevin Young, the new director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, "and so is the museum, it reminds us what is possible."

A Bold Anthology Shows How R-I-G-H-T and W-R-I-T-E Come Together in Black Poetry

Poet and essayist Kevin Young discusses his new book, “African American Poetry,” and his new post at the Smithsonian

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