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New animal research could one day mean that a scene like this doesn't freak out hikers.

New Research

Scientists May Have Figured Out How to Make Poison Ivy Itch Less

Researchers identify a protein associated with itchy rash in mice

One of the subjects of a new study on how the human nervous system responds to tactile intensity cracks an egg with ease with the help of an experimental prosthetic device.

New Research

How Hacking Neural Networks Can Help Amputees Flawlessly Crack an Egg

By tapping into the body’s nervous system, researchers could create touch-sensitive prosthetics

Ask Smithsonian: What’s the Longest You Can Hold Your Breath?

A dive into the science shows it is possible to override the system

Human blood contains red blood cells, T-cells (orange) and platelets (green)

New Research

Scientists Are Creating an Atlas of Human Cells

The Human Cell Atlas will boldly go where science, surprisingly, hasn’t gone before

Ask Smithsonian: What’s the Point of Earwax?

Earwax has a job to do; but many are not hearing the message

New Research

Blind People Can Use Visual Areas of the Brain to Solve Math Problems

The brain is a highly adaptable organ

New Research

This Slo-Mo Sneeze Video Shows Just How Far Spray Clouds Can Spread

Gross as it may be, by mapping the ejected sneeze droplets, researchers hope to better control the spread of disease

New Research

Unnerving Find: Cells That Control Goosebumps and Nipple Erections

A new study documents eight new types of nerve cells, including ones that control sweating and blood flow

Ask Smithsonian

Ask Smithsonian: What Is a Dimple?

Michael Jordan, Vanessa Hudgens and all those celeb dimples to die for? Just a result of a double zygomaticus major muscle

A skin affliction on display at the Moulage Museum.

See Over 2,000 Wax Models of Skin Diseases at This Swiss Medical Moulage Museum

It’s hard to look, and hard to look away, at this unique, and medically valuable, collection of wax blisters, hives and sores

How sleepy you are may depend on a number of factors, including age and where in the world you live.

Smartphone Study Uncovers Why So Much of the World is Short on Sleep

Age, gender and nationality impact how much we sleep, and social pressures rob many of needed rest

Washing your hands will make them clean, but it may not get rid of the microbes that live there.

Your Skin’s Microbial Inhabitants Might Stick Around, Even If You Wash

This tiny ecosystem is surprisingly stable from months to years, study reveals

New Research

Scientists Use “The Moth Radio Hour” to Create Brain Atlas

Using a functional MRI, scientists created a visual dictionary to show how areas of the brain process language

New Research

Your Body Could One Day Be a Computer Display

Forget screen time—a new technology is all about skin time

A man with a mind-controlled prosthetic competes in a test run of October's Cybathlon in Switzerland.

Switzerland

Switzerland Will Host the First Cyborg Olympics

The “Cybathlon” will show what happens when humans and machines collaborate

What a Tiny Fish Can Tell Us About How Humans Stood Upright

What is the root of why our ancestors gained the power to walk on two feet and chimpanzees didn’t?

Mini-organs grow around the tiny scaffolds (lower left). The magnified image (right) shows the hair-thin channels that serve as blood vessels.

How a Tiny, “Beating” Human Heart Was Created in a Lab

The device, filled with human heart cells, could dramatically reduce the time it takes to test new drugs and end testing on animals

Scientists used an an integrated tissue-organ printer, or ITOP, to create this ear.

New Research

Scientists Printed a Human Ear

The scientific breakthrough is more than a creepy experiment—one day, it could save lives

Michelangelo painted some of art history's greatest hands.

New Research

Michelangelo May Have Had Arthritis

Researchers used old portraits and letters to study the master’s hands

Scientists reconfigured a magnetic resonance scanner to capture a woman and her baby.

Why I Captured This MRI of a Mother and Child

A venerable symbol of human love, as you’ve never seen it before

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