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Over its two-minute lifetime, the faux rhino (above: The Substitute) adapts “to his environment and moves around. His form and his sound become more lifelike, but ultimately, he is coming to life without any natural context and in this completely digital form," says the museum's curator Andrea Lipps.

The Northern White Rhino Went Extinct, But for Two Minutes at a Time, the Animal Makes a Digital Comeback

An artist’s 3-D recreation of the immense mammal probes the paradox of efforts to bring such animals back in the lab

Swamp wallabies can nourish three separate offspring at once: an older joey that's left the pouch, a young one nursing inside of it, and an embryo that has yet to be born.

Swamp Wallabies Can Get Pregnant While Pregnant

These marsupials can conceive during the final days of an ongoing pregnancy, creating a “backup” embryo ready to take its predecessor’s place

Cousins Flaurience Sengstacke (left) and Roberta G. Thomas (right) regaled readers with tales of their travels in some 20 Chicago Defender columns published between July 1931 and August 1932.

Experience 1930s Europe Through the Words of Two African American Women

In the pages of the “Chicago Defender,” the cousins detailed their adventures traversing the continent while also observing signs of the changing tides

A family commutes by cargo bike on a rail-and-trail path in Seattle.

Can We Really Combat Climate Change by Consuming Less? Maybe.

In her new book, scientist Hope Jahren talks about the warming planet and what can be done to slow its effects

The exhibition presents the possibility that 3-D models (above: a digital rendering of Aleppo following the 2012 civil war in Syria), and the information extracted from them can be used for future restoration projects.

Take a Walk Through These War-Torn Ancient Cities

An immersive exhibition at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery uses technology to reconstruct historically significant sites in Mosul, Aleppo and Palmyra

Elisabeth Moss in The Invisible Man

Science in the Movies

‘The Invisible Man’ Isn’t Real, but This Invisibility Technology Is

A new take on H.G. Wells’ classic novel is in theaters, but how far has real-life cloaking tech come?

Cars gather outside the Montgomery County, Alabama, jail as police begin bringing in religious and political leaders indicted in the bus boycott.

How Automobiles Helped Power the Civil Rights Movement

Montgomery bus boycotters had a secret weapon: cars

A robot and human interacting.

A New Study Finds People Prefer Robots That Explain Themselves

Engineers at UCLA explain how A.I. systems should be designed to both perform a task and win the trust of humans

Vegas Vicky, Las Vegas, Nevada

Virtual Travel

A Vibrant Tour of America’s Neon Signs

In his upcoming book ‘Neon Road Trip,’ photographer John Barnes captures a luminous part of advertising history

An autonomous float is lowered into the waters of Southern Ocean. Part of the SOCCOM project, floats like this measure a variety of parameters that allow scientists to determine whether the waters are absorbing or releasing carbon dioxide.

The World’s Best Natural Defense Against Climate Change May Soon Make Things Worse

As extreme weather rocks the Southern Ocean, a tumultuous mix of carbon dioxide, winds and warming waters could reach an environmental tipping point

The Moore home after the bomb explosion

The Unsolved Murder of Civil Rights Activist Harry Moore

An organizer who campaigned for justice in 1940s Florida, Moore was among the first martyrs to the cause

The Smithsonian's “Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World” exhibition is joining other efforts to combat misinformation about COVID-19 on multiple fronts. Volunteers, public programs and forthcoming content updates are providing visitors with access to credible and relevant information.

Covid-19

How Museums Can Help the Public Make Sense of Pandemics

We can’t let fear overrun science, says Sabrina Sholts, the Smithsonian’s curator of biological anthropology

Mo‘omomi Preserve on the north coast of the Hawaiian island of Moloka‘i protects a dune ecosystem that boasts rare coastal species.

Hawai‘i’s Last Dunes Are Home to Species Found Nowhere Else on the Planet

A nature preserve on Moloka‘i reveals rare life forms—some ancient and others just newly established

Vivid colors and images splash across a five-panel screen, bringing Joseph Banks and James Cook's voyage to life

250 Years Ago, Joseph Banks Documented Australia’s Glorious Botanical Bounty

A film on view at the Natural History Museum showcases the diversity of flora and fauna at the time of European arrival

This detail of a map, one of many in the collection of cartographic enthusiast George III, shows the Saint Lawrence River and Quebec during the French and Indian War in 1759, the year before George became King of England (and its American colonies).

These Newly Digitized Military Maps Explore the World of George III

The last British monarch to reign over the American colonies had a collection of more than 55,000 maps, each with their own story to tell

Big Snow American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is North America’s first indoor ski resort.

Eight of the World’s Coolest Indoor Snow Parks

When the ski slopes are melting, head to these climate-controlled resorts with predictable conditions

Author-illustrator duo Jon Scieszka and Steven Weinberg debut How to Make a Collagasaurus, a how-to booklet inviting kids to transform the Smithsonian collections into zany new art forms.

Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain

The launch of a new open access platform ushers in a new era of accessibility for the Institution

Graphic illustrating the MAVEN spacecraft encountering plasma layers at Mars.

Ten Trends That Will Shape Science in the Decade Ahead

Medicine gets trippy, solar takes over, and humanity—finally, maybe—goes back to the moon

Could New York be the Gotham we prize without the Guggenheim?

How New York Made Frank Lloyd Wright a Starchitect

The Wisconsin-born architect’s buildings helped turn the city he once called an ‘inglorious mantrap’ into the center of the world

The first two cheetah cubs born via embryo transfer

In a First, Cheetah Cubs Born Through Surrogacy at the Columbus Zoo

Zookeepers and Smithsonian scientists successfully transferred cheetah embryos, marking a major conservation milestone for the vulnerable species

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