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Arts & Culture

Windows of Burano, Italy.

These Window Collages Are Serious Eye Candy

A Portuguese photographer provides a window into, well…windows

Older community barbershops in Detroit serve as community gathering places.

Barbers Are Giving Buzz Cuts to Detroit’s Overgrown Lots

A new project funded by a Knight Cities grant has local barbers and landscape contractors working to revitalize vacant spaces

Rice Lake in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve.

Canada

One Vancouver Forest Played Just About Every Wooded Locale on “The X-Files”

If the truth is still out there, there’s a good chance it’s in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve

Mosasaur

14 Fun Facts About the Animals of “Jurassic World”

While the lead predator of the film might be a genetically modified fiction, these real fossil species were just as amazing and bizarre

Q'eswachaka suspension bridge. Q'eswachaka, Apurímac River, Canas Province, Cusco, Peru.

Urban Explorations

A Dozen Indigenous Craftsman From Peru Will Weave Grass into a 60-Foot Suspension Bridge in Washington, D.C.

The ancient technology used lightweight materials to create soaring 150-foot spans that could hold the weight of a marching army

Artist Jeff Koons admires his Puppy (1992). Carpeted in colorful swaths of flowering plants, the 41-foot-tall Westie joined the Guggenheim Bilbao’s permanent collection in 1997 and stands in the square just outside the museum entrance.

Shine On: Jeff Koons in Bilbao

Frank Gehry’s titanium-clad Guggenheim plays host to a stunning survey of Koons’s larger-than-life career

Allis Markham puts the finishing touches to her entries at the World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships in Springfield, Missouri, on May 6.

Why Taxidermy Is Being Revived for the 21st Century

A new generation of young practitioners is leading a resurgence in this centuries-old craft

The Most Loved and Hated Novel About World War I

An international bestseller, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front was banned and burned in Nazi Germany

Renderings

2 World Trade Center and the Promise of Green Skyscrapers

New renderings of the tower show impressive sky gardens—a trendy feature that’s difficult to pull off

The remote broadcast set used in 1950s at the local 50,000- Watt Annapolis radio station is on view in the exhibition "American Enterprise," at the Smithsonian's American History Museum.

How Radio DJ Hoppy Adams Powered his 50,000-Watt Annapolis Station into a Mighty Influence

In post-war America, as advertisers discovered African American audiences, one local disc jockey drew top recording stars and a huge following

Joe

These Stirring Portraits Put a Face on Homelessness

Rex Hohlbein’s method of using social media to get tents, clothing, car repair and other needs to Seattle’s homeless is catching on in other cities

The Stars and Stripes are enjoying an extraordinary status in American public culture.

Americans Are Not the Only Ones Obsessed With Their Flag

From the mild-mannered Danes to crazed soccer fans, people all over the world go nuts for their national colors

The Very Reverend June Osborne, Dean of Salisbury, takes a selfie with a laminated copy of the 1215 Magna Carta that is on display at Salisbury Cathedral.

How Magna Carta Went Viral

In a world before the printing press, how did news of the famous document make the rounds?

Chasseur, Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, France

Relive the Battle of Waterloo With These Astonishing Portraits of War Reenactors

Photographer Sam Faulkner shoots a portrait series that gives a face to the more than 200,000 soldiers who fought in the historic conflict

An open source cardboard dino from KitRex stands outside the New York Hall of Science during the World Maker Faire in September 2014.

The Innovative Spirit

What Is a Maker Faire, Exactly?

Billed as the world’s greatest show and tell, the DIY extravaganza might just make a maker out of you

This image, Elephants at Twilight, Botswana, 1989, writes Lanting, "is my homage to the primeval qualities of southern Africa's wilderness, the grandeur of elephants, and the precious nature of water in a land of thirst."

Wildlife Photographer Frans Lanting on the Difference Between Taking Pictures and Making Photographs

The National Geographic photographer has been described as having the “mind of a scientist, the heart of a hunter, and the eyes of a poet”

Revelers two-step at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

How Do You Dance to Jazz?

The attendees at this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival taught our music writer a step or two

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Does Dieting Actually Make Your Stomach Shrink?

Not exactly, says science—stretchiness and psychology seem to play bigger roles than size in determining how much a person can eat

Filthy Lucre, 2013-2014, by Darren Waterston, MASS MoCA installation

Urban Explorations

Whistler’s Peacock Room is Reimagined in a State of Oozing and Broken Decay

In Filthy Lucre, a new installation at the Sackler Gallery, artist Darren Waterston deconstructs Whistler’s masterpiece

Pyrex celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

How Pyrex Reinvented Glass For a New Age

One hundred years after the birth of the brand, the Corning Museum of Glass pays homage to America’s favorite dish

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