Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News

Vomiting and higher levels of perceived drunkenness were linked with more severe hangovers

Whether You Drink Beer Before Wine or Vice Versa, You’ll Probably Still Get a Hangover

90 volunteers downed copious amounts of alcohol in the name of science

A polar bear on the pack ice north of Svalbard, Norway

Climate Changes Bears Down on This Remote Russian Settlement

The surge of hungry four-legged visitors to Belushya Guba is part of a larger trend

Researchers examine porcelain from the Java Sea Ship wreck using their "ray gun."

New Research

How an ‘X-Ray Gun’ Is Telling Us More About the Java Sea Shipwreck

Researchers used X-ray fluorescence to find the origins of porcelain recovered from the vessel to help pinpoint which port the ship first departed from

A health worker in protective gear works at an Ebola treatment centre in Beni, Eastern Congo in September 2018.

Ebola Outbreak in the Congo Has Killed 500 People, Including 100 Children

Efforts to bring the crisis under control are being hampered by violent conflicts and widespread misconceptions about the infection

New Research

Insects Are Dying Off at an Alarming Rate

Forty percent of insect populations have seen declines in recent years and will drop even more without immediate action

Plumber planner Jannick Vestergaard and engineer Henning Nøhr posing with their discovery.

Medieval Sword, Blade Still Sharp, Pulled From Sewer in Denmark

Experts think its owner may have been defeated in battle and dropped the luxurious weapon in the muddy streets

Cool Finds

Museum of the Dog Takes Manhattan

After 30 years in St. Louis, the American Kennel Club museum is back in the Big Apple, with artifacts, portraits and a kiosk that matches people to dogs

Trending Today

Southern California Will Soon See Another Booming Superbloom

If the rain keeps up, the deserts and burn scars will soon explode with acres of colorful poppies, lupines, lilies and other ephemeral flowers

Can Fish Recognize Themselves in the Mirror?

A new study has found that the cleaner wrasse is capable of self-recognition—but does that mean it is also self-aware?

Frank Robinson taking a swing during a circa late 1960s Major League Baseball game at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland.

Trending Today

Smithsonian Curator Weighs in on Legacy of Frank Robinson, Barrier-Breaking Baseball Great

Robinson was one of the great all-time home run hitters and made history when he became the manager of the Cleveland Indians

Adolf Hitler's signature pictured on June 11, 2015 in the Weidler auction house in Nuremberg, southern Germany.

There Is a Market for Artworks by Hitler. Many of Them Are Fakes

More than 60 works suspected to be forgeries attributed to the Führer have been seized from a German auction house

New Research

Feeding Mosquitoes Diet Drugs Makes Them Stop Biting

The drugs—which block hunger signals in humans and the insects—keep the bugs from bloodsucking for a few days

An image of the true U.S. pizza king Filippo Milone in the May 9, 1903 issue of the Italian-language newspaper Il Telegrafo.

Cool Finds

The Father of American Pizza Is Not Who We Thought He Was

New research suggests pizza came to the U.S. earlier than 1905, spread by pizza evangelist Filippo Milone

A mass on the femur of a Pappochelys rosinae specimen.

What This Prehistoric Turtle’s Tumor Tells Scientists About Modern Cancer

A new study suggests not only that prehistoric creatures got cancer, but also that the disease looked similar to cancers in modern humans

King's former home on Sunset Avenue in Atlana's Vine City neighborhood

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Family Home to Open to the Public

The property was recently purchased by the National Park Foundation

The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum was co-founded by two friends who have been collecting the figures for the past 16 years

Milwaukee Museum Features More Than 6,500 Collectible Bobbleheads (and Counting)

The duo behind project find the art in the unblinking figurine, displaying bobbleheads from all walks of life, including sports, pop culture and politics

New Research

Honey Bees Can Do Simple Math, After a Little Schooling

Researchers trained 14 bees to add and subtract by one, suggesting their tiny brains have found novel ways of doing complicated tasks

Interior of the British Library in London

The British Library’s Dirtiest Books Have Been Digitized

The collection includes around 2,500 volumes and many, many double entendres

An artist's rendering of the European Space Agency's Mars rover, scheduled for launch in 2020 and recently named after English chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin.

Europe’s 2020 Mars Rover Named for DNA Pioneer Rosalind Franklin

The U.K.-built vehicle is due to launch to the Red Planet next year

The Somali ostrich is prized for its meat, feathers, leather and eggs

Human Hunting Is Driving the World’s Biggest Animals Toward Extinction

A new analysis found that 70 percent of Earth’s largest creatures are decreasing in number, while 59 percent are at risk of extinction

Page 535 of 1116