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Science / Our Planet

Ask Smithsonian 2017

What Happens to All the Salt We Dump On the Roads?

In the U.S., road crews scatter about 137 pounds of salt per person annually to melt ice. Where does it go after that?

Five Reasons Why You Should Probably Stop Using Antibacterial Soap

As the FDA recently noted, antibacterial products are no more effective than soap and water, and could be dangerous

Earthquake lights seen Tagish Lake, in the Yukon Territory, in 1972. Large orbs are visible in the foreground, while smaller ones (highlighted by arrows) are seen higher up.

Why Do Lights Sometimes Appear in the Sky During An Earthquake?

Scientists have a new hypothesis to explain the mysterious phenomenon—one that could allow the lights to serve as warning for an impeding quake

A tobacco hornworm caterpillar chowing down on a wild tobacco plant in the Great Basin Desert, Utah

Caterpillars Repel Predators With Second-Hand Nicotine Puffs

As far as spiders are concerned, caterpillars have a case of very bad breath

A black mangrove has taken root in this salt marsh in St. Augustine, Florida.

Fewer Freezes Let Florida’s Mangroves Move North

Climate change has extended the range in which mangroves can survive the winter, letting them take root farther north and invade salt marshes

Six Things We Learned About Our Changing Climate in 2013

Scientists are in agreement that human activities are altering our climate—and it’s an illusion that the pace of changes seems to have slowed down

Orbus chirurgia, a scorpion used for semi automated and remote surgery.

Art Meets Science

An Artist Imagines the Techno-Evolved Creatures of the Future

Vincent Fournier has seen the future of evolution, in which humans design animals for their own uses

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The Coolest Science of 2013, in GIFs

This year, we saw dissolving electronics, flying meteors, gravity-defying chains and rotting pineapples

A screenshot of the first video of a giant squid in the wild.

The Top Five Ocean Stories of 2013

This year we’ve seen amazing footage of marine creatures, discovered how plastic works its way into the food chain, employed 3D printing to build new reefs

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck Costa Rica on September 5, 2012, producing a strong shaking through much of the country.

Scientists Successfully Forecasted the Size and Location of an Earthquake

Well before Costa Rica shook in a magnitude 7.6 quake in September 2012, geoscientists forecasted that the region was due for a magnitude 7.7 to 7.8 quake

A new species of tapir, a herbivorous mammal, was discovered in the Amazon earlier this month.

A Recap of Our Five Favorite New Species of 2013

An owl, a cat, a dolphin, and of course the olinguito, are among this year’s biggest new species finds

A golden eagle swoops for a rabbit.

Art Meets Science

Beautiful Anatomical Skeletons, Posed and Photographed As Sculptures

Photographer Patrick Gries transforms ordinary specimens, stripped of fur and flesh, into art that showcases motion, predation and evolution

Frozen seafood in the lab, ready for DNA testing.

The DNA Detectives That Reveal What Seafood You’re Really Eating

Genetic sequencing allows scientists to uncover increasingly prevalent seafood fraud

More Than Three Years Later, Oil From the Deepwater Horizon Persists in the Gulf

Continued testing has found evidence of oil in the water, sediments and marine animals of the Gulf

Santa could make his home on floating sea ice, but the Arctic may be ice free as early as 2016, according to the U.S. Navy.

Six Ways Climate Change Is Waging War on Christmas

If Santa really lived at the North Pole, he would have drowned long ago—his icy abode is slowly melting

Stained transverse section of a lily flower bud. Darkfield illumination, stitched images.

Art Meets Science

The Startling Beauty of the Microscopic

Olympus BioScapes announces ten winners of their 2013 Digital Image Competition, which honors some of the best images taken through a microscope

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These Carnivorous Plants Glow Under Ultraviolet Light to Attract Prey

Their florescent blue glow lures ants to their death. Mask it, and the plants barely catch any

The Northern Hemisphere's mid-latitudes have experienced many heat waves in recent years, such as one that fueled Rocky Mountain wildfires in summer 2012. Warmer-than-normal temperatures appear red in this NASA image of North America on June 28, 2012.

Summer Heat Waves May Be Linked To Sea Ice Loss

As ice melts, the jet stream gets stuck in the north, causing warm weather to linger in the south—but the reason why this occurs remains unknown

Scientists had to use a remotely operated vehicle to retrieve temperature sensors from a borehole drilled into the Japan Trench, 6,900 meters below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Fault That Caused Japan’s 2011 Earthquake Is Thin and Slippery

A group of scientists drilled miles beneath the Pacific Ocean, uncovering conditions that made the Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tsunami so devastating

Art Meets Science

The Art and Science of Growing Snowflakes in a Lab

Physicist Kenneth Libbrecht can make snowflakes with elegant spindles or blocky tabs by manipulating temperature and humidity

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