Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Paul Amotun Lokoro and Anjelina Nadai Lohalith of South Sudan, part of the Olympic's first team of refugees

Trending Today

Olympics Allows Refugees to Compete on Their Own Team

Ten refugee-athletes from Syria, Sudan, Ethiopia and the Republic of Congo will compete at the Rio Olympics

The cover to one of A-No.1's books about his life as a hobo.

Cool Finds

After a Century, an Anthropologist Picked up the Trail of the “Hobo King”

One hundred-year-old graffiti by “A-No.1” and others were found by the L.A. River

Money tossed into a fountain at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cool Finds

What Happens to the Coins Tossed Into Fountains?

All that money has to go somewhere

Cool Finds

Instead of Tagging Real-Life Surfaces, Graffiti Artists Can Use a New Simulator

Fake bombing has never felt so real

La Cité du Vin.

Cool Finds

Bordeaux’s New Wine Museum Is Open for Business

The “City of Wine” is a vino lover’s amusement park

Cool Finds

This Museum Made Art Out of a John Deere Harvester

‘Continuous Service Altered Daily’ finds life inside a familiar machine

Cool Finds

A Brief History of General Tso’s Chicken

From haute cuisine to takeout

Cool Finds

Paris’ Iconic “Love Locks” Bridge Is Now Home to a Set of Creepy Statues

The rotating art installation on the Pont des Arts bridge was inspired by classical mythology

A sketch of a Lycaeides melissa samuelis butterfly.

Art Meets Science

Vladimir Nabokov’s Butterfly Drawings Take Flight in This New Book

A little-known fact: The author of “Lolita” was also an avid lepidopterist

Cool Finds

Land of Oz Theme Park Will Temporarily Reopen Its Emerald Gates

This June, the yellow brick road will once again take you to see the Wizard

A page of a manuscript of Gregorian chants

Cool Finds

Inside the Effort to Digitize Medieval Monks’ Chants

Scanning and interpreting centuries-old manuscripts is a challenge because musical notation wasn’t formalized yet

This sad relic of ancient Rome is up for adoption.

Trending Today

Rome Is Looking for People to Adopt Famous, Falling-Apart Sites

When in Rome, pony up some cash for cultural preservation

Most experiments using the Large Hadron Collider visualize their data, but now this information can be translated into music in real time.

Art Meets Science

Tune Into the Smashing Sounds of Large Hadron Collider Data in Real Time

Grooves made by groundbreaking physics

Joseph Wright's "An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump," 1768

New Research

Doctors Diagnose Diseases of Subjects in Two Famous Paintings

The doctor will frame you now

"Red and Green II" Georgia O'Keeffe, 1916 Watercolor on paper, laid down on paper.

Cool Finds

A Painting Georgia O’Keeffe Wanted Destroyed Is on Display for the First Time in Nearly 60 Years

O’Keeffe’s watercolor returns to the town where she painted it

An artist's representation of an artificial meteor shower.

Trending Today

This Startup Wants to Open the 2020 Olympics With a Man-Made Meteor Shower

Could the only thing better than fireworks be fireworks launched from space?

Cool Finds

These Are America’s Most Well-Read Cities

Did your bookish burg make Amazon.com’s list?

Fewer young Americans than ever are leaving their parents' nest to live with a partner or spouse.

Trending Today

Young Adults Are More Likely to Live at Home Than With Significant Others

Is Mom’s basement the battlefield for a new social groundswell?

Sarah Josepha Hale was the 19th century's answer to Oprah.

Cool Finds

Five Fascinating Details About the Media Mogul Who May Have Written ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’

Everywhere that Sarah Josepha Hale went, success was sure to go

Cool Finds

Houston Opens Up Its Huge “Underground Cathedral” to Visitors

A haunting 1920’s city reservoir full of 25-foot columns and shafts of light is now open to the public

Page 221 of 286