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Science / Mind & Body

Seeking transparency in the scientific literature.

New Research

Biomedical Science Studies Are Shockingly Hard to Reproduce

Limited access to research details and a culture that emphasizes breakthroughs are undermining the credibility of science

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Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Sneeze?

Whether you sneeze because of a cold, or after sex or a good meal or in sunlight, the good old Achoo is the body’s way of ridding itself of irritants

Deep Earth creepy crawlies, mushrooms making rain, and a Maya city buried in ash are just a few highlights from this year's collection of science stories.

Cool Science Stories You May Have Missed in 2015

Quantum spookiness, a Maya city buried in ash and more in this year’s surprising science

Ask Smithsonian: How Do Colors Affect Our Moods?

Whether you are feeling green with envy or you’re singing the blues, the link between color and feeling is a highly individual thing

Say hello to your faithful friend Demodex folliculorum.

New Research

Your Hair Mites Are So Loyal Their DNA Reflects Your Ancestry

Mite DNA could hold clues to ancient human migrations and future skin health

A bomb blast engulfs a mountainside near the town of Barg-e Matal in Afghanistan.

New Research

Shock Waves May Create Dangerous Bubbles in the Brain

Lab experiments show how people who survive explosions may still carry cellular damage that can cause psychological problems

Finger lickin' good, at least until your gut bacteria disagree.

New Research

Your Gut Bacteria May Be Controlling Your Appetite

The microbes in your stomach seem to hijack a hormone system that signals the brain to stop eating

Scientists reconfigured a magnetic resonance scanner to capture a woman and her baby.

Why I Captured This MRI of a Mother and Child

A venerable symbol of human love, as you’ve never seen it before

The pigeon will see you now.

New Research

Pigeons Can Spot Breast Cancer in Medical Images

After just a few weeks of training, the brainy birds rivaled human levels of accuracy in their diagnoses

Ask Smithsonian

Ask Smithsonian: What Is a Freckle?

Those adorable and charming spots splayed across the nose and cheeks might also be an indicator of sun damage

Seasonal affective disorder can cause people to feel isolated and hopeless.

New Research

Talking Is the Latest Tool for Battling Seasonal Depression

A large-scale study suggests that talk therapy may have longer-lasting benefits than light boxes for treating wintertime blues

Five Things We’ve Learned About Fear Since Last Halloween

Including why screams get our brain’s attention and why a drop of “love hormone” in our nose could make us less fearful

Live near a cemetery? Better check your drinking water.

Arsenic and Old Graves: Civil War-Era Cemeteries May Be Leaking Toxins

The poisonous element, once used in embalming fluids, could be contaminating drinking water as corpses rot

When a walk in the park is your worst nightmare.

New Research

Why Do Humans Have Allergies? Parasite Infections May Be the Trigger

Protein analysis suggests that antibodies that evolved to fight parasites might be turning their focus to otherwise harmless agents

An artist's rendering shows an acoustic hologram trapping a particle over a levitation device.

New Research

This Acoustic Tractor Beam Can Levitate Small Objects With Sound

The device allows researchers to float and manipulate targets with just a single array of ultrasound emitters

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Ask Smithsonian

Ask Smithsonian: Is the World Due for Another Massive Plague Outbreak?

It is highly unlikely, experts say, but a plague-based bioterror assault is another matter

This Bronze Age skull is from the Yamnaya culture, which later developed into the Afanasievo culture of Central Asia, one of the peoples that carried early strains of plague.

New Research

Plague Was Infecting Humans 3,300 Years Earlier Than Thought

DNA from Bronze Age victims helped pinpoint mutations that allowed the disease to go from localized illness to deadly pandemic

Scientists Are Working on a Pill That Just Might Replace Exercise

The idea is to create a drug that mimics the molecular changes exercise causes in the body. But it’s no small challenge

The Rise of DIY Genetic Testing

Some people are skipping the doctor’s office and using the internet to order and interpret their own DNA tests

A relative unknown, Werner Forssmann won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for inventing the cardiac catheter. Some of his equally qualified peers have not been as fortunate.

How Not to Win a Nobel Prize

A search through the Nobel archives shows how the history of the famous prize is filled with near misses and flukes

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