CURRENT ISSUE

June 2024

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Features

Opening

Earth Quest

What new volcanic caves are revealing about early life on our planet

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The Calorie Countess

A century ago, Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters introduced Americans to a revolutionary tool for losing weight. We're still living with the consequences

Ancient ruins in the Taurus Mountains

Exploring the Lost Treasures of Pisidia

In southern Turkey, an extensive new trail network spirits trekkers to a crossroads of ancient civilizations

OPENER - Looming large on Philadelphia’s Broad Street, a ten-foot-high statue—a gift to the city from the Pennsylvania Freemasons—shows young Benjamin Franklin at his printing press.

Start the Presses

Before he helped launch a revolution, Benjamin Franklin was colonial America’s leading newspaper editor and printer of novels, almanacs, soap wrappers, and everything in between

Departments

Discussion

Your feedback on brilliant sea slugs, nostalgic drinks and hidden history

Why This Year's Smithsonian Folklife Festival Honors Indigenous Americans

The annual summer tradition will celebrate the National Museum of the American Indian and the people it honors

The Wheel Deal

This space-age sensation kicked the American road trip into high gear

Seven of the Most Beautiful Roads in the United States

From Alaska to Florida, these serene and exhilarating stretches beg you to take the scenic route

Classical Talent

A new show illuminates the success of a Caribbean-born painter in Paris

One for the Books

A full 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio will go on view as the renovated Folger Library makes its debut

Tracking Our Ancestors

Newly dated footprints show that humans lived in North America far earlier than we knew

Check It Out

The curious box deciphered an arcane kind of code to offer grocery shoppers a trip into the future

Absolutely. Fabulous.

A heady, exquisitely delightful new book reveals the power behind the sequins

What Plovers Do

Camouflaged by the sand, these threatened shorebirds aim to hide from predators. Now conservationists are trying to give their breeding efforts a boost

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