The Ten Best Board Games of 2018

Go analog at your next party with one of these new classics

Google's new artificial intelligence program, AlphaZero, taught itself to play chess, shogi, and Go in a matter of hours, and outperforms the top-ranking AIs in the gameplay arena.

Google’s New AI Is a Master of Games, but How Does It Compare to the Human Mind?

After building AlphaGo to beat the world’s best Go players, Google DeepMind built AlphaZero to take on the world’s best machine players

The Ten Best Children’s Books of 2018

Our picks deliver feminist history, folklore reimagined and an adventurous romp through awe-inspiring destinations

An artist's rendering of the small rover that will be deployed on the far side of the Moon as part of the Chang'e-4 mission.

China Launches First Mission to Land on the Far Side of the Moon

Not glimpsed by humanity until 1959, the surface of the far side of the Moon has never been visited before

A delta wave, typical of deep sleep, as envisioned by interdisciplinary artist Julia Buntaine Hoel.

Art Meets Science

This Sculptor Imagines Brain Waves in 3-D

Julia Buntaine Hoel depicts the electrical activity of the brain in Wave(s), on display at Smithsonian’s “The Long Conversation”

Each year, nearly 700,000 ear-infection-prone kids in the U.S. are treated with surgically-implanted ear tubes.

Ear Tubes May Finally Get an Upgrade

Harvard researchers have invented a new device that might mean fewer visits to the surgeon for kids with chronic ear infections

CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene editing tool that has allowed scientists to alter the genomes of living organisms with unprecedented accuracy and ease.

What’s New, and What’s Not, in the Reported Birth of the CRISPR Babies

Editing human DNA, either in embryos or in cells that are reintroduced to the body, had come a long way before Lulu and Nana were born

In 1963, Herbert A. Gilbert filed a patent for “a safe and harmless means for and method of smoking.”

Plans for the First E-cigarette Went Up in Smoke 50 Years Ago

Herbert A. Gilbert invented his “Smokeless” in 1963, but he couldn’t convince any companies to bring the device to market

What the Popularity of ‘Fortnite’ Has in Common With the 20th Century Pinball Craze

Long before parents freaked over the ubiquitous video game, they flipped out over another newfangled fad

The breakthrough propeller, its blades shaped by hatchet and drawknife from two-ply spruce, was sheathed in linen and sealed with aluminum powder mixed into a heavy varnish.

Why Wilbur Wright Deserves the Bulk of the Credit for the First Flight

A new book advances a controversial theory about the singular contribution that went into the brothers’ pioneering achievement

Why Aren’t There Electric Airplanes Yet? It Comes Down to Batteries.

Batteries need to get lighter and more efficient before we use them to power energy-guzzling airplanes

U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft fire chaff and flare countermeasures over the Nevada Test and Training Range Nov. 17, 2010.

The Woman Whose Invention Helped Win a War — and Still Baffles Weathermen

Her work long overlooked, physicist Joan Curran developed technology to conceal aircraft from radar during World War II

“I love all kinds of music and I really just want to continue to stretch my hands wide open, hold hands with other artists, and build these bridges, and just to be able to create new lanes of music,” says Steve Aoki, whose equipment recently went on view at the Smithsonian.

Why This Body-Surfing, Sound-Blasting, Cake-Throwing DJ Belongs in a Museum

Just as his new release tops the charts, Electronic Dance Music DJ Steve Aoki says he is “blown away” to have his turntable technology in the collections

Hurricane Harvey unexpectedly flooded large parts of Houston despite abating wind speeds.

How Satellites and Big Data Are Predicting the Behavior of Hurricanes and Other Natural Disasters

Leveraging machine learning could help diminish the damages of storms and wildfires

Janelle Monáe at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on her summer Dirty Computer tour

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

What Makes Janelle Monáe America’s Most Revolutionary Artist

The musical virtuoso leaves her old persona behind with her third album, Dirty Computer

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

Tracy K. Smith, America’s Poet Laureate, Travels the Country to Ignite Our Imaginations

Like Johnny Appleseed, Smith has been planting the seeds of verse across the U.S.

The co-founders of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, Mily Treviño-Sauceda and Mónica Ramírez (foreground), stand with members of Líderes Campesinas on a farm in Oxnard, California.

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

The Time’s Up Initiative Built Upon the Work Done by These Labor Activists

How the leaders of a farmworkers’ alliance reached across cultural divides to fight sexual harassment

March for Our Lives student activists. Top row: David Hogg, Jammal Lemy, Samantha Deitsch, Bradley Thornton, Daniel Williams, Jaclyn Corin; Middle row: Kyrah Simon, Sofie Whitney, Ryan Deitsch, Delaney Tarr, Diego Pfeiffer, Emma González, Brendan Duff; Bottom row: Matt Deitsch, Kirsten McConnell, Kaylyn Pipitone, Cameron Kasky, Chris Grady, Dylan Baierlein

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

The March for Our Lives Activists Showed Us How to Find Meaning in Tragedy

After the massacre at a Florida high school, these brave students provided a way forward

To Krasinski’s relief, the audience at his film’s premiere “stood up and made the craziest noise” when the screening was over.

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

How John Krasinski Created ‘A Quiet Place’

The actor turned director creates a genre-busting horror movie with a terrifying twist—silence

John Krafcik (left) and Dmitri Dolgov

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

Why Waymo’s Fleet of Self-Driving Cars Is Finally Ready for Prime Time

Your driverless car is already here, thanks to the visionary engineers behind a bold experiment

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