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Unlike the chest-beating primates of popular imagination, Brazil’s northern muriquis are easygoing and highly cooperative.

Humans Would Be Better Off If They Monkeyed Around Like the Muriquis

Biologist Karen Strier has been studying these peace-loving Brazilian primates and their egalitarian lifestyle for decades

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes / He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men / Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— / Silent, upon a peak in Darién. —John Keats

Following in the Footsteps of Balboa

The first European to glimpse the Pacific from the Americas crossed Panama on foot 500 years ago. Our intrepid author retraces his journey

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What Is Al Pacino’s Next Big Move?

For six years, the actor who made his mark as Michael Corleone has been obsessing over a new movie about that ancient seductress Salome

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The Art That is Hidden in Plain Sight

A Milan-based artistic duo uses color to reveal a series of dreamlike panoramas concealed in white light

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What Your Favorite Book Looks Like in Colors

An artist reveals how each book has its own unique color spectrum

What explains the vivid colors of the strawberry poison-dart frog?

How Do Tropical Frogs Get Their Stunning Colors?

The vibrant hues that dot the rainforest landscape help them avoid predators and win mates

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Why the Smithsonian Just Can’t Quit Studying the Civil War

150 years later, the war is still in focus

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Contributors

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A History of 1945, Discoveries at Sea, Ben Franklin’s Sister and More Books Worth Your Read

Some of the best books to put on your reading list

McShea (in Posey Hollow): “Nobody has tried anything nearly as comprehensive.”

A Scientific Laboratory 170 Feet High in the Sky

Grand-scale ecology brings a Virginia forest under unprecedented scrutiny by Smithsonian researchers

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Two Faces, One Portrait

A collage artist combs through glamour shots of forgotten Hollywood actors to create compelling celebrity mashups

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Coming Soon: The Dream Chaser, a Nimbler Space Shuttle

This NASA-funded project could head into orbit within just a few years

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Summer Reads: Zombie Science, the American Revolution and Travels Across Italy

Looking for a good book? We’ve got some suggestions

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Dinosaur Extinctions, Titanic Deaths and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked our curators, they answered

McCoy with the Milky Way, which his Miami Indian forebears called the “Spirit Trail.”

Rediscovering a Lost Native American Language

Tim McCoy’s astronomy course is helping to revive the words of the Miami tribe

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The Education of a Bomb Dog

A top training academy works double time to meet skyrocketing demand for canines who can sniff out danger

In Houston’s Buffalo Bayou Park, Tolerance is seven figures—one for each continent—sculpted of letters from world alphabets.

What Makes Houston the Next Great American City?

As Houston undergoes an ethnic and cultural transformation, its reputation grows as a place where people can dream big and succeed

The Lone Ranger mask from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Is the New Tonto Any Better Than the Old Tonto?

A new film revives The Lone Ranger, but has it eliminated the TV series’ racist undertones

Fornaciari’s analysis of an anonymous 13th- to 15th-century female skeleton showed evidence of severe anemia.

CSI: Italian Renaissance

Inside a lab in Pisa, forensics pathologist Gino Fornaciari and his team investigate 500-year-old cold cases

Days after Jackie Mitchell (center) struck out Yankee superstars (from left) Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, the duo watched the female phenom demonstrate her fastball during spring training in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 4, 1931.

The Woman Who (Maybe) Struck Out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig

Of all the strange baseball exploits of the Depression era, none was more surprising than Jackie Mitchell’s supposed feat

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