Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News

The artist installed 24 blocks of Greelandic ice outside of London's Tate Modern

Straight From a Greenland Fjord, London Installation Sends Dire Message on Climate Change

Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Ice Watch’ aims to bring viewers into direct confrontation with the devastation wrought by global warming

Volcanic Lightning Could Help Geologists Monitor Eruptions

New study suggests spikes in lightning activity mark key changes during early stages of eruptions

New Research

A City Frog’s Love Song Attracts More Mates Than Countryside Croaks

Fewer predators and heightened competition for mates allowed urban tungara frogs to add more notes and frills to their calls, with big results Read more: h

Television remains dominant across all mediums, with 49 percent of Americans surveyed citing it as their most-frequented news source

Pew Finds Social Media Has Surpassed Print Newspapers as Americans’ Main News Source

The research center says 20 percent of Americans rely on sites like Facebook, Twitter for news updates, while 16 percent cite print as main news source

Thousands of yellow vest protesters seen in front of the Arc De Triomphe on December 8, 2018.

Arc de Triomphe to Reopen After Being Vandalized During ‘Yellow Vest’ Protests

Demonstrators sprayed the famed monument with graffiti and ransacked its small museum

The so-called "Great Dying" depleted ocean oxygen levels, effectively suffocating nearly all of the planet's marine life

How Did the ‘Great Dying’ Kill 96 Percent of Earth’s Ocean-Dwelling Creatures?

Researchers say the prehistoric mass extinction event could mirror contemporary—and future—devastation sparked by global warming

The resin-based 3D printer layers ink much like the chocolate and wafer combination seen in Kit-Kat bars

Art Meets Science

This New Technique Could Revolutionize the Future of Art Reproduction

RePaint renders reproductions in color four times closer to the original than the next-best tool

Trending Today

By the End of 2018 More Than Half the World Will Be Online

In the past decade, there’s been a huge spike in internet access though that number is beginning to slow down

Trending Today

Researchers Create First-Ever Honey Bee Vaccine

The compound protects against the American foulbrood disease, but the same technique could lead to protection against other major pathogens

The blue-fronted Amazon parrot lives up to 66 years in the wild.

Parrot Genes Reveal Why the Birds Are So Clever, Long-Lived

Researchers say the avian creatures are as genetically distant from other birds as humans are from other primates

Claude-Joseph Vernet, "The Storm," 1759

How a New Hampshire Museum Is Using Art to Reach Families Affected by the Opioid Crisis

The ‘Art of Hope’ initiative encourages participants to draw connections between works of art and their own lives

A Geminid meteor shower in 2012.

How to Spot This Year’s Spectacular Geminids Meteor Shower

A beautiful celestial display is due to take place starting on the night of December 13

The re-discovered works are newly published in the literary journal Fugue.

Cool Finds

Scholar Unearths Trove of Anne Sexton’s Forgotten Early Works

The four poems and an essay find the confessional poet detailing American life in the 1950s, from skiing to suburban lawn care

Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, Senegal.

Sprawling Museum of Black Civilizations Opens in Senegal

The launch comes as Senegal is requesting the repatriation of looted artworks from France

New Butterfly Species Named After 17th-Century Female Naturalist

Maria Sibylla Merian documented the lifecycles of moths and butterflies with unprecedented accuracy

Trending Today

Forty Years Ago, 12.6 Million Feet of History Went Up in Smoke

Remembering the fire at a National Archives film vault that destroyed years worth of flammable nitrate film newsreels

Cool Finds

Fruit Flies First Began Feeding on Our Fresh Produce About 10,000 Years Ago

It turns out the insects love marula fruit found in south-central Africa, which attracted them to human caves

Is your life affirmed?

What Is ‘Life-Affirming’ Coral, Pantone’s Color of the Year?

What to know about Pantone 16-1546, the orange shade with a golden undertone

Cool Finds

Recently Deciphered 4,500-Year-Old Pillar Shows First Known Record of a Border Dispute

The marble stele, held in the British Museum’s collections for 150 years, also includes the first known use of the term “no man’s land”

When healthy DNA is added to gold particle-laden (and therefore pink) water, it turns blue, but when cancerous DNA is added, the water remains pink

Researchers Say They’ve Created Universal Cancer Test That Detects Mutating Cells in Just 10 Minutes

The tool, which is still in early stages of development, can’t identify the specific type of cancer present or gauge the severity of the disease

Page 560 of 1129