Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Cool Finds

New Research

Bronze Buckle Shows Ancient Trade Between Eurasia and North America

Metal objects found on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula indicate that local people received trade goods from Asia almost 1,000 years ago

Look up—there's more to the Grand Canyon than geology.

Cool Finds

Grand Canyon Turns Down Its Lights to Become a Dark Sky Park

Star gazers, rejoice—the skies above the Grand Canyon will never lose their sparkle

Some of Uber den Tellerrand's volunteers teaching a cooking class.

Cool Finds

Refugees Are Teaching Germans How to Cook Their Traditional Foods

Cooking classes are bridging the gaps between Germans and Middle Eastern refugees

Ahhh...that was satisfying.

Cool Finds

This New Satellite Project Helps People Find Patterns in City Spaces

Terrapattern turns a mad world into a satisfying, matchy-matchy nirvana

"Sting Like a Bee" Muhammad Ali, 1979 Serigraph

Cool Finds

Artwork by Muhammad Ali Is Going up For Auction

You could own a painting by the Louisville Lip

The cover to one of A-No.1's books about his life as a hobo.

Cool Finds

After a Century, an Anthropologist Picked up the Trail of the “Hobo King”

One hundred-year-old graffiti by “A-No.1” and others were found by the L.A. River

Cool Finds

X-Rays Reveal “Hidden Library” on the Spines of Early Books

Researchers are uncovering fragments of medieval texts used in early book binding

Money tossed into a fountain at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cool Finds

What Happens to the Coins Tossed Into Fountains?

All that money has to go somewhere

It's thought that JFK's heartfelt letter to his mistress, Mary Pinchot Meyer, was written just a month before his assassination.

Cool Finds

A Steamy Letter From JFK Is up for Auction

The president had a real way with the ladies—and with an em dash

This year's ConIFA World Football Cup will be anything but average.

Cool Finds

There’s a World Cup for Unrecognized States

This game is for soccer’s international underdogs

Cool Finds

Instead of Tagging Real-Life Surfaces, Graffiti Artists Can Use a New Simulator

Fake bombing has never felt so real

The longer a structure has been exposed to the water, the more weathered it appeared.

New Research

This “Lost Underwater City” Was Actually Made by Microbes

Though these formations may not be evidence of a lost city, they show off some intriguing chemistry

La Cité du Vin.

Cool Finds

Bordeaux’s New Wine Museum Is Open for Business

The “City of Wine” is a vino lover’s amusement park

Cool Finds

This Museum Made Art Out of a John Deere Harvester

‘Continuous Service Altered Daily’ finds life inside a familiar machine

Cool Finds

A Brief History of General Tso’s Chicken

From haute cuisine to takeout

Cool Finds

Paris’ Iconic “Love Locks” Bridge Is Now Home to a Set of Creepy Statues

The rotating art installation on the Pont des Arts bridge was inspired by classical mythology

A selection of "Emotikis" inspired by Maori culture and traditions.

Age of Humans

Emotikis and New Keyboards Bring Indigenous Cultures to Text Messaging

From Maori emojis to First Nations languages

A sketch of a Lycaeides melissa samuelis butterfly.

Art Meets Science

Vladimir Nabokov’s Butterfly Drawings Take Flight in This New Book

A little-known fact: The author of “Lolita” was also an avid lepidopterist

Cool Finds

Are the Fancy New Curling Brooms Fair? Robots and Lasers Will Help Figure It Out

So-called “Frankenbrooms” are causing tension amongst the world’s curlers

A page of a manuscript of Gregorian chants

Cool Finds

Inside the Effort to Digitize Medieval Monks’ Chants

Scanning and interpreting centuries-old manuscripts is a challenge because musical notation wasn’t formalized yet

Page 126 of 284