Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Cool Finds

Celtic Shores, Nova Scotia.

Canada

Canada Is Building a Trail That Measures Almost 15,000 Miles

In 2017, the world’s longest trail will finally be complete

Cool Finds

Scientists Virtually Peek Inside Ancient Biblical Charred Scrolls

A completely burned Biblical text is now readable

Cool Finds

Colombian Statue Heads Home After 80 Years

The slab figure disappeared from Colombia’s National Musuem in 1939

A Hindu temple painted yellow.

Cool Finds

This Group Celebrates Kenya’s Religious Diversity by Painting Religious Centers Yellow

Painting for pluralism

A concept design for the completed Glenner Town Square.

Cool Finds

Fake Towns Could Help People With Alzheimer’s Live Happier Lives

Model towns meant to spark memories could help patients with dementia

Conservationists assess the bell, which was not rung throughout much of the 20th century after it fell into disrepair.

Breaking Ground

Historic Bell Helps Ring in New African American History Museum

Why President Obama won’t cut a ribbon when the new museum opens this Saturday

How far would you go to spot a bird?

Cool Finds

Extreme Birdwatching Is a Thing, and This Could Be Its Greatest Year Ever

Thank El Niño for a Big Year that’s bashing previous records

Cool Finds

World’s Oldest Fish Hooks Discovered in Okinawa

The 23,000-year-old barbs are made from snail shell. The discovery shows that early people had the resources to survive on the isolated island

The mammoth skull being excavated on Santa Rosa Island

Cool Finds

Scientists Puzzle Over Unusual Mammoth Skull Unearthed in the Channel Islands

The well-preserved fossil doesn’t neatly fit in with other examples of the species

Oscar Wilde spent two years in what was then called Reading Gaol.

Cool Finds

A British Jail Is Paying Artistic Tribute to Oscar Wilde, its Most Famous Inmate

Patti Smith, Ai Weiwei and others envision what it’s like to be Inside

Cool Finds

Record-Breaking Lightning Strikes Force Redefinition of the Thunderbolt

A 199.5-mile-long streak captured the title for world’s longest and a 7.74-second blast won world’s brightest

Cool Finds

Amateur Archaeologist Discovers Significant Amount of Scotland’s Ancient Rock Art

Musician and avid walker George Currie has catalogued 670 pieces of prehistoric rock art in the Highlands

These flowers may look beautiful, but in the imagination of Tamiko Thiel, they've turned hostile due to climate change.

Cool Finds

Augmented Reality Art Imagines What Could Be Seattle’s Weird, Bleak Future

Artist envisions mutant flowers and drone-like seaweed that may one day take over a post-climate change Seattle

George Richmond made this chalk portrait of Brontë when she was 34 years old.

Cool Finds

Visit the Manuscript of ‘Jane Eyre’ in New York

The handwritten novel is in the United States for the first time—along with an exhibition of artifacts from Charlotte Brontë’s brief and brilliant life

For sale: a home with a bookish past.

Cool Finds

You Could Own F. Scott Fitzgerald’s House

Live in the Victorian rowhouse where a career was born

The Boston Light still shines brightly at night in Boston Harbor.

Cool Finds

The Oldest Lighthouse in the United States Just Celebrated 300 Years of Service

The Boston Light still welcomes sailors to Boston Harbor

A 3,000-year-old clay pot with cheese residue found burnt to the bottom

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find Ancient Pot With Traces of 3,000-Year-Old Burnt Cheese

This ancient mishap gives researchers a peek into Bronze Age life

The Survivor Tree was returned to the WTC in 2015.

Cool Finds

Saplings From the 9/11 Survivor Tree Are Headed to Paris, San Bernardino and Orlando

The tree is a powerful symbol of resilience and life, even in the most tragic circumstances

A Fresnel lens from the Boon Island Lighthouse off of southern Maine.

Cool Finds

The U.S. Government Is Suing for a Set of Lighthouse Lenses

The lenses could be worth up to $600,000

A rendering of the 10-ton block of ice.

Cool Finds

Watch a 10-Ton Ice Cube Melt on a Seattle Square

It’s a different kind of block party

Page 116 of 282