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The restored Pullman Palace passenger car, which ran along the Southern Railway route during the "Jim Crow" era of the 20th century, serves as a signature artifact in the new museum.

Breaking Ground

This Segregated Railway Car Offers a Visceral Reminder of the Jim Crow Era

Subtle and not-so-subtle reminders of a time when local and state laws forced racial segration

Andrew Brennen talks with a student, while on his tour of America with an organization called Student Voice.

Andrew Brennen Believes Education Reform Begins With a Simple Question

The UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore has been traveling the country asking students, “What would you change about your school?”

The view looking into the Shenandoah Valley can be hugely obscured by haze.

Age of Humans

Even in ‘Pristine’ National Parks, the Air’s Not Clear

And cleaning it up might take centuries

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Could This New Armband Prevent Thousands of Workplace Injuries and Fatalities Each Year?

Proxxi CEO Campbell Macdonald describes his cloud-connected wearable that detects high-voltage areas

Eltz Castle

Visit Seven Storybook Castles in Germany

These magnificent structures are straight out of a fairy tale

Street Scene by Walker Evans, 1936, New Orleans, gelatin silver print

Walker Evans Wrote the Story of America With His Camera

One of the greatest historians of 20th-century America was a man who used his camera to stare, pry, listen, and eavesdrop

A photo of the two giant footprints that appeared on the shores of a Nantucket beach in August 1937.

The Summer of Nantucket’s Sublime Sea Serpent

News travels fast in small towns — especially when it involves huge footprints of a rumored mythical creature

Scientists injected more than 200 tons of dissolved carbon dioxide into this field in Iceland. Two years later, almost all the carbon had been converted into rock.

Age of Humans

Iceland Carbon Capture Project Quickly Converts Carbon Dioxide Into Stone

More than 95 percent of gas injected into the ground precipitated out as harmless carbonate, scientists calculate

Mrs. Walcott sketching a wild flower in water colors on a frosty morning in camp.

Smithsonian’s Wildflower: The Illustrious Life of the Naturalist Who Chronicled America’s Native Flora

The life and legacy of renowned Smithsonian illustrator Mary Vaux Walcott goes beyond the works that she created

Untitled, 2016, Jack Ludden. Digital photomontage of Self-portrait, 2014 (left), Self-portrait, 1989 (right), and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1989

How a Museum Cancelling a Controversial Mapplethorpe Exhibition Changed My Life

As an intern at the Corcoran, I suddenly understood the power of art

“We know of only five scrolls of this heroic size by the artist Wen Zhengming [1470-1559] and this is the only known example with a personal poem,” says curator Stephen D. Allee.

When the Painting Is Also Poetry

A sublime new show honors the Chinese tradition of the ‘Three Perfections’—poetry, painting and calligraphy

Age of Humans

Podcast: How Humans Caused Mass Extinctions Thousands of Years Ago

Humans have been the dominant species for longer than thought

A preserved specimen of the Blue Lanternfish with bioluminescent spots. New research shows that the blue lanternfish's glow isn't that unique - among ocean-dwelling fish, four out of five are bioluminescent.

Way More Fish Can Make Their Own Light Than We Thought

Bioluminescence evolved a whopping 27 separate times among finned fishes living in the open ocean

An artist's reconstruction of what the hobbit may have looked like housed in Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

The “Hobbit” Lineage May Be Much Older Than Previously Thought

A new find hints that the short-statured hominins could have been living in Indonesia over a half a million years earlier than previous estimates

A portrait of Mary Church Terrell in 1946 by Betsy Graves Reyneau

How One Woman Helped End Lunch Counter Segregation in the Nation’s Capital

Mary Church Terrell’s court case demanded the district’s “lost laws” put an end to racial discrimination in dining establishments

Fragment 19, a piece of the back cover inscription plate, enhanced with state-of-the-art techniques to make the characters more readable.

The World’s First Computer May Have Been Used To Tell Fortunes

Researchers have decoded more writing on the 2,000-year-old Antikythera mechanism and found it may have an astrological purpose

A Kiwcha couple walk into the forest to cut timber in Coca, Ecuador.

Age of Humans

Did Deforestation Contribute to Zika’s Spread?

Evidence is growing that deforestation causes disease outbreaks by changing animal carriers’ behavior.

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