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Articles

George Cruikshank’s impression of Dickens’ dystopia

How Charles Dickens Imagined a Westworld-like Robot Theme Park Back In 1838

The writer’s dystopia, populated by ‘automaton figures,’ was surprisingly modern

The Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer, or VEST, has 32 vibrating motors distributed around the torso.

Could This Futuristic Vest Give Us a Sixth Sense?

For starters, the new technology—appearing on ‘Westworld’ before hitting the market—could help the deaf parse speech and ambient noise

Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen, Cleveland, Ohio by David Gahr, 1977

Ten Rarely Seen Springsteen Photographs That Capture the Exhilarating Power of The Boss

A new book reveals the work of David Gahr, who documented the music legend as he rose to worldwide fame

You Can Get Free Admission to Any National Park This Saturday

Creating a phylogeny of all bird life will help researchers map birds' evolutionary relationships and create conservation plans.

New Research

What We Can Learn From a New Bird Tree of Life

Sequencing the DNA of more than 10,000 birds could reveal how best to conserve our feathery friends—and when they evolved from dinosaurs

Yamashita was the model for Chair, but this is not a self-portrait. "It could have been anyone," she says. "For me, poetry doesn’t exist in specificity."

Future of Art

Artist Kumi Yamashita Creates an Amazing Human Figure Out of Shadow

Coming soon to the National Portrait Gallery, an old art form gets reinvented

Human evolution is “one of the highest hurdles — if not the highest hurdle — to science education in America,” says Smithsonian's Rick Potts. Here, an early human fossil found in Broken Hill, Zambia.

How to Talk With Evangelicals About Evolution

For two years, researchers from the Smithsonian traveled the country explaining the science of our shared origins

Interactive touchpools in the aquarium.

Europe

Be Part of a Catch-and-Release Aquarium in Scotland

The Mull Aquarium in Tobermory invites visitors to help stock the tanks

A lithograph by French caricaturist J. J. Grandville depicts the torture of too much noise.

Why Are We Always Searching For “A Quiet Place?”

Perhaps the real monster is not noise, but instead our own intolerance of unwanted sounds

PLYMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND - "WAVE" August 23 - November 19, 2017

Europe

This Stunning Memorial to Britain’s WWI Soldiers Makes Its Final Appearance

The wave of brilliant red flowers marks the end of a centennial of commemorations of the Great War

On Tuesday night, Cal Ripken Jr. received the Smithsonian Great Americans medal recognizing lifetime contributions that embody American ideals and ideas

Baseball Legend Cal Ripken Jr. Takes Home Another Award, This Time From the Smithsonian

The Iron Man adds the American History Museum’s Great Americans medal to his trophy wall

A massive task force—150 full-time personnel from the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service—hunted the Unabomber.

When the Unabomber Was Arrested, One of the Longest Manhunts in FBI History Was Finally Over

Twenty years ago, the courts gave Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences, thereby ending more than a decade of terror.

Potter envisioned Hill Top as a living testament to rural tradition. Its artifacts, from crockery to rustic furniture, are reproduced in her drawings.

Britain’s Lake District Was Immortalized by Beatrix Potter, But Is Its Future in Peril?

Shepherds and ecologists are butting heads over what’s next for the beloved landscape

Tooth-mounted sensor

This Tiny Tooth Sensor Could Keep Track of the Food You Eat

The tooth-mounted device can recognize glucose, salt and alcohol, and researchers hope it can one day detect much more

Would you be – or feel – safer if one of these people were a robot?

Would You Trust Drone Software to Pilot Your Flight?

Drones have already flown more hours than humans have. Now companies are looking to apply that data to commercial flight

Powerhouse's strict definition of energy-positive takes every stage of a building's lifecycle into account, from the construction and transport of materials to eventual demolition.

In Norway, an Ambitious New Standard for Green Building Is Catching On

A coalition called Powerhouse is designing buildings that produce more energy than they use in their entire lifecycle

A Tyrannosaurus Rex head on display in Beijing. The country's fossil boom has resulted in a bevy of options for tourists seeking pterosaurs, feathered dinosaurs and early bird specimens.

Ten Chinese Museums Where You Can See a Dinosaur Fossil Up Close

The country’s dino explosion has created a mecca for tourists intent on catching a glimpse of feathered dinos and other prehistoric wonders

Pauline Esther "Popo" Phillips and her twin sister Esther Pauline "Eppie" competed for influence as the hugely successful "Dear Abby" and "Ask Ann Landers" syndicated columnists.

What Makes the Advice Column Uniquely American

In a new book, author Jessica Weisberg dives into the fascinating history of the advice industry

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