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Articles

Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, by Simon de Myle

Ten Ancient Stories and the Geological Events That May Have Inspired Them

If you dig deep enough, say scientists, you can find some truth to legends and creation stories

T.S. Eliot

How Did the Cruellest Month Come to Be the Perfect 30 Days to Celebrate Poetry?

A Smithsonian historian makes the case why springtime is the best time to reawaken a thirst for verse

Artist Todd McGrain's sculptures of five extinct North American birds are now on display in Smithsonian gardens.

Art Meets Science

Bronze Sculptures of Five Extinct Birds Land in Smithsonian Gardens

Artist Todd McGrain memorializes species long-vanished, due to human impact on their habitats, in his “Lost Bird Project”

Google Street View is bringing Cambodia's hidden treasure to you.

For the First Time Ever, Explore Angkor Wat With Google Street View

With more than 90,000 panoramic images, you can see the stunning Cambodian ruins up close from anywhere in the world

"Make eggs, make eggs!"

New Research

A Loving Touch Triggers Cockroaches to Make Babies Faster

Female cockroaches make eggs more quickly if they cuddle with other roaches, but artificial antennae delivering gentle touches can also speed egg growth

Felix Baumgartner's full-pressure suit and helmet were designed to provide protection from extreme temperatures and served as the sky diver's only protection until he reached the lower atmosphere.

Felix Baumgartner’s Spacesuit From His Death-Defying Stratospheric Jump Joins the Smithsonian Collections

The pressurized suit, parachute and the balloon gondola that allowed Baumgartner to break records goes on view at the Air and Space Museum

Michael Peña portrays farmworker turned activist Cesar Chavez in a new biopic.

What the New Cesar Chavez Film Gets Wrong About the Labor Activist

Despite the good intentions, the biopic misleads and distorts his role in the farm workers movement

Adrian Sugar (seated second from left) and his surgical team during the facial rebuild operation at Morriston Hospital. The team reconstructed 29-year-old Stephen Power's face using models and implants from a 3D printer.

Tech Watch

How 3D Printing Helped Repair This Man’s Face

In a landmark procedure, surgeons used 3D printing techniques to restore a patient’s facial likeness after a horrific injury

Duke Ellington and band members playing baseball in front of their segregated motel ("Astor Motel") while touring in Florida.

Rare Footage of Duke Ellington Highlights When Jazz and Baseball Were in Perfect Harmony

The Smithsonian’s curator of American music explains how the history of two great American innovations—Jazz and baseball—are intertwined

Document Deep Dive

Document Deep Dive: Richard Nixon’s Application to Join the FBI

Fresh out of law school, the future president first hoped he could be one of J. Edgar Hoover’s agents

Small island nations such as Tuvalu in the South Pacific face a wide range of threats from climate change, including rising seas that will inundate the land.

Five Frightening Observations From the Latest International Climate Change Report

Adaptation cannot save us from all the negative impacts of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

"The Murder of Caesar" by Karl von Piloty, 1865.

Explore Julius Caesar’s Rome

From his former neighborhood to the place where he met his demise, check out these spots associated with Rome’s most famous leader

A view of the installation of the ATLAS portion of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Art Meets Science

Art and Science Collide in the Discovery of the Higgs Boson

Particle Fever, a documentary about the physicists who found the “God particle,” suggests doing science isn’t that different from making art

A West Indian manatee calf nurses from its mother.

American South

14 Fun Facts About Manatees

These roly-poly herbivores just may be the teddy bears of the sea. But keep an eye out when boating; they don’t move so fast.

View of St. Peter's Basilica from La Pergola.

Mario Batali: The Best Restaurant in Rome

Take a peak inside Rome’s La Pergola

Steve Perlman hopes his invention, the pCell, will transform how we transmit data from our smartphones.

Tech Watch

Checking The Claim: A Wireless Network That Streams A Thousand Times Faster?

As wireless data networks face more congestion, will entrepreneur Steve Perlman’s latest idea be the ultimate fix?

The Paris Catacombs.

Beneath Paris’ City Streets, There’s an Empire of Death Waiting for Tourists

More than 200 miles of tunnels sit just under the City of Lights—some lined to the ceiling with skulls and bones

Cardoons in the garden of Villa Augustus, Dordrecht.

What the Heck Do I Do With

What the Heck Do I Do With a Cardoon?

The labor-intensive crop is absolutely worth the effort

Engineers and entrepreneurs want to make it possible for two people to converse in different languages, while a small device spits out translations in real time.

Tech Watch

Kissing Language Barriers Goodbye

Google is paving the way for the universal voice translator, formerly a thing of science fiction. But will they actually help us communicate?

Scientists made synthetic version of a chromosome found in brewer's yeast, pictured above, a fungus commonly used to make beer.

New Research

Scientists Build a Yeast Chromosome From Scratch. Next Up? Designer Genomes

Creating synthetic organisms with specially-tailored genomes is a long way off, but the first synthetic eukaryotic chromosome is a big step forward

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