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Articles

NASA Names Its Next Mars Rover ‘Perseverance’

In an illustrated narrative, Perseverance—scheduled to launch this summer—searches for any signs of past microbial life on Mars

Anya Taylor-Joy plays the manipulative-but-well-intentioned titular character Emma in Autumn de Wilde's adaptation of the oft-revisited Austen novel.

What Autumn de Wilde’s ‘Emma’ Gets Right About Jane Austen’s Irony

By turns faithful and deeply irreverent, the newest Austen adaptation offers an oddly delightful mix of 19th-century satire and Wes Anderson

The military latched on to the trampoline as a training device for pilots, to allow them to learn how to reorient themselves to their surroundings after difficult air maneuvers.

How the Trampoline Came to Be

Inspired by circus performers, George Nissen created the bouncing ‘tumbling device’ that still captures imaginations 75 years later

This engraving by Paul Revere offered a specific argument about what happened that day in Boston.

A Fresh Look at the Boston Massacre, 250 Years After the Event That Jumpstarted the Revolution

The five deaths may have shook the colonies, but a new book examines the personal relationships forever changed by them too

An artist’s depiction of Gunakadeit joseeae

215-Million-Year-Old, Sharp-Nosed Sea Creature Was Among the Last of Its Kind

Researchers gave the marine reptile the genus name Gunakadeit in honor of a sea monster from Tlingit oral history

Satellite image of the Thomas Fire's burn scar and active flames, in northern Ventura, on December 5, 2017.

Could Wildfire Ash Feed the Ocean’s Tiniest Life-Forms?

Ash falling on the ocean after a wildfire could fuel plankton growth

Surfers ride the bore tide at Turnagain Arm.

How to Surf Alaska’s Bore Tide

Turnagain Arm offers surfers an experience they can’t get anywhere else in the country

Strobridge Lithographing Company, Kellar and His Perplexing Cabinet Mysteries, 1894. Purchase, funds graciously donated by La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso.

The Amazing Poster Art From the ‘Golden Age’ of Magic

An exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario shows how magicians enticed audiences with advertisements of levitations, decapitations and other deceptions

See the 17th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Finalists and Vote for the Readers’ Choice Winner

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

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