Multiple views of the young teen's right humerus arm bone that runs from the shoulder to the elbow show where the tumor left its mark.

Oldest Cancer Case in Central America Discovered

A young teen, who died 700 years ago, likely suffered pain in the right arm as the tumor grew and expanded through the bone

How NASA Cut Costs With a New Kind of Spacecraft

With budgets for space exploration falling toward the end of the 1960s, NASA began to make plans for a new kind of reusable spacecraft to save money

Future of Conservation

The Hidden Dangers of Road Salt

It clears our roads, but also spells danger for fish, moose—and sometimes humans

A mid-air tourist flight. The author is second from the left.

The Future of Zero-Gravity Living Is Here

Entrepreneurs predict there will be thousands of us living and working in space. Our correspondent takes off to see what that feels like

DNA barcoding, as the name suggests, was designed to make identifying a species as simple as scanning a supermarket barcode.

Future of Conservation

The Key to Protecting Life on Earth May Be Barcoding It

An easier way to read DNA is helping scientists tease apart species and ecosystems in nuanced ways

How Mastiffs Became the World’s Top Dogs

The large, furry dogs of Tibet took an evolutionary shortcut millenia ago

Aubrey de Grey says, “There’s no such thing as aging gracefully.”

Can Human Mortality Really Be Hacked?

Backed by the digital fortunes of Silicon Valley, biotech companies are brazenly setting out to “cure” aging

From the Batpod to the Batcomputer, the Caped Crusader's gadgets use up a whole lot of energy and spew a whole lot of carbon. But when it comes to carbon footprints, Gotham's techiest hero has nothing on some of pop culture's other saviors.

Age of Humans

Which of Your Favorite Superheroes Is Destroying the Earth?

Measuring the carbon footprints of your favorite comic book heroes, from Batman to Jessica Jones

The soil microbe Bacillus subtilis is ubiquitous, but one rare strain yielded scientific pay dirt.

One Girl’s Mishap Led to the Creation of the Antibiotic Bacitracin

Margaret Treacy was the namesake for a breakthrough medication

Taste receptors for salty, sweet, bitter and sour are found all over the tongue.

The Taste Map of the Tongue You Learned in School Is All Wrong

Modern biology shows that taste receptors aren’t nearly as simple as that cordoned-off model would lead you to believe

Thousands of clay caterpillars, like this one glued to a leaf in Hong Kong, were used to measure how often predators are eating insects around the world.

New Research

Sacrificing Fake Caterpillars in the Name of Science

Ersatz insects are helping ecologists figure out why bugs are more likely to become meals near the equator

These Trees Uncover What Plunged Egypt’s Climate Into Chaos

Examining tree rings inside the world’s oldest trees reveal a seismic event that took place around 3,500 years ago

Amanda Lawrence, lead technician, collections program. With a green sea turtle Chelonia mydas

Why These Humans Are Museum Treasures, Too

A portrait photographer captured 24 staffers from the National Museum of Natural History posing with their favorite artifacts from the collections

Some studies have shown that humans can learn to track scents like canines.

New Research

In Some Ways, Your Sense of Smell Is Actually Better Than a Dog’s

Human noses are especially attuned to picking up odors in bananas, urine and human blood

Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee illustrates the immensity of the missing Carmanah cedar in 2012.

Future of Conservation

How Thousand-Year-Old Trees Became the New Ivory

Ancient trees are disappearing from protected national forests around the world. A look inside $100 billion market for stolen wood

A giraffe skin disease was first described in the mid-1990s in Uganda and evidence of the disease has been spotted in numerous other countries, including Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Future of Conservation

How a Tiny Worm is Irritating the Most Majestic of Giraffes

They sound horrifying and look worse. A Smithsonian researcher is investigating the cause of these grotesque skin lesions

Ornithologist John Gould's illustrations of finches collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands show the physical differences that the men relied on in dividing them into different species.

Future of Conservation

What Does It Mean to Be a Species? Genetics Is Changing the Answer

As DNA techniques let us see animals in finer and finer gradients, the old definition is falling apart

World War I: 100 Years Later

How World War I Changed Weather Forecasting for Good

Prior to the Great War, weather forecasters had never considered using mathematical modeling

A little protection over here, please?

Future of Conservation

How America Can Help Save a Non-American Species: The Mighty Giraffe

Giraffes aren’t native to the U.S. But listing them as an endangered species could offer them much-needed protection

Scimitar-horned oryx calf

Spring Brings a Wave of Baby Animals to the Zoo

Seven different endangered species born so far at the National Zoo and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

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