Computer-simulated global view of Venus.

Think Big

The Case for Going to Venus

Sending a probe to Earth’s lifeless twin could help us understand how life rises—and falls—on faraway planets

The Beast must learn to love someone else and be loved before the last petal falls on the Enchanted Rose in the tale of the new Disney film, Beauty and the Beast

Ask Smithsonian 2017

The Beast’s Enchanted Rose Lasted a Decade. How Long Can a Real One Last?

A Smithsonian expert says the film’s was undoubtedly a hybrid tea rose

Marianne North’s Obsession with the Carnivorous Pitcher Plant

Painter Marianne North’s obsession with local Borneo vegetation led her to one of the most unusual and rare plants in the world

Ecologists tend to think of mobbing behavior as primarily a way that smaller birds protect their nests and chicks from larger predators. Shown here, a Willie wagtail attacking an Australian raven.

New Research

Why Do Male Birds Take on Larger Predators? Maybe Just to Impress the Ladies

Some mobbing behavior may be less about survival, and more about sexual selection

Planet launched 88 more satellites in February.

How Daily Images of the Entire Earth Will Change the Way We Look At It

With more satellites than any other company, Planet Labs gives environmental researchers daily data

"Numbers are a human invention, and they’re not something we get automatically from nature," says Caleb Everett.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

How Humans Invented Numbers—And How Numbers Reshaped Our World

Anthropologist Caleb Everett explores the subject in his new book, Numbers and the Making Of Us

Researchers scanned the brains of memorizers as they practiced tried-and-true memory techniques to see how their brains changed in response to their training.

New Research

Neuroscientists Unlock the Secrets of Memory Champions

Boosting your ability to remember lists, from facts to faces, is a matter of retraining your brain

What Lions Look for in the Perfect Prey

For lions hunting buffalo in the Manyeleti, calculation is always at play: An adult male buffalo may be harder to bring down

New "Don't mess with Texas" trash cans at the Texas capitol building in Austin.

The Trashy Beginnings of “Don’t Mess With Texas”

A true story of the defining phrase of the Lone Star state

Itchy and scratchy: When they see their peers scratching away, mice get the urge to itch.

New Research

Why Is Itching So Contagious?

Scientists figure out how compulsive scratching spreads in mice, and maybe humans

Paleo diet? Not so much. Thanks to Neanderthal dental plaque, researchers are getting a much better idea of what our ancestors actually dined on.

New Research

Scientists Delve Into Neanderthal Dental Plaque to Understand How They Lived and Ate

The plaque that coated Neanderthal teeth is shedding new light on how our ancestors ate, self-medicated and interacted with humans

Adorable Ground Squirrels Playing in Sweltering Heat

Ground squirrels in the Kalahari have devised a remarkable method to guarantee portable shade: they use their tails as umbrellas

Coralline algae of the genus Clathromorphum are specific to the Arctic and Subarctic, and they have critically important stories to tell about their ocean and how it has changed over the centuries.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

In Its Layers, This Stunning Pink Coralline Algae Holds Secrets of Climates Past

Unseen and unsung for centuries, these underwater species of coralline algae are providing scientists with an unparalleled new archive of information

While excavating at Bluefish Caves in northern Yukon during the 1970s and 1980s, Canadian archaeologist Cinq-Mars found cut-marked horse bones and other traces of human hunters that seemed to date to 24,000 years ago—thousands of years before the Clovis people.

What Happens When an Archaeologist Challenges Mainstream Scientific Thinking?

The story of Jacques Cinq-Mars and the Bluefish Caves shows how toxic atmosphere can poison scientific progress

Surfers take to the water in Montauk, where a shark nursery was discovered offshore last summer.

Future of Conservation

Can Social Media Give Sharks a Better Reputation?

A nonprofit called Ocearch is naming tagged sharks and giving them Twitter and Instagram accounts to ease fears and aid in conservation

Flame retardants and lead in Mardi Gras beads may pose a danger to people and the environment.

The Toxic Truth Behind Mardi Gras Beads

Every year, 25 million pounds of plastic beads made by Chinese factory workers get dumped on the streets of New Orleans

Patrick O'Brien, "Dinosaur and Volkswagen," Gigantic, 1998, oil on canvas - How big is “gigantic?” Patrick O'Brien shares his life-long fascination with the illustrations of prehistoric animals in children's books with a new generation of young readers. Other images in Gigantic compare dinosaurs with modern devices such as monster trucks, cherry pickers and tanks. O’Brien lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Art Meets Science

A New Exhibition Explores the Science and Math in Children’s Book Illustrations

The 29 artworks on display capture the wonder in nature, engineering and discoveries

The Kirtland’s warbler is one of North America’s most endangered bird species.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Scientists Track, For the First Time, One of the Rarest Songbirds on Its Yearlong Migration

The journey of the Kirtland’s warbler is discovered thanks to a combination of the latest tiny technology and centuries-old solar location methods

How a Soap Opera Virus Felled Hundreds of Students in Portugal

The “Strawberries With Sugar” outbreak is just one example of mass hysteria, which goes back centuries

Incredible: A Cheetah Sprints to Catch a Springbok

A cheetah mother caring for her cubs stumbles across an opportunity too good to pass up: a herd of springbok, grazing casually nearby

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