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Articles

Dolores Huerta, Huelga or Strike, Delano, California, September 24, 1965

Commentary

The Farmworker’s Champion Dolores Huerta Receives Her Due, Even as the Struggle for Justice Continues

We must continue the struggle against present-day agricultural production and labor practices, says the director of the Smithsonian’s Latino Center

Ask Smithsonian

Ask Smithsonian: What Makes Us a Righty or a Lefty?

Scientists are interested in studying why some of us are non-right-handers because it might offer insight into how the brain develops

An Anopholes mosquito, the vector for malaria, taking a blood meal from a tasty human.

New Research

Mosquitoes Can Carry, and Deliver, a Double Dose of Malaria

Insects that are already carrying one strain are more likely to pick up a second infection and harbor higher numbers of parasites

Inside of the labyrinth, along one of the bamboo corridors.

Get Lost in the World’s Largest Maze

Ponder existence while wandering through the bamboo stalks of Italy’s Masone Labyrinth

A tiny chair 3D printed from cellulose

You Can Now 3D Print With Liquefied Wood

A chemist at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden is making sustainable 3d printing a reality

Turns out Pluto is covered in ice mountains up to 11,000 feet high.

Behold, the First Closeup Pictures From the Pluto Flyby Are Here

From fresh-faced moons to ice mountains, these are the visual surprises that hit the ground the day after the Pluto flyby

The Evolution of Money, From Feathers to Credit Cards

Coin collectors, and trinket lovers welcome back the National Numismatic Collections to its splendid new gallery at the American History Museum

Exaggerating the colors on Pluto and Charon helps mission scientists see distinct terrains on each icy world.

Where Will the New Horizons Probe Go After Pluto?

The historic flyby may be over, but the spacecraft should still go on to study even smaller bodies on its path through the Kuiper belt

The History of Creepy Dolls

Take a trip to the uncanny valley and hope you make it back unscathed

Pluto as seen by New Horizons on July 13, when the spacecraft was about 476,000 miles from the surface.

The New Horizons Probe Has Made Its Closest Approach to Pluto

Mission scientists have received the confirmation signal that the pre-programmed event went as planned and the craft is healthy

In this intricate mechanical bank, the user balances a coin on the miniature man's gun, which then shoots the coin into a slot in the tree.

One Man’s Obsession With Antique Toys Resulted in a Museum

The Portland, Oregon, attraction is more than just the stuff of Kidd’s play

Today, where the concept of “disruption” has become so popular in business, those developing apps and new startups can look to the Singer Sewing Machine as one of the original disruptive technologies.

How Singer Won the Sewing Machine War

The Singer Sewing Machine changed the way America manufactured textiles, but the invention itself was less important than the company’s innovative business

EJSCREEN overlays demographic data with EPA pollution data.

The EPA Has a New Tool For Mapping Where Pollution and Poverty Intersect

To better target its efforts, the agency is identifying problem areas, where people are facing undue environmental risks

Not all water is easy to see.

Anthropocene

How Can We Keep Track of Earth’s Invisible Water?

This week’s episode of Generation Anthropocene goes on a deep dive into some of the planet’s more mysterious water sources

Flames and smoke cover the hillsides near Yucca Valley in California during a June wildfire.

Anthropocene

Wildfires Are Happening More Often and in More Places

Average fire season length has increased by nearly a fifth in the last 35 years, and the area impacted has doubled

Prototyping is a vital part of Stanford d.school courses. Students build physical and digital products and test them.

How Are Universities Grooming the Next Great Innovators?

Design and entrepreneurship courses at Stanford and other institutions are fundamentally changing higher education

After World War II, Gottschee ceased to exist as an independent community

An Attempt to Keep the Dying Gottschee Culture Very Much Alive

Inspired by a trip to Slovenia with her grandmother, one New Yorker took it upon herself to chronicle the story of a lost piece of European history

A SmartSpecs user looks at a magazine; the laptop screen shows his view.

These Glasses Could Help the Blind See

Developed by Oxford scientists, SmartSpecs capture real time images and enhance the contrast for legally blind users

Sponsor: National Portrait Gallery

Which of These Baseball Players Should the Portrait Gallery Put on Display?

Vote for these all-stars in an entirely different kind of competition

Wang with the toy jeep

This New Nanogenerator Could Make Cars Much More Efficient

Electrodes placed on a car’s tires can harness the energy generated when rubber meets road

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