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Ask Smithsonian 2017

Do Other Animals Have Baby Teeth and More Questions From Our Readers

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Coastal regions and islands are vanishing due to a lethal combination of erosion, sea rise and subsidence, or the slow sinking of land over time. The network of 1200 coral islands and atolls that makes up the Maldives in the Indian Ocean is ground zero.

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What Are All The Ways That Land Can Disappear Beneath Your Feet?

From sinkholes to liquefaction, we look at how solid earth can shrink and elude our grasp

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How Does Earth's Geomagnetic Field Work?

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Ornithologist John Gould's illustrations of finches collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands show the physical differences that the men relied on in dividing them into different species.

Future of Conservation

What Does It Mean to Be a Species? Genetics Is Changing the Answer

As DNA techniques let us see animals in finer and finer gradients, the old definition is falling apart

On May 6, 1937, the German airship Zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg burst into flames in Lakehurst, New Jersey, while the airship was landing.

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What Really Felled the Hindenburg?

On the anniversary of the conflagration, mysteries still remain

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What's the Difference Between Horns and Antlers and More Questions From Our Readers

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Construction on the Pentagon was completed in January 1943. With about 6.4 million square feet, it is still today the world’s largest low-rise office building.

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Why Is the Pentagon a Pentagon?

Planners battled to ensure the building kept its unique shape

What Is Dark Matter and More Questions From Our Readers

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The heroes of the movie Kong: Skull Island prepare to encounter the 104-foot-tall ape King Kong.

Science in the Movies

How Big Can a Land Animal Get?

King Kong's biggest enemy isn’t humans—it’s the laws of physics

Shortly after the announcement of the TRAPPIST-1 system, NASA crowdsourced its Twitter followers for possible planet names. The actual process of naming new planets, however, is a bit more involved.

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How Do New Planets Get Their Names?

Sorry, Planet McPlanetface: Asteroids, moons and other celestial bodies go through a strict set of international naming guidelines

The Beast must learn to love someone else and be loved before the last petal falls on the Enchanted Rose in the tale of the new Disney film, Beauty and the Beast

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The Beast's Enchanted Rose Lasted a Decade. How Long Can a Real One Last?

A Smithsonian expert says the film's was undoubtedly a hybrid tea rose

Unlike the Apollo spacecraft, Orion will have solar panels to help power longer space journeys, as shown in this concept art of the spacecraft orbiting Earth.

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What's Really Changed—and What Hasn’t—About Getting Humans to the Moon

NASA’s Orion will combine vintage tech with massive advances in computing power and electronics we've made since 1972

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Why Is Pennsylvania Ave D.C.'s Main Thoroughfare and More Questions From Our Readers

Your questions answered by our experts

The woolly arctic moth caterpillar produces alcohols that allow it to avoid freezing at temperatures reaching -70 degrees F.

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What Do Insects Do in Winter?

When winter comes, most bugs either migrate or time travel. But some get far more creative

Still Life with Fruit, Oysters, and Wine by Everhart Kuhn, ca. 1865

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Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?

Sure, if you think so

Many Chinese restaurant names with words like golden, fortune, luck and garden are chosen for their auspiciousness—out of the owners’ desire for success.

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Why Do Chinese Restaurants Have Such Similar Names?

Consistency and familiarity is the tradition

An engraving from the Illustrated London News, recorded the "Ball in Honour of President Lincoln in the Great Hall of the Patent Office at Washington," which today is the home of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

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When Was the First Inaugural Ball?

Nothing says there’s a new president in town more than the dance party they throw

The doormouse hibernates to conserve resources in harsh conditions. Similarly, scientists envision humans hibernating to endure long-distance space travel.

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Can Humans Ever Harness the Power of Hibernation?

Scientists want to know if astronauts can hibernate during long spaceflights. First, they need to understand what hibernation is

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Why Were Electric Cars Once Advertised as 'Ladies' Cars'?

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