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An 1877 mousetrap called “The Delusion.” Directions read “Put as large a piece of cheese you can crowd into the box…”

The Unceasing American Quest to Build a Better Mousetrap

There has always been some truth to the apocryphal Emerson quote

The trailhead to Supai Village, part of the vast Grand Canyon area. Supai is the only the human settlement within the Grand Canyon.

Visit the Only Village Inside the Grand Canyon

Supai is so remote, mail is delivered by mule train

Jewish refugees about the St. Louis

The U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies

In a long tradition of “persecuting the refugee,” the State Department and FDR claimed that Jewish immigrants could threaten national security

The pigeon will see you now.

New Research

Pigeons Can Spot Breast Cancer in Medical Images

After just a few weeks of training, the brainy birds rivaled human levels of accuracy in their diagnoses

A blue whale’s tale waits for student volunteers to begin cutting away blubber and flesh from the bones. The complete skeleton will eventually be displayed in Newport, Oregon.

What a Dead Blue Whale Can Teach Us About Life in the Ocean, and About Ourselves

Scientists and spectators gathered on an Oregon beach for the rare, messy, mesmerizing sight of a whale being carefully dismantled for museum display

In the movie The Martian, Matt Damon plays a stranded astronaut who has to grow his own food on the red planet. What he did in the film isn't so far off from how we could grow food in harsh environments on Earth.

Age of Humans

What Growing Potatoes on Mars Means for Earth’s Farmers

Matt Damon made it look easy in the recent Hollywood blockbuster, but Mars and Earth aren’t really all that different after all

Ask Smithsonian

Ask Smithsonian: What Is a Freckle?

Those adorable and charming spots splayed across the nose and cheeks might also be an indicator of sun damage

Dawe says he loved having to work with the Renwick building’s 19th-century architectural details as a backdrop.

The Renwick Reopens

Artist Gabriel Dawe Made a Rainbow Out of 60 Miles of Thread

The artwork is an optical illusion that delights the senses; as if the artist embroidered the air

A woman in traditional Aymara dress sits with her daughter and their honored human skull, or ñatita, and a bag of coca leaves during the 2015 Fiesta de las Ñatitas in Bolivia.

Meet the Celebrity Skulls of Bolivia’s Fiesta de las Ñatitas

Each November, the Aymara people honor their special bond with the helpful spirits of the deceased

RoboBees Can Fly and Swim. What’s Next? Laser Vision

Swarms of robotic bees, capable of seeing, may soon be able to monitor pollution and traffic, or scan the struts of bridges

Cataract of the human eye

This Chemical Compound Could Melt Away Cataracts

Eye drops made from “compound 29” have been shown to reduce cataracts in mice. Researchers hope the same will hold true for humans.

Scuba divers abound at the lake during spring and summer, but during fall and winter the lake is a hiker's paradise instead.

Europe

Explore Austria’s Underwater Hiking Trails

Catch it if you can—scuba season is short in this crystal-clear, temporary lake

Document Deep Dive

The Origins of the World War I Agreement That Carved Up the Middle East

How Great Britain and France secretly negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement

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Rare Interviews With Hitler’s Inner Circle Reveal What Truly Happened on “The Day Hitler Died”

Broadcast for the first time in the U.S., these exclusive clips from a Smithsonian Channel program feature recently unearthed archival footage

Villareal’s piece, titled Volume (Renwick), holds pride of place above the museum’s historic grand stairway. It uses LEDs embedded in 320 mirrored stainless steel rods.

The Renwick Reopens

Leo Villareal’s 23,000 Points of Light Illuminate the Renwick Gallery

With tens of thousands of individual LEDS, a dangling light sculpture majestically redefines the grand staircase at the Renwick

Activist Tristram Stuart adds to a collection of fruits during an event in Trafalgar Square designed to highlight food waste by feeding 5,000 people on rejected supermarket food.

Age of Humans

This Is How Much Water You Waste When You Throw Away Food

Tossing an apple is like pouring 25 gallons of water down the drain, and the average American does that 17 times a year

There's a dinosaur in every chicken.

New Research

Genetic Tweaks Are Revealing the Dinosaur Traits in Living Chickens

A Yale paleontologist is blending fossil studies and bird genes to trace the ways dinosaurs transformed into today’s feathered flocks

The volcanic plume responsible for the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland has also brought up bits of Earth's ancient mantle from deep inside the planet.

New Research

Earth’s Water May Be as Old as the Earth Itself

Ancient volcanic rocks may have preserved tiny samples of the planet’s original moisture

Round Table

Why Does America Prize Creativity and Invention?

Our politics encourage it, there’s a high tolerance of failure, and we idealize the lone inventor

Bees are not so picky when they stop for a snack.

New Research

Ancient Bees Were Voracious Snackers on Their Pollen-Gathering Treks

Fossils from Germany could help researchers better understand modern bee eating habits and better protect the beloved pollinators

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