In 1963, author Ken Kesey came up with the idea of leading a cross-country bus trip from California to New York.

Ken Kesey’s Pranksters Take to the Big Screen

It took an Oscar-winning director to make sense of the drug-addled footage shot by the author and his Merry Pranksters

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Thirty Years of Food in Music Videos

On MTV’s birthday, an appreciation of the coffee, cakes, candy, breakfast cereals and milkshakes of song

Doughnut Burger

What Makes a Satan Sandwich?

If one were to go down to the crossroads at midnight and call the devil’s name three times, what dish would appear in a poof of fire and brimstone?

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

More Fantasy Foods Made Real

The imaginary has come to life: Scooby Snacks, Cheesy Poofs and even Soylent Green

Do you know the five spices that go into fish curry?

Inviting Writing: The Mother-in-Law’s Kitchen

My folks thought it was time I started thinking about marriage and therefore take the kitchen more seriously. Seriously? Why?

Ned Kahn's Rain Oculus is a 70-foot-wide whirlpool at the Marina Bay Sands complex in Singapore. The huge whirlpool can circulate 6,000 gallons of water per minute and funtions as a kinetic sculpture, skylight and waterfall.

Ned Kahn: The Limits of the Knowable

By channeling the elements of wind and water, the environmental sculptor’s designs inspire awe and curiosity in museum visitors

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Letters

Readers Respond to the May Issue

Guidelines for advertising on U.S. currency.

On the Money

Advertisers discover the value of a dollar

"The most hated show of the year" is how a critic described Eggleston's landmark 1976 exhibition.

William Eggleston’s Big Wheels

This enigmatic 1970 portrait of a tricycle took photography down a whole new road

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Dazzling Displays: 8th Annual Photo Contest Winners

Out of more than 50,000 photographs submitted, editors – and readers – picked seven showstoppers

Before there were fruit patents, there were pictures. Shown here is The Red Astrachan apple.

How to Trademark a Fruit

To protect the fruits of their labor and thwart “plant thieves,” early American growers enlisted artists

Beginning July 23, at Natural History, see examples of technologies that endow researchers with X-ray vision. Shown here is Selene vomer by David Johnson, 2008.

What’s Up

A biologists at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, Jorge Santiago-Blay has gathered some 2,000 samples of amber and exudates from species found around the world and analyzed 1,245 of them.

Seeking the Origins of Amber

By studying the chemical signatures of living trees, Smithsonian’s Jorge Santiago-Blay intends to reconstruct ancient forests

Through September 5, the National Portrait Gallery is displaying 60 paintings on loan from private collections in Washington, D.C. Among the portraits is that of Judith Martin, better known as advice columnist "Miss Manners."

Q and A with Miss Manners

The columnist talks about how her portraiture collection reflects culture’s stance on etiquette

Wernher von Braun would come to personify NASA's space exploration program.

Wernher von Braun’s V-2 Rocket

Although the Nazi “vengeance weapon” was a wartime failure, it ushered in the space age

Now open: Udvar-Hazy's Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar (artist rendering).

A Better Space

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

Marrons Glacés: $4 a Nut, But Worth Reminiscing Over

The ultra-sugary confections, popular in France and Italy, have a creamy texture and unmistakable warm chestnut flavor

Richard Nixon's last meal at the White House. Photo by Robert L. Knudsen

How to Eat Like the President of the United States

See Kennedy’s chowder, Eisenhower’s vegetable soup, Reagan’s jelly beans and Nixon’s last White House meal

School lunch program poster

What’s Cooking Uncle Sam: A Must-See Show at the National Archives

The show was a revelation for exhibiting the breadth of the government’s involvement in our food

The versatile green bean.

Five Ways to Eat Green Beans

To prove their versatility, here are five out-of-the-ordinary ideas for cooking with green beans, each from a different world culture

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