Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News

New Research

Language Discrimination Goes Beyond Just Grammar

Even when candidates are all equally qualified, employers pick native speakers over those born abroad

Tie Dye Egg by Lindsey Bull from last year's Big Egg Hunt in London

Cool Finds

The Hunt For Giant Easter Eggs Across New York City Is On

Not just any eggs—260 egg-shaped sculptures that range from ornate to modern

Edward Burne-Jones, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, painted probably using Mummy Brown.

Cool Finds

Ground Up Mummies Were Once an Ingredient in Paint

In 1964, the manufacturer who made Mummy Brown reportedly ran out of mummies to grind up

"An illustration showing various ways that a water well (center) may become infected by typhoid fever bacteria."

Cool Finds

Science Rewrites the Death of America’s Shortest-Serving President

William Henry Harrison may have died of typhoid fever

Charles Rowell: The celebrated pedestrian, c. 1879.

Cool Finds

America’s Favorite Sport Used to Be… Competitive Walking

Pedestrianism was popular in the late 19th century

Trending Today

If Men Get Paid to Play College Sports, Title IX Says Women Do, Too

A labor board ruled that football players at Northwestern University are “employees” and have the right to form unions

Colorful archaea grow in in ponds.

New Research

How a Single Act of Evolution Nearly Wiped Out All Life on Earth

A single gene transfer event may have caused the Great Dying

Trending Today

Google Play Kicks Porn of All Types Out of Its Store

The store has never allowed straight-up pornography, but it’s now getting even stricter about what’s allowed

Cool Finds

The Prescription for Rheumatism Used to Be to Sit Inside a Rotting Whale for 30 Hours

The treatment’s efficacy, however, remains questionable

Cool Finds

This Hospital Door Handle Doubles As a Hand Sanitizer

This way, infections don’t spread as easily—and no one has to remember to Purel their hands

New Research

A Virus—Possibly Spread by Pig Feed—Has Killed Millions of Piglets

The virus poses no threat to humans, but is deadly to piglets

Cool Finds

This Mummy Had an Angel Tattooed on Her Leg

A 1,300 year old Egyptian mummy was found to have the tattoo of an angel on her inner thigh

Most of us are more like the frog, than the prince.

Cool Finds

No One Wants to Admit They’re Ugly, Which Makes It Hard to Fight Beauty Bias

Nobody wants to join the ugly lobby, but that might be what we need to battle “lookism”

Lehman Cave

Cool Finds

Even Caves Need a Spring Cleaning

Volunteers removed two tons of detritus from Lehman Cave in Great Basin National Park

The English city of Bath was one of the top 10 tourist destinations in the 1800's

Cool Finds

Here’s How Tourism Worked in the 1860s

One of the only constants: Paris is popular.

Trending Today

Japan Has Been Ordered to Stop Whaling Near Antarctica

The United Nations called foul on Japan’s claim that whaling is done for scientific purposes

Andorra

Cool Finds

In a Few Small Countries, Tourists Massively Outnumber Locals

To attract enough tourists to overwhelm its population, a country needs something special to attract them.

Cool Finds

The Definitive Guide to the Dogs on the Titanic

There were twelve dogs on the Titanic. Here’s what happened to them.

New Research

Crows Understand Water Displacement Better Than Your Kid

Even Aesop knew that crows were so smart they understood how to get water to their beaks.

Researchers used the game Pardus to look at human organization.

New Research

Humans Playing Online Games Organize Themselves into Fractals

Players may be acting in a future, space-based world, but they still organize themselves into the fractals that humans have always fallen into

Page 949 of 1116