This Puerto Rican Telescope Was Built in a Massive Sinkhole

In 1958, the Pentagon wanted to build a 1,000-foot-long telescope for its ballistic missile program

The Ilban people of East Borneo captured these six warrior skulls in a single battle. They tossed the heads into a fire pit to cure and then wrapped them in vines to suspend their prize from the rafters of the community longhouse.

Explore Haunting Relics of Death With New Photography Book

Placenta-wiping fetuses are only the tip of the frightberg

The tongue-eating louse will leave you speechless.

Hollywood Has Nothing on These Real Life Halloween Horror Shows

Face-unfurling, chest-exploding, zombie-making fiends: They’re all around us

Mmm, science.

Science Explains Why Chocolate Should be Savored, Not Scarfed

And other molecular secrets to digest while you’re digesting

Ranching southern bluefin tuna has been a big-ticket industry in South Australia for years. One company hopes that inviting tourists to swim with the fish will prove successful, too.

A Bizarre “Swimming with Tuna” Attraction Puts Australia’s Controversial Aquaculture in the Spotlight

Is this an opportunity for conservation education, or another example of the government bending to Big Tuna?

A midwater creature has few ways to hide from predators. A new report says some tiny crustaceans use tiny spheres that might be bacteria to cloak themselves with invisibility.

These Sea Creatures Have a Secret Superpower: Invisibility Cloaks

Scientists have found that some crustaceans have just the trick for hiding from predators

Marián Cueto, author of a new study on fossilized cave lion claws, working in La Garma.

New Research

Humans May Have Hunted Cave Lions to Extinction—For Throw Rugs

Dear cave lions: We’re so, so sorry.

Stanford's Ocean Acidification Experience uses virtual reality to help people understand in a uniquely personal way the long-term effects of climate change.

How Virtual Reality Can Help Us Feel the Pain of Climate Change

It’s hard to comprehend the concept of oceans getting more acidic. Unless you become the coral.

Why do some people seem able to lie without feeling bad?

New Research

How White Lies Snowball Into Full-On Deception

Using brain scans, researchers find evidence that bad feelings associated with lying lessen over time

Heavy drinking can cause brain changes that make you want to drink more.

How a Genetically Engineered Virus Could Help the Brain Fight Alcohol Cravings

Heavy drinking can change the brain to make cravings worse. Can gene therapy change it back?

Ask Smithsonian: What’s the Longest You Can Hold Your Breath?

A dive into the science shows it is possible to override the system

A rare book depicting the sea monk by Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) in the Smithsonian Libraries dates to 1554.

Renaissance Europe Was Horrified by Reports of a Sea Monster That Looked Like a Monk Wearing Fish Scales

Something fishy this way comes

Prehistoric Kickboxing Killer Turkeys

Unlike Jurassic Park’s lizard-like creatures, real raptors had feathers and looked a lot more like their closest relatives — birds

In her new book, the acclaimed Thunder & Lightning: Weather, Past, Present and Future, Lauren Redniss is intrigued by how people have coped with, survived, or failed in extreme weather situations.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

How the 2016 MacArthur Genius Award Recipient Lauren Redniss Is Rethinking Biography

The visual biographer of Marie and Pierre Curie turns to her next subject, weather, lightning and climate change

Yes, Spiders Eat Spiders

Portia spiders, known for their remarkable intelligence, have some of the most astonishing hunting skills in the arthropod community

Stegosaurus and Ceratosaurus are among one of the most successful groups ever to have evolved.

Celebrate Dino Month With Three New Dinosaur Books

From PhDs to 4th graders, something for everyone

This golden goodness relies on a mathematical concept known as the silver ratio.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Using Math to Build the Ultimate Taffy Machine

A mathematician dives into taffy-pulling patents to achieve optimum confection creation

In search of distinctly American beer hops.

Wacky, Wonderful, Wild Hops Could Transform the Watered-Down Beer Industry

The diversity of hops reflects a diversity of tastes and traditions that are part of an extraordinary evolution in beer

Pan Am promoted its "First Moon Flights" Club on radio and TV after the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, saying that "fares are not fully resolved, and may be out of this world."

I Was a Card-Carrying Member of the “First Moon Flights” Club

My card is now a historical museum artifact, but I’ll never give up my dream to fly to the Moon

Mangroves are rich and biodiverse coastal ecosystems that flood and emerge with the tides. Now villagers are burning these trees to better their lives.

Madagascar’s Mangroves: The Ultimate Giving Trees

Locals already use the trees for food, fuel and building materials. Now they’re burning them to make lime clay

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