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Smart News / Smart News Travel

A centuries-old hun luang puppet is seen in a Thailand museum. Artisans there have recently revived the style of theater using them.

After 149 Years, Thailand’s Royal Puppets Dance Again

The ancient art of Hun Luang all but vanished until passionate artisans revived the style in time for the late king’s royal funeral

A marble bust of Napoleon that has resided in Madison borough hall for 85 years has been revealed to be a long-lost artwork by revered French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

“Lost” Rodin Sculpture Discovered in New Jersey Borough Hall

It took decades for someone to notice the artist’s signature, which was facing the wall

Reaching the summit of the Matterhorn made Annie Smith Peck well-known.

Three Things to Know About Pants-Wearing Mountaineer Annie Smith Peck

Peck wasn’t wealthy and her family, who did have money, didn’t approve of her globe-trotting, mountain-climbing, pants-wearing lifestyle

Google Trekker in Quttinirpaaq National Park

Cool Finds

Now You Can Virtually Visit Quttinirpaaq National Park, One of the Most Remote Places on Earth

Google Street Views records the wonders of the northerly jewel

"Syria, Souk of Aleppo" In the Souk of Aleppo, with a Mamluk portal leading to a courtyard to the right, 2008

25 Images Capture at-Risk Heritage Sites of the Latest World Monuments Watch

The World Monuments Fund shines a light on landmarks in over 30 countries and territories that are in desperate need of conservation

Amy Sherald was the first-prize winner of the National Portrait Gallery’s 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Sherald’s painting is currently on view at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, which is hosting the exhibition resulting from the Portrait Gallery’s triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition: “The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today.”

Smithsonian Curator Talks Barack and Michelle Obama’s Official Portrait Selection

Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald will become the first black artists commissioned to paint a presidential couple for the Smithsonian

C.O.R.E Demonstration for Fair Housing, August 21, 1963. Before the Fair Housing Act of 1968, a practice known as redlining limited loans to owners in minority neighborhoods which contributed to housing decay. Discrimination also prevented minorities from moving into better neighborhoods. A Department of Buildings survey in August 1963 revealed over 16,000 housing violations in a single month. Over 379 cases were turned over to the criminal court for prosecution.

The “Unlikely Historians” Who Documented America in Protest

A new exhibit showcases photos and films that have long been stowed away in a basement at New York Police Department’s headquarters

A Viking-age woven band of silk displays patterns in silver thread discovered to be Arabic script

New Research

Did Vikings Bury Their Dead in Clothing Bearing the Arabic Word for “Allah”?

While contact between Vikings and Muslim cultures is well documented, the interpretation of the 10th-century burial cloth has been called into question

Intrepid Swiss scientists sampling wastewater at a treatment plant in Zürich

Stinking Rich: Swiss Sewage Contains $1.8 Million in Gold

But don’t start digging through the country’s sewer sludge just yet

Using "visual fingerprints" in works of art, Smartify can quickly ID that painting you want to know more about

App Aims to be the “Shazam” of the Art Museum

With a database of 30 museums worldwide and growing, Smartify can use your phone camera to identify and explain works of art

A line of men in green in the United Arab Emirates

Agoraphobic Photographer Captures the World With Some Help From Google Street View

A new exhibition shows how Jacqui Kenny has photographed stunning images of the planet without leaving her London home

Cool Finds

Stunning Video Captures Humpback Whales Catching Fish With Nets of Bubbles

It’s a complicated but ingenious way to catch a meal

Visitors next month will be able to tour the top tiers of Rome's Colosseum

Rome’s Colosseum Is Reopening Its Upper Tiers to Visitors

For the first time in four decades, the public will be able to enter the top levels of Rome’s amphitheater

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

Jennifer Zetlan who plays Rhoda in "Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt"

Family Travel

Watch a Dinosaur Opera at New York’s American Museum of Natural History

Sink your teeth into the family friendly “Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt”

Africa’s Largest Contemporary Art Museum Opens in Cape Town

But some critics have questioned whether the institution adequately represents black African artists

Josephine Peary, wife of the legendary Arctic explorer Robert Peary, wears a parka in 1892

Family Travel

Explore the High Fashion of Exploration

From the Arctic to the Moon, a new exhibit shows how the outfits of exploration have impacted the outfits of the runway

Tim Renner, undersecretary of state for cultural affairs, at a 2016 press conference for the Urban National Museum for Urban Contemporary Art.

Museum Devoted to Street Art Opens in Berlin

The façade of the five-story building is covered in large murals

Family Travel

Check Out This Awesome Trilobite Corn Maze

The elaborate Wisconsin maze honors the state’s geologic history

Vinnie Ream was not even 20 when she was commissioned by the U.S. government to create the statue of Lincoln that still stands in the Capitol today.

This Ambitious Young Sculptor Gave Us A Lincoln For the Capitol

Vinnie Ream was the first female artist commissioned to create a work of art for the U.S. government

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