Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News

Young pythons warm themselves

New Research

Study Reveals Pythons Take Care of Their Offspring, For a Little While

The southern African python wraps around its eggs to keep them warm and does the same for its snakelets during the first weeks of life

Scientists are using high-powered X-rays to reveal a hidden text beneath a 10th century religious text.

High-Powered X-Rays Reveal What’s Beneath 11th-Century Religious Text

The hidden text is a translation of ancient Greek medical philosopher Galen’s writing

NASA’s Psyche mission to a distant metal asteroid that pass near Mars will carry a revolutionary Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package. This artist’s concept shows Psyche spacecraft with a five-panel array.

NASA Plans to Send High-Definition Video of Mars to Earth With Lasers

In 2022, NASA will launch the Psyche mission, carrying sophisticated communication technology

A Slave Cemetery May Have Been Discovered at a Plantation Near Annapolis

Archaeologists have found possible grave markers, and cadaver dogs have indicated the presence of human remains

The artist’s impression of "Self-Conscious Gene."

Europe

Sculpture of ‘Zombie Boy’ Fleshes Out London’s Science Museum

A giant sculpture of artist and model Rick Genest, who has covered himself in tattoos of the inside of his body, will debut in its new Medicine Galleries

Scientists Create a Super-White Coating, with Help from a Super-White Beetle

The Cyphochilus beetle’s scales boast intricate networks of chitin, a molecule that reflects light with high efficiency

Cool Finds

Sunshine Sheds Light on 17th-Century Mystery Painting At Hearst Castle

Two bright-eyed guides found an abbreviation and inscription leading to Spanish painter Bartolomé Pérez de la Dehesa

An aerial view of Meggido, now called Tell el-Mutesellim, where researchers have recently discovered the burial chamber of a royal or elite family.

3,600-Year-Old Tomb Found Next to Canaanite Palace Might Contain Remains of Royal Family

Archaeologists have been searching the site of Megiddo for more than 100 years

New Research

Earthlings: There’s No Need to Freak Out About Tonight’s Solar Storm

Expect small disruptions to satellite communications and minor surges in the power grid. Find out how USGS predicts effects of geomagnetic storms

Hawking, whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space though his body was paralyzed by disease, has died, a family spokesman said early Wednesday, March 14, 2018.

Trending Today

Stephen Hawking, the Expansive Cosmologist Who Shone Light on the Universe, Has Died at 76

The world’s favorite ambassador of science was one of the greatest minds in physics

New Research

Polls Are Still As Accurate As They Were 75 Years Ago

A new study shows polling is not undergoing a collapse despite what conventional wisdom might suggest

New Research

Ancient Humans Weathered the Toba Supervolcano Just Fine

New studies suggest the largest eruption in the last 2 million years didn’t push humanity to the edge of extinction as previously hypothesized

A beach in Naples.

For the Third Year in a Row, This City Was Tapped as America’s Happiest

The area’s success may be due, in part, to the fact that it is home to a large number of older Americans

Most of the differences in human empathy is not genetic, but a new study finds that about 10 percent of individual differences in empathy are due to genetics.

If You’re Empathetic, It Might Be Genetic

A new study found that 10 percent of differences in humans’ ability to empathize can be attributed to genetic variations

Strong, medium and undeformed skulls, from left to right in this image, were first found in Germany around the 1960s. Now researchers think they know where the modified skulls came from.

Pointy-Headed Medieval Skulls in Germany May Have Been Bulgarian ‘Treaty Brides’

Researchers have wondered for years about the strangely shaped skulls found in Western Europe

Glial cells of the mouse spinal cord, 1899 Ink and pencil on paper, 5 7/8 x 7 1/8 in.

See the Founder of Modern Neuroscience’s Unique Way of Looking at the Inner Workings of the Brain Through Art

Art meets science in the first U.S. traveling exhibition of Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s sketches

A team is working to conserve a collection of iron cannonballs found on The Mary Rose, Henry VIII's famous Tudor ship.

To Save Cannonballs on Henry VIII’s Flagship, Researchers Looked to X-ray Tech

The more than 1200 cannonballs found on The Mary Rose are facing a major problem—corrosion

Saturn's hazy moon Titan

New Research

Purple Haze: Alien Atmospheres Recreated In the Lab

By combining various gases with plasma, researchers are learning about the haze around distant planets

Holocaust survivor and artist Kalman Aron, third from left, stands as he is recognized with fellow survivors, as community leaders attend the opening of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMH) at the Pan Pacific Park on Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010, in Los Angeles

Kalman Aron Used His Art to Survive the Holocaust

The artist and survivor sketched portraits of Nazi officers in exchange for extra food and blankets. His death at 93 was confirmed by his son, David Aron

About 13 percent of Americans over the age of 12 use antidepressants, but how well—or whether—they work is still a question for many patients.

Major Study Finds Antidepressants Work, But May Have Limitations

A meta-analysis of existing trials suggests that the drugs are mostly effective on a short-term basis for patients suffering from acute depression

Page 625 of 1141