The Pearl of Dubai is half adventure park, half marine sanctuary.

Can Underwater Resorts Actually Help Coral Reef Ecosystems?

A Los Angeles company is designing artificial reefs to boost local economies and marine habitat

This eco-friendly house in the UK is one way that homes might be greener in the future. Another way involves using materials that store carbon or suck it out of the atmosphere entirely.

Age of Humans

Five Ways You Can Store Excess Carbon In Your Home, Literally

New technologies make it possible for your home to not just save energy but actually suck carbon out of the atmosphere

Mosquito Deterrents: The Good, the Bad and the Potentially Effective

With Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses on the rise, researchers are looking for the next best way to keep the bugs from biting

Bigelow Aerospace's proposed space station, Alpha, would be made up of sausage-link-esque blocks, each the size of a school bus.

Age of Humans

We Thought We’d Be Living in Space (or Under Giant Domes) By Now

An inflatable space habitat test highlights the futuristic visions we’ve had for housing, from cities under glass to EPCOT

The ground cracks as a waterhole on Navajo lands in Arizona dries up.

How Will Native Americans in the Southwest Adapt to Serious Impacts of Climate Change?

A drying landscape and changing water regime are already affecting tribal lands

Artist Gary Staab and his team spent roughly 2,000 hours over five months to create the first of three models.

Art Meets Science

An Artist Creates a Detailed Replica of Ötzi, the 5,300-Year-Old “Iceman”

Museum artist Gary Staab discusses the art and science of constructing exhibition pieces

Tropical hardwoods wait to be milled into boards near the coastal city of Miri.

In Borneo’s Ruined Forests, Nomads Have Nowhere to Go

The island’s hunter-gatherers are losing their home to the unquenchable global demand for timber and palm oil

High in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, scientists and hunters are unlikely allies in an effort to protect the endangered snow leopard before it vanishes.

Hunters Become Conservationists in the Fight to Protect the Snow Leopard

A pioneering program recruits locals as rangers in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, where the elusive cat is battling for survival

Beluga whales blow bubbles.

Why Do Beluga Whales Blow Bubbles?

The animal’s whimsical pastime offers insight into the mammalian brain

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Is the Earthworm Native to the United States and More Questions From Readers

You asked, we answered

Palm oil is extracted from the fruit of oil palm trees.

Giving Up Palm Oil Might Actually Be Bad for the Environment

The trouble with the maligned crop isn’t its popularity, but where it’s planted

Meteorites embedded in ice sheets that run into the Transantarctic mountains can work their way to the surface, making it easier for scientists to collect these fragmented space rocks.

Journey to the Center of Earth

Iron Meteorites Play Hide-and-Seek Under Antarctic Ice

Meteorites give scientists a glimpse into our early solar system, but the sun’s rays and melting ice may make these extraterestrial crumbs harder to find

The weather breaks in the Comox Valley, and Queneesh makes an appearance.

What Happens to a Town’s Cultural Identity as Its Namesake Glacier Melts?

As the Comox Glacier vanishes, the people of Vancouver Island are facing hard questions about what its loss means for their way of life

The skeleton of a Steller's sea cow hangs in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

“Mermaid Ivory” Stirs Controversy Over How Extinct Species Are Studied

The carved bones of marine mammals highlight the squishy regulations around their trade and what that means for science

U.S. species, like this red salamander, may be at risk as a new form of deadly amphibian fungus spreads.

A Ban on Salamanders Is Just Part of the Fight Against This Deadly Fungus

Scientists are deploying a variety of weapons as new clues emerge about the fungal diseases killing off amphibians

Pre Rup Temple rises in the distance as a worker fills a cart during the rice harvest in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia.

Podcast: Farming Shaped the Rise and Fall of Empires in Cambodia

Beneath the country’s troubled history with the Khmer Rouge lies a complex agricultural legacy that reaches back centuries

A supercomputer simulation shows the gravitational waves produced as two black holes merge.

New Research

After a Century of Searching, We Finally Detected Gravitational Waves

Two merging black holes sent out a signal 1.3 billion years ago that now confirms a key prediction of Einstein’s relativity

A free-standing, double-hulled steel shelter was installed beneath the front yard of Mr. and Mrs. Murland E. Anderson of Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Dig Into the Nuclear Era’s Homegrown Fallout Shelters

In 1955, the head of Civil Defense urged everyone to build an underground shelter “right now”

An artist's rendering of the galaxies hiding beyond the veil of the Milky Way.

Think Big

Hundreds of Galaxies Were Found Hiding Behind Our Milky Way

The objects may help explain why our galaxy and its neighbors are hurtling towards a seemingly blank zone called the Great Attractor

When CO2 rises, wet and wild planets may lose their oceans to space.

New Research

Looking for Life Beyond Earth? Watch Out for Steam Bath Planets

Simulations show that water and CO2 can be a surprisingly deadly combo on some unfortunate worlds

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