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When Michigan Students Put the Car on Trial

In a famous 1970 teach-in demonstration, prosecutors hammered away at the nation’s most powerful defendant

In Uganda’s Mgahinga National Park, a 14-month-old male named Imbanzabigwi is poised to transition from mother’s milk to foraging.

Planet Positive

How Africa’s Mountain Gorillas Staged a Comeback

Long victimized by poaching and deforestation, the primate species is in the midst of a surprising rebound that is sparking new hopes of recovery

The research vessel in December, two months after mooring to an ice floe nicknamed “the Fortress.”

Planet Positive

Why the MOSAiC Expedition’s Research Is So Vital to Climate Change Research

On a ship frozen in the Arctic, scientists have spent all winter to shed light on exactly how the world is changing

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Neil Armstrong’s Spacesuit Was Made by a Bra Manufacturer

This wearable spacecraft let humans take one giant leap away from Earth

A female wolverine roams the Arctic tundra at the edge of the Brooks Range, on Alaska’s North Slope. 

Why Wolverines Are the Arctic Animal We Love to Hate

Scientists brave the deep snows and frigid cold of Arctic Alaska to study one of its most furtive and ferocious denizens

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Readers Respond to the January/February Issue

Your feedback on our coverage of the destruction of the Amazon, the first Americans and Maya Angelou

Oscillations originating deep inside the sun become detectable only on the surface.

How Do Scientists Record Sounds From the Sun? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions, we’ve got experts

An author of blockbuster books and a pioneering photographer, she braved the wilderness to collect these moths and butterflies.

As Popular in Her Day as J.K. Rowling, Gene Stratton-Porter Wrote to the Masses About America’s Fading Natural Beauty

Despite her fame, you wouldn’t know about this beloved writer unless you visit the vanishing Midwestern landscape she helped save

Left: Walker in 1912; Right: Octavia Spencer as the inspiring businesswoman in the Netflix series “Self Made,” which debuts this month.

Women Who Shaped History

Madam C.J. Walker Gets a Netflix Close-Up

A turn-of-the-century hair-care magnate who shared her wealth gets the spotlight

The circa 1968-96 Lunar con Tatuaje (Moon With Tattoo), made of stretched canvas and acrylic, is one of over 40 works in the retrospective.

New York Museum Highlights the Artwork of Zilia Sánchez

The Cuban American artist has long been a creative force. Now she’s having her big moment—in her tenth decade

The HL Hunley pressed its torpedo against the side of the USS Housatonic until it detonated.

The New Explosive Theory About What Doomed the Crew of the ‘Hunley’

A blast-injury expert takes aim at the mystery of what sank the most famous—and lethal—submarine of the Civil War

Depictions of Madame Yale often suggested that she had a hand in crafting her concoctions.

Madame Yale Made a Fortune With the 19th Century’s Version of Goop

A century before today’s celebrity health gurus, an American businesswoman was a beauty with a brand

Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City (1946).

Women Who Shaped History

How the U.S. Government Deployed Grandma Moses Overseas in the Cold War

In 1950, an exhibition of the famed artist’s paintings toured Europe in a promotional campaign of American culture

The wingless Horten Ho 229 V3 on display with other Nazi aircraft.

Why the Experimental Nazi Aircraft Known as the Horten Never Took Off

The unique design of the flyer, held in the collections of the Smithsonian, has infatuated aviation enthusiasts for decades

Left, the British Army camped at Balaklava in the Crimea. Right, an angelic Nightingale animates a stained glass window crafted around 1930.

The Defiance of Florence Nightingale

Scholars are finding there’s much more to the “lady with the lamp” than her famous exploits as a nurse in the Crimean War

January 2020 Discussion

Readers respond to our stories on crosswords, Fallingwater, and the Ingenuity Awards recipients

Scenes From a Reenactment of a Slave Uprising

Earlier this year, a group of organizers led by a daring performance artist donned 19th-century clothes and recreated the 1811 revolt

The Blue Mountains of Niger. Arable land in the fast-growing country shrank nearly 50 percent per capita from 1996 to 2016.

Photographs From One of the World’s Most Troubled, and Least Understood, Regions

A photojournalist journeys to the Sahara-Sahel desert of remote northern Africa to catalogue the state of emergency on the ground

Strains of Streptomyces bacteria, found in soil, grow in a lab at Swansea University in Wales. They're so new to science they haven't been named.

Soil From a Northern Ireland Graveyard May Lead Scientists to a Powerful New Antibiotic

An ancient legend could provide a new weapon in the fight against deadly bacteria

New Yorkers celebrate the end of Prohibition in 1933.

Breaking Down the Numbers of Americans’ Drinking Habits

A century after Prohibition, we uncork a history of the nation’s shifting relationship with booze

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