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Articles

LGBTQ students are five times more likely than straight peers to miss school because they feel unsafe.

How a Little Yellow Bus Came to the Rescue of a Persecuted Schoolboy

LGBTQ activist and journalist Bil Browning reminisces about the importance of a simple toy

In 1776, the year she married, Julia Stockton Rush was painted by Charles Willson Peale.

Rediscovering a Founding Mother

Just-discovered letters herald the significance of an unsung Revolutionary woman, Julia Rush

The couch on which Freud’s patients lay became identified with psychoanalysis itself. He shipped it to London when he left Vienna.

Secrets of American History

What Drove Sigmund Freud to Write a Scandalous Biography of Woodrow Wilson?

The founder of psychoanalysis collaborated with a junior American diplomat to lambaste the former president

Seminole Indian medicine man and rainmaker, Bobby Henry, visits the Walt Disney World Resort gallery exhibition "Creating Tradition: Innovation and Change in American Indian Art" in The American Adventure pavilion at Epcot.

Commentary

Epcot Just Got a New Smithsonian Museum Exhibition

Worlds apart yet sharing so much, the two vacation destinations collaborate to bring scholarship and authenticity to Disney audiences

Lothagam North Pillar Kenya, built by eastern Africa's earliest herders about 5000 years ago. Megaliths, stone circles, and cairns can be seen behind the platform mound, which upends what scientists believe about how and why early monuments were made.

Their World Was Crumbling, but These Ancient People Built a Lasting Memorial

A 5,000-year-old burial site near Kenya’s Lake Turkana likely served as a bonding place for a culture in flux

Robert Smalls, memorialized in a bust at Beaufort’s Tabernacle Baptist Church, was sent to work in Charleston at age 12 after he started defying the strictures of slavery.

Secrets of American History

Terrorized African-Americans Found Their Champion in Civil War Hero Robert Smalls

The formerly enslaved South Carolinian declared that whites had killed 53,000 African-Americans, but few took the explosive claim seriously—until now

A child tests the Superpower Glass.

“Superpower Glass” Helps Kids With Autism Understand Emotions

A new Stanford-designed technology pairs Google Glass with a face-identifying AI app that tells wearers what emotions they’re seeing

How to Cipher Like a Soviet

See if you can figure out how the American code-breakers unraveled the complexities of the Russian codebook

In the spring of 2018, Angeline Nanni revisited Arlington Hall, where the Venona team got cracking. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Secrets of American History

The Women Code Breakers Who Unmasked Soviet Spies

At the height of the Cold War, America’s most secretive counterespionage effort set out to crack unbreakable ciphers

Bigfoot is still a big deal to many conspiracy theorists.

Why Do So Many People Still Want to Believe in Bigfoot?

The appeal of the mythical, wild man holds strong

Leonard Bernstein, Carnegie Hall, New York City by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1960 goes on view at the National Portrait Gallery on Bernstein's 100th birthday, August 25, 2018.

The Moment That Defines Famed American Composer Leonard Bernstein

The National Portrait Gallery showcases a celebrated conductor as portrayed by the master French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson

Donated blood must be matched carefully with donors to prevent a negative immune reaction--but new research may make it possible to create more universal blood.

In the Quest for Universal Blood, Go With Your Gut

Scientists enlisted enzymes produced by gut bacteria to turn blood into type O

This early map of the newly settled colony of Virginia features a photo of Sir Francis Drake

Did Francis Drake Bring Enslaved Africans to North America Decades Before Jamestown?

The English privateer arrived on the Carolina coast after sacking Spanish lands in the Caribbean, but who, if anyone, did he leave behind?

James Lendemer and doctoral student Jordan Hoffman search for rare lichen, some of the least studied organisms on earth.

On the Hunt for Unloved, Unstudied, Yet Super Important Lichen

James Lendemer is one of the few people taking stock of one of the world’s most peculiar lifeforms

Few oil paintings exist of prominent early-20th century African-Americans (above: Portrait of Clarence Muse and Elliot Carpenter by Woodard's Studio, ca. 1937), but the photographic record is much richer, says Kate Lemay.

How Can Museums Democratize Portraiture?

As the National Portrait Gallery turns 50, it is asking how well its collections represent the people—and where there is room for improvement

FOG (fats, oils and greases) in various stages of treatment

Turning Fatbergs Into Biofuel

Researchers have developed a new method for recycling greasy sewer blockages into green fuel

A pair of Aedes albopticus mosquitoes mating. These mosquitoes are very closely related to the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes used in the WeRobotics/IAEA trials, and both can carry Zika, yellow fever and dengue. The female is much larger.

Do Not Fear the Drones Air-Dropping 50,000 Mosquitoes From Above

These horny buggers are actually here to help us fight the spread of disease

Svalbard has the densest population of surging glaciers in the world.

What the Surging Glaciers of Svalbard Tell Us About the Future of Rising Seas

Scientists look to the Norwegian archipelago’s fast-moving glaciers to better understand how other accelerating glaciers will behave

A carpet making master class run by the Getik Bed and Breakfast in eastern Armenia.

Armenia

Artisan Master Classes Hope to Draw Travelers Into the Armenian Countryside

A local NGO is working with farmers and craft makers to develop new cultural tourism offerings in Armenia’s scenic Gegharkunik region

Throughout the mid-1800s, improvements on the spectroscope allowed physicists to more accurately measure the wavelengths of light and identify new elements—like helium.

How Scientists Discovered Helium, the First Alien Element, 150 Years Ago

First found only on the sun, scientists doubted the mysterious element even existed for more than a decade

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