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Articles

Six years after the quake first struck, the city of L’Aquila is still rebuilding. The recovery is estimated to cost at least $16 billion.

The Shaky Science Behind Predicting Earthquakes

A powerful earthquake in Italy killed hundreds of people—and set in motion a legal battle and scientific debate that has kept seismologists on edge

Why Do Humans Have Chins?

The most distinctive human feature might be that bony protrusion that made Jay Leno famous

The last of the data from the New Horizons flyby won’t arrive until late 2016.

One Man’s Lifelong Pursuit of Pluto is About to Get Real

When the New Horizons spacecraft races by the quasi-planetary body, Alan Stern will have finally met his match

Ask Smithsonian 2017

When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents And More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

From the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center

The Ill-Fated History of the Jet Pack

The space-age invention still takes our imaginations on our wild ride

The World’s Largest Picture Frame?

The government of Dubai is taking this abstract structure to the next level

Native Dress Calgary Stampede(2010)

Scenes From the Calgary Stampede

Noted photographer Richard Phibbs has a new book that sends him back home on the range

Inside the Daily Lives of Iraq’s Kurds

America’s most important ally in the battle against ISIS is closer than ever to fulfilling their hope of founding a new nation

Why We’d Be Better Off if Napoleon Never Lost at Waterloo

On the bicentennial of the most famous battle in world history, a distinguished historian looks at what could have been

More than 3,000 lights adorned Ferris' wheel.

The Brief History of the Ferris Wheel

Originally the American answer to the Eiffel Tower, the summertime amusement became a hallmark of summer fun

Just a mile down one of the park’s most popular and accessible trails, hikers reap views of Dream Lake.

When Colorado Was (And in Many Ways Still Is) the Switzerland of America

A hundred years ago, city slickers looking for wild times in Rocky Mountain National Park invented a new kind of American vacation

At 3.3 million years old, tools unearthed at the Lomekwi 3 excavation site in Kenya, like the one pictured above, represent the oldest known evidence of stone tools, researchers suggest.

The Oldest Stone Tools Yet Discovered Are Unearthed in Kenya

3.3 million-year-old artifacts predate the human genus

The sewer museum in Paris.

Urban Explorations

Urine for a Treat With a Tour of These Five Sewer Systems

Tunnels, drains and other wastewater structures to explore, from ancient Rome to present-day New York

Tech Watch

Has a Finnish Company Found a Cure for Jet Lag?

Valkee is releasing the Human Charger, a new gadget that beams light through a user’s ears

The ancestor of all living snakes, depicted on the prowl in the South American forests it likely inhabited 110 million years ago, likely possessed a pair of tiny hind limbs and hunted at night.

The Mother of All Snakes Looked Surprisingly Modern

New research indicates why the slithery beast’s body appears pretty much as it did 110 million years ago

Two Nudes in a Forest, from 1939, one of the paintings on display in the Bronx. Kahlo painted it for Dolores del Río, an actor who played the role of the "other" in Hollywood films and who often played Indian women in Mexican films despite that she was not herself of indigenous descent, as Joanna L. Groarke writes in the book that accompanies the exhibition.

Urban Explorations

Visit Frida Kahlo’s Recreated Garden to See the Plants That Influenced Her Art

The New York Botanical Garden is showing rare paintings and drawings alongside the types of flora Kahlo herself once cultivated

A Harvard Student’s App Could Bring 911 Into the Future

With just one click, RapidSOS sends GPS and medical information to emergency dispatchers

Vampire Healing: Young Blood Can Mend Old Broken Bones

It’s old blood, not old bones, that makes fracture healing difficult among the elderly

CellScope automatically detects and quantifies infection by parasitic worms in a drop of blood.

This Smartphone Microscope Uses Video to Spot Moving Parasites

A team of Berkeley bioengineers has created CellScope, a mobile phone attachment that can quickly test blood for tropical diseases

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