Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News

The 2015 winner of the "GIF It Up" competition.

Competition Wants You to Turn Cultural Heritage Into GIFs

The latest round of “GIF It Up” seeks the best GIFs made from public domain prints, photos, paintings and more

This 1966 portrait of Hugh Hefner will go on display today in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery

Hugh Hefner’s Legacy as Told Through National Portrait Gallery Artifacts

Three objects explore the complicated and controversial life of the late founder of the Playboy empire

The Village of Whitesboro's old seal (left) adjacent to its new seal (right).

New York Village Changes Controversial Seal Showing a White Settler Wrestling a Native American

The seal was widely mocked and criticized after villagers voted against changing it last year

A Coco Chanel Little Black Dress, released in 1926.

Why Coco Chanel Created the Little Black Dress

The style icon created a… well…. style icon in 1926

A modern mocha

Your Mocha is Named After the Birthplace of the Coffee Trade

The port city of Mocha, in Yemen, was once a vast coffee marketplace

Cool Finds

Degas’ Rare Sculptures Are Stuffed With Wine Corks

X-rays show the artist fleshed out his wax and clay personal projects with bits and pieces found around the studio

A bit of 3.95 billion-year-old graphite locked in quartz

New Research

This May Be the Oldest Traces of Life Yet Found

Bits of graphite, 3.95 billion years old, suggest life was churning away soon after Earth’s formation

Pandamonium

Panda Habitat Is Severely Fragmented, Placing Pandas at Risk

Despite recent habitat improvements, roads and development are isolating panda populations

Scientists drilled under the waters around New Zealand to find evidence of a lost continent

“Lost Continent” Rises Again With New Expedition

Zealandia sank beneath ocean tens of millions of years ago, but scientists are pulling up remnants of it to study how it used to be

None

Wolf Pups Spotted Near Rome for the First Time in Decades

The animals were once hunted to the brink of extinction, but are now recovering

Could New York be the Gotham we prize without the Guggenheim?

What to Know About the Controversy Surrounding the Chinese Art Exhibit Coming to the Guggenheim

As questions of animal cruelty, artistic freedom swirl, three major works were pulled from “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World”

A comparison of the man's brain activity before and after he had vagus nerve stimulation.

New Research

Experimental Treatment Partially Awakens Man in Vegetative State

Scientists are hopeful but cautious about the initial results of the test

This portrait by an anonymous photographer shows the face of the man who popularized the flush toilet: Thomas Crapper.

Three True Things About Sanitary Engineer Thomas Crapper

Thomas Crapper’s actual innovation was entirely tangential to the flush toilet

The inspiration for the bendy straw came while Joseph Friedman was watching his young daughter try to drink from a tall glass.

Why You Should Appreciate the Invention of the Bendy Straw

It’s the straw that bends, not the person

An artist's impression of ripples in the fabric of space-time formed from the collision of two black holes.

Scientists Detect Fourth Gravitational Wave, Homing in on an Ancient Black Hole Collision

By triangulating measurements, scientists could soon detect these once elusive energy bursts on a weekly basis with greater precision than ever before

Cool Finds

Excavations Begin on Paul Revere’s Privy

Archaeologists in Boston hope the outhouse will reveal the diet and detritus of the families that lived on the site

New Research

Botanic Gardens May Be Endangered Species’ Best Bet

Survey shows the institutions preserve one third of Earth’s plant life and 40 percent of endangered plant species

This plant-eating dino joins the ranks of official California state insignia.

Meet California’s New State Dinosaur

The herbivorous creature last tromped across the state roughly 66 million years ago

In this Saturday March 29, 2014 file photo, a woman drives a car on a highway in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving. Saudi Arabia authorities announced Tuesday Sept. 26, 2017, that women will be allowed to drive for the first time in the ultra-conservative kingdom from next summer, fulfilling a key demand of women's rights activists who faced detention for defying the ban.

Trending Today

Saudi Women Win the Right to Drive

Next June, women in the ultra-patriarchal society will become the last in the world to receive driver’s licenses

Massive Iceberg Breaks Off From Antarctic Glacier

The chunk of ice is roughly four times the size of Manhattan

Page 637 of 1116