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Science

Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park Big Cypress Bend boardwalk

Fakahatchee Ghosts

But no exorcisms, please these rare orchids are the stars of a hit movie and a best-selling book

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To Touch the Heavens

Noreen Grice has given the visually impaired a feel for the universe

Tidal wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay

Baywatch

Smithsonian scientists’ study of the Chesapeake may benefit a wider world

Legal challenges from environmental groups over a two-year period stymied the efforts of ranger Kate Klein (a mile from her station) to thin a forest tract by commercial logging. A catastrophic fire broke out just days after she prepared a final rebuttal.

Fire Fight

With forests burning, U.S. officials are clashing with environmentalists over how best to reduce the risk of catastrophic blazes

"Among dung beetles, for instance, the smallest sneaker males relentlessly attempt to slip into tunnels where females are sequestered while Mr. Big, the guarding male, is looking the other way."

Close Encounters of the Sneaky Kind

When it comes to mating, the brawny guy is supposed to get the girl, but biologists are finding that small, stealthy suitors do just fine

"I had a bunch of birds that had died of encephalitis at the same time people had encephalitis," says Tracey McNamara (in her Bronx apartment), a veterinary pathologist formerly at the Bronx Zoo. She helped link the virus to the 1999 epidemic.

On the Trail of the West Nile Virus

Some scientists race to develop vaccines against the scourge while others probe the possible lingering effects of the mosquito-borne infection

Shoe-fitting fluoroscope, National Museum of American History.

Here’s Looking at You, Kids

For three decades, the fluoroscope was a shoe salesman’s best friend

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Lighthouse of the Skies

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory probes the universe for the unimaginable

Kandula frolicking with mother Shanthi at the National Zoo at 8 months.

Great Expectations

Elephant researchers believe they can boost captive-animal reproduction rates and reverse a potential population crash in zoos

Indicating that Neanderthals buried their dead, a stone-lined pit in southwest France held the 70,000-year-old remains of a man wrapped in bearskin. The illustration is based on a diorama at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Rethinking Neanderthals

Research suggests they fashioned tools, buried their dead, maybe cared for the sick and even conversed. But why, if they were so smart, did they disappear?

Naturalist and writer Burroughs (above, left, with conservationist Muir) fretted that he was "the most ignorant man" aboard ship.

North to Alaska

In 1899, railroad magnate Edward Harriman invited preeminent scientists in America to join him on a working cruise to Alaska, then largely unexplored

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True or False? Extinction Is Forever

Researchers’ efforts to clone the vanished Tasmanian tiger highlight the quandary of reviving long-gone creatures

Margaret Mead

Coalition of the Differing

It took Margaret Mead to understand the two nations separated by a common language

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Mystery Bumps

Scientists knew that alligators’ jaws are covered in bumps but it took biologist Daphne Soares to figure out why

Having stopped a mother bear with a tranquilizer dart shot from the helicopter, Derocher (with Andersen, left, and Instanes, on Spitsbergen Island) tethers the cubs and takes tissue samples to gauge the mother's exposure to industrial chemicals like PCBs.

Bear Trouble

Only hundreds of miles from the North Pole, industrial chemicals threaten the Arctic’s greatest predator

Bringing Up Baby

Scientists zero in on the caring and cunning ways of a seldom-seen waterbird

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The Stuff of Genes

Fifty years after the discovery of DNA’s structure, the payoff hasn’t matched the hype. But really, we’ve only just begun

MODIS image of the Arctic

Exotic Climes

Going the extra mile for bears and bats

A 6-year-old girl played with the radioactive material, coating her hands with the cesium dust while eating.

The Hunt for Hot Stuff

In the former Soviet Union, “rad rangers” are racing to find lost radiation devices before terrorists can turn them into “dirty bombs”

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Ice Capades

Alaska’s husband-and-wife team of avalanche experts work to save lives all winter, then take to their kayaks in summer

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