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SIRUM has facilitated the redistribution of 1 million pills to safety-net clinics to help serve about 20,000 patients in need.

Smart Startup

Three Stanford Graduates Are Matching Unused Prescriptions With Patients Who Need Them

Unopened drugs—billions of dollars worth—are trashed in this country each year. What if they instead went to the 50 million who can’t afford them?

Naked mole rats are likely contenders for the most hideously adorable creature on Earth - but also one of the longest lived.

New Research

The Secret to a Long Life: Be Cooperative and Live Underground

Naked mole rats enjoy exceptionally long, healthy lives, and there’s more than good genes at work

What Is Bitcoin, Exactly?

A new book tells the backstory and provides an easy-to-understand explanation of the much buzzed-about cryptocurrency

The familiar SkyMall magazine on planes is now unfortunately bankrupt.

How SkyMall Captured a Moment of Technological and American History

The now-bankrupt catalog had a meteoric rise and fall

The World Hit “Peak Chicken” in 2006

The popular poultry is just one of many key food resources that hit peak production between 5 and 30 years ago

An aerial view shows the location of the culture and university district, a 4.5-acre triangular site, near the London Aquatics Centre, the former Olympic Stadium and the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture and observation tower.

The Smithsonian May Go for the Gold, Opening a Venue at London’s Olympic Grounds

The Smithsonian Regents give museum officials the thumbs-up to explore opening a new gallery in London and the mayor there says, “Welcome to our city”

No snowman is perfect, but a bit of physics know-how can help in the construction process.

Ask Smithsonian

Do You Want To Build a Snowman? Physics Can Help

Here’s what you need to know about the science of constructing your very own Olaf

Graphophone, recorded in October 1881. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy. I am a graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Voice of Alexander Graham Bell's father.

Until Now, There Was No Play Button for the Recordings Bell and Edison Made in their Lab

An exhibition on sound kicks off the American History Museum’s Year of Innovation, enabling visitors to hear some of the earliest recordings

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Use This Map to Track the Snowfall and Social Media Buzz Around the Northeast Blizzard

Weather alerts and media streams can keep you up to date on the full extent of the nor’easter

The 2014-15 flu vaccine is here, but the CDC warns that it's not as effective as hoped.

A Universal Flu Vaccine May Be On the Horizon

Choosing the viral targets for the seasonal flu vaccine is a gamble. Sometimes, like this year, the flu wins

The chart is less a literal representation of the sea, but more an abstract illustration of the ways that ocean swells interact with land.

The Innovative Spirit - OLD

How Sticks and Shell Charts Became a Sophisticated System for Navigation

Sailors navigating with sextant, compass and maps found in the Marshall Islands that curved sticks and cowry shells were far more sophisticated

Dream Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Celebrate 100 Years of Rocky Mountain National Park

January 26 marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park—and celebrations are going all year long

Journey back to the Paris of the Marquis de Sade by strolling around the Marais, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.

Tour Paris With the Marquis de Sade as Your Guide

Traces still remain in the City of Love of the famed author and sex icon

A windowless cabin design concept by Spike Aerospace.

Craziest Airplane Cabins of the Future

These airplane cabin designs—both real and conceptual—show what might await us on flights in the near future

A multihued aurora ripples across the night sky over Tromsø, Norway, on January 19. Auroras happen when high-energy particles from the sun slam into Earth's atmosphere, exciting gas molecules in the air and causing them to emit light. The colors seen depend on the type of molecules involved and the altitude at which the most interactions are happening. Green is the most common shade for auroras and is produced by oxygen molecules at relatively low altitudes—between 62 and 186 miles.

Best Space Photos of the Week

These Celestial Highlights Include Flowing Auroras and a Cracked Comet

Catch up on the week’s best space images, from a cyclone’s glowing eye to a surreal Martian vista

Monarch Butterflies, Sierra Chincua Butterfly Sanctuary, Angangueo, Michoacan, Mexico

Where to See Thousands of Monarch Butterflies

The species is being reviewed for potential addition to the Endangered Species list. Can tourism help save the butterfly?

WÜF’s dog collar keeps owners connected to their canine companions at all times by offering two-way communication, GPS tracking and exercise monitoring

Five Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Five Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded: From A Fitbit for Dogs to Soap Jewelry

Not to mention, a bizarre bike-treadmill hybrid meant to reduce the strain on runners’ joints

The western tarsier, a rare primate species, has lost large amounts of its Borneo habitat to logging. More of that habitat is likely to disappear because of climate change.

Borneo’s Mammals Face a Deadly Mix of Logging and Climate Change

But adding small amounts of land to already protected areas could help save the island’s biodiversity

Ask Smithsonian: Five False ‘Facts’ About the Human Body

You can’t always trust what your mother told you

The underside of this recently flipped iceberg is glassy and free of debris.

An Iceberg Flipped Over, and Its Underside Is Breathtaking

On vacation in Antarctica, filmmaker and photographer Alex Cornell captured an unusual sight

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