Smart News: Arts and Culture | Smithsonian Magazine

With carrot liqueur, one distillery takes a cue from Bugs Bunny

Cool Finds

Carrot Liqueur Could Be Coming to a Cocktail Near You

What’s Next?! Kale?!

July 25, 2015

The fragments comprise two parchment leaves, written in Hijazi script on sheep or goat skin.

New Research

Carbon Dating Reveals One of the Oldest Known Copies of the Quran

Manuscript fragments found in U.K. library were written between 568 and 645

July 24, 2015

Orson Welles as Macbeth in the 1948 film with Jeannette Nolan as Lady Macbeth

Cool Finds

Listen to 98 hours of Shakespeare’s Poems and Plays Performed by Great Actors

The playlist includes the voices of Edith Evans, Dylan Thomas, Orson Welles and Sir Ian McKellen

July 24, 2015

Cool Finds

Root Beer Is For Adults Again

This is not your soda fountain’s root beer

July 23, 2015

Cool Finds

You Can Pay for This Transylvanian Music Festival in Blood

Dracula would totally approve of this payment system

July 22, 2015

Could a crusade to bring historic women into the park change the face of the city?

July 22, 2015

A shadowy scene from F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922).

Someone Stole the Skull of ‘Nosferatu’ Director F.W. Murnau

Thieves left behind traces of wax, suggesting occult practices might be at play here

July 20, 2015

On July 13, Barnum's American Museum was the site of a disastrous fire.

Cool Finds

150 Years Ago, a Fire in P.T. Barnum’s Museum Boiled Two Whales Alive

Attracting tourists and locals alike, the museum mixed freakshow performers with educational collections

July 20, 2015

Silly humans, Pluto is a dog, not a planet.

Of Course Some People Think NASA’s Pluto Pictures Are Fake

Or at least doctored to exclude evidence of alien life.

July 20, 2015

Visitors to a hot springs resort in Japan enjoy a wine bath.

Cool Finds

What’s the Deal With Wine Baths?

Chemists investigate the science behind the hype

July 17, 2015

Workmen constructing the Statue of Liberty in Bartholdi's Parisian warehouse workshop in the winter of 1882.

Cool Finds

The Statue of Liberty Arrived in New York in 350 Pieces

Luckily, she also came with an instruction manual

July 17, 2015

Architects envision a rippling structure that takes a page from the singer’s famous look

July 16, 2015

Controversy still surrounds the release of Go Set a Watchman

July 14, 2015

The original fan gathering only attracted 145 people

July 14, 2015

A few throw pillows and a touch of new paint? No way.

July 14, 2015

Dorothy Arzner (left) poses with Clara Bow in a publicity shot for The Wild Party.

Cool Finds

Why Was One of Hollywood’s First Female Film Directors, Dorothy Arzner, Forgotten?

Arzner directed 20 feature films

July 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Conservationists Want You to Stop Building Rock Piles

Cairns have a long history and purpose, one that newer stacks sometimes subvert

July 13, 2015

Crystalized acetaminophen, the drug in Tylenol

Cool Finds

When This Photographer Got Sick, He Started Taking Beautiful Photos of Painkillers and Tears

The extreme closeups were one way for the photographer to understand what he was taking

July 10, 2015

New Research

Real-life Vampires Exist, but They Are Scared to Admit Their Practices to Doctors

Even vampires need non-judgmental help sometimes

July 10, 2015

Visitors at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., can take a trip to the seaside inside.

Urban Explorations

Washington D.C. Just Got a 10,000 Square Foot Ball Pit

A giant ball pit exhibit allows National Building Museum visitors to experience an indoor ocean

July 9, 2015

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