Articles

How You Wound Up Playing ‘The Oregon Trail’ in Computer Class

From the 1970s to 1990s, the government-owned Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium dominated the educational software market with more than 300 games

July 22, 2016

Age of Humans

Podcast: Our Food, Our Selves

Food is a focal point for understanding broader environmental problems. In this podcast, we learn how food buyers are influenced in surprising ways.

July 22, 2016

Commentary

How to Avoid the Pitfalls in the Politics of Graphic Messaging

The director of the National Portrait Gallery offers a few pointers on how to acquire visual intelligence

July 21, 2016

New Research

Forget Bees: This Bird Has the Sweetest Deal With Honey-Seeking Humans

The effectiveness of the honeyguide call sheds light on why this golden relationship has stuck around so long

July 21, 2016

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Alaska

The Essence of Alaska Lies Somewhere Between Myth and Reality

An Alaska native grapples with the meaning of his home state

July 21, 2016

Instead of Painkillers, Some Doctors Are Prescribing Virtual Reality

Virtual reality therapy may be medicine’s newest frontier, as VR devices become better and cheaper

July 21, 2016

Chew on This: Powerful Jaws Fueled a Jurassic Herbivore Boom

Teeth, not flowers, might be the key to the duckbills’ success

July 21, 2016

Age of Humans

The Enduring Climate Legacy of Mauna Loa

Sixty years after a trailblazing climate scientist scaled its heights, the Hawaii-based observatory remains essential

July 20, 2016

How Parasites Became So Popular

A new study finds that parasitism evolved independently 223 times. But that number is actually surprisingly low

July 20, 2016

Were Ants the World’s First Farmers?

A new study shows that a group of ants have been conducting a subsistence type of farming since shortly after the dinosaurs died out

July 20, 2016

Commentary

Should We Hate Poetry?

It was precisely because poetry wasn’t hated that Plato feared it, writes the Smithsonian’s senior historian David Ward, who loves poetry

July 20, 2016

History of Now

What the Candidates (and Journalists) Can Learn From the 1948 Democratic Convention

The first time television was beamed into millions of homes meant that presidential politics would have to change

July 19, 2016

Please Touch the Art: This Artist Creates Tactile Portraits for the Blind

Andrew Myers uses screws to make 3-D masterpieces for curious fingers

July 19, 2016

There’s No Wrong Way to Make a Tadpole (or Froglet)

Marsupial frogs, “vomit frogs” and foam-spewers reveal the glorious range of frog baby-making techniques

July 18, 2016

Why Chemicals in the U.S. Are Still “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”

A new chemical bill makes major strides, but doesn’t fix the root problem

July 18, 2016

Future of Energy

Meet Eight Young Energy Innovators With Ingenious Ideas

From community “solar gardens” to energy pellets made from coffee grounds to a phone-charging device that you plug into soil

July 18, 2016

History of Now

When the GOP Picked a Nominee for Vice President, Only to Be Rejected

Their unrequited choice seemed utterly uninterested in the role

July 18, 2016

American South

Big Boom: The Best Places to See Meteorite Impact Craters

Ancient impacts changed landscapes and perhaps even the course of evolution—here’s where to see the coolest craters this summer

July 18, 2016

Move Over, Madagascar: This Island Has the World’s Greatest Concentration of Unique Mammals

The majority of them are found nowhere else on Earth, making Luzon a biological treasure trove

July 15, 2016

Mapping Rio’s Favelas

Ahead of the Olympics, Google and a Brazilian nonprofit have been recruiting locals to pinpoint businesses and other landmarks in the city’s shantytowns

July 15, 2016