Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Articles

Flies, Chipmunks And Other Tiny Creatures See the World in Slow Motion

Flies, for example, can perceive visual stimuli four times faster than we can

Rivers across the U.S. are getting less acidic, including the Mississippi River.

Acid Rain Is Making Rivers… Less Acidic?

Acid rain is “dissolving the surface of the Earth,” making streams more alkaline in the process

A plan of the Ictineo, the world's first engine-powered submarine.

The Writer Who Built the World’s First Engine-Powered Submarine

Narcis Monturiol loved the ocean’s corals so much, that he built a machine so he could better enjoy them

The panda cub receiving her first veterinary exam

CUTE PHOTOS: Panda Cub is Thriving, More Than Doubles in Size

Today the Zoo’s veterinarians gave the giant panda cub a full exam and pronounced the cub healthy and thriving

A human genome, printed

One Woman Can Have Multiple Genetic Identities—Hers, Her Secret One, And All Her Kids’

The idea of there being one genetic “you” is up in the air

A squirrel scratches in Central Park

How to Catch, Clean And Cook a Squirrel

Two cups of flour, a nice zinfandel, a pinch of sun-dried tomatoes, and 3 chopped squirrels

The AR-15 Seems To Be the Weapon of Chioce in Random Acts of Violence

Of the 67 mass shootings in the US over the past three decades, more than three-quarters of the 143 guns used were obtained legally

This photo of a yellow goby appears in “Portraits of Planet Ocean: The Photography of Brian Skerry,” which opens in the Natural History Museum’s Sant Ocean Hall on Sept. 17.

New Exhibitions at the Ocean Hall Ask What You Can Do for Your Oceans

Three new exhibitions explore humans’ relationship to the ocean

None

Google Earth Is Lending a Hand with Land Mine Clearing in Kosovo

Google has teemed with the Halo Trust, a non-profit that works to remove land mines and other unexploded ordinances that often linger after a conflict ends

There’s Evidence Midlife Crises Are Real, But No Good Explanation for Why They Happen

We all know the symptoms: the red sports car, the leather jacket, the journey to “find oneself,” the tattoos

Migaloo, the white whale

Call Me Migaloo: The Story Behind Real-Life White Whales

White whales, such as the recently spotted humpback nicknamed Migaloo, are rare and elusive creatures. How many are there and why are they white?

How Many Diseases Can a New York City Rat Give You?

In New York City you are never more than six feet away from a rat and its diseases

Blue whale earplugs can reveal some of these aquatic giants’ life events.

Blue Whale Earwax Reveals Pollution Accumulated Over a Lifetime

Earwax collected from a beached whale shows that the creature ingested a host of toxins, such as DDT and mercury, throughout its life

An extended view, from 1 AD to 2000 AD. If you click it will get bigger and easier to read.

This Map Is a Crash Course in European History, 1 A.D. to Today

A three minute video shows 1000 years of European conquest

Russia’s “Forest Boy” Says He Spent 16 Years in the Siberian Wilderness

The mysterious man claims to have never attended school, received any vaccinations and to have met only a few people throughout his life

Oceanographer Gareth Lawson, who studies pteropods, was able to identify Kavanagh’s sculptures to species, such as this Limacina helicina.

The Gorgeous Shapes of Sea Butterflies

Cornelia Kavanagh’s sculptures magnify tiny sea butterflies—ocean acidification’s unlikely mascots—hundreds of times

None

Watch NASA’s Next Mars Orbiter Be Put Together, Piece by Piece

This time lapse video shows the assembly of NASA’s next Mars orbiter, MAVEN

Three Ancient Rivers, Long Buried by the Sahara, Created a Passage to the Mediterranean

One river system, called the Irharhar, appears to have been a particularly popular travel route, corroborated by both model simulations and artifacts

Designers Are Trying to Build an Invisible Skyscraper in South Korea

Most architects want everybody to see their buildings. But in South Korea, designers are working to achieve exactly the opposite: an invisible skyscraper

Eating Breakfast Probably Won’t Help You Lose Weight

As much as researchers themselves want to believe that breakfast helps people lose weight or keep it off, the evidence is far from conclusive

Page 687 of 1324