Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Science

Cool Finds

Snowflakes All Fall In One of 35 Different Shapes

The latest categorization of solid precipitation types inspired a cool graphic

New Research

Birds Get Drunk And Sing Drunken Songs

Like humans, birds just don’t sing as well drunk as they do when sober

Cool Finds

Live Happier (And More Energy Efficiently) by Sleeping More And Inviting Your Friends Over

Increasing your well being in the new year can also be good for the planet

These images show the planet on the last day of Martian spring in the northern hemisphere (just before summer solstice). The annual north polar carbon dioxide frost (dry ice) cap is rapidly sublimating, revealing the much smaller permanent water ice cap.

New Research

Examining Martian Meteorites, Scientists Think They’ve Found The Red Planet’s Missing Water

Mars may have an underground water reservoir

Cool Finds

Repeat a Bit of Regular Speech, And It’ll Turn Into a Song

Throw it in a loop, and listen to the music

New Research

Ants Usually Turn Left While Exploring

It’s a sinister version of human’s tendency towards right-handedness

New Research

Blind People Can Echolocate

Echolocation acts as such a close a proxy for vision that it falls victim to the same shortcomings

Cool Finds

Why There’s a Dangling Thing In Our Throats

The riddle of the uvula may not be solved yet, but it looks like we have some ideas

Cool Finds

Meet The Culprits Behind Bright Lights And Strange Floaters in Your Vision

So-called entoptic phenomena remind us that what we see isn’t always a clear view of the world around us

New Research

Mercury Was Once Bigger, Then It Shrank

As the planet cooled, it contracted and shut off the surface lava flows about 3.8 billion years ago

Trending Today

There’s More to Frankincense and Myrrh Than Meets the Eye

Frankincense and myrrh have interesting medicinal properties

A surfer rides large waves at Baker Beach in San Francisco during one of the largest storms to hit Northern California in the last five years.

New Research

Get Set For Frequent Flooding In Coastal U.S. Cities

Sea level rise is increasing the odds of nuisance flooding

The aftermath of a bomb blast in Tel Aviv, 1996.

New Research

Living Under the Threat of Terrorism Might Shorten Lives

Constant fear of terrorist attacks is linked to elevated heart rates, which is a predictor of increased risk of death

New Research

Don’t Give Your Kids Gifts to Show Affection

Setting up a connection between things and reward early in life primes people to be materialistic

New Research

A Bedbug Trap That Might Actually Work

Researchers are learning to use bed bugs pheromones against them

Cool Finds

Truffles Have a THC-like Substance in Them

This produces a euphoric smell that likely evolved as a way to trick animals into eating them

A Megalodon tooth -- not the one found recently in California

Cool Finds

Fossil Hunting Is Best After Big Storms

California’s storms unearthed treasures along beaches and in foothills including a Megolodon tooth and a Steller’s sea cow ribs

New Research

Why a Tanzanian Village Chased Six Elephants Off a Cliff

Not all animal killings are linked to the illegal wildlife trade

New Research

One Conversation Can Change Same-Sex Marriage Opponents’ Minds

Voters change their stance after a face-to-face conversation with a gay or lesbian person hoping to get married

Aspidoscelis neavesi, a species unlike any other.

Cool Finds

This New Lizard Species Evolved in a Lab

The novel reptile shows that hybrids can indeed lead to viable species, but not by the normal reproductive route

Page 451 of 537