Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Cool Finds

Interacting with a velociraptor robot is just part of the Henn-na Hotel's efficient charm.

Cool Finds

Japan Has a Hotel Staffed by Robots

Androids, velociraptors and talking toys are all part of the experience at the Henn-na Hotel

Shoppers walk down a corridor in Istanbul's fabled Grand Bazaar.

Cool Finds

Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar Is Getting a Makeover

The bazaar has withstood at least seven fires and several major earthquakes

The Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Riverside Park, New York, was dedicated at 72nd Street on October 5, 1996.

Cool Finds

It’s Way Too Hard to Find Statues of Notable Women in the U.S.

Only a handful of the country’s sculptures honor women

This 1956 poster is just one of thousands of items of Rosa Parks' personal collection now digitized by the Library of Congress.

Cool Finds

Rosa Parks’ Papers Are Now Online

Read about everything from her meditations on the Civil Rights Movement to her recipe for “featherlite” peanut butter pancakes

The secretly-made 3D scan of Nefertiti's bust.

Cool Finds

Thanks to Sneaky Scanners, Anyone Can 3D Print a Copy of Nefertiti’s Bust

Scans of the famous sculpture are free for the taking

Beijing's CCTV Tower has been compared to a pair of glorious pants.

Cool Finds

These Are 10 of China’s Strangest Buildings

Chinese officials want to ditch the country’s bizarre architecture

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (Mrs. Alexander Hamilton), 1787, Ralph Earl (1751-1801).

Cool Finds

Elizabeth Hamilton Once Posed for a Portrait in a New York City Prison

There was a dire need for painters to immortalize America’s elites

Shackleton brought everything from trashy novels to accounts of Arctic rescues with him to Antarctica.

Cool Finds

Historians Finally Figured Out What Was on Shackleton’s Bookshelf

The brave explorer likely found solace in his library

Cool Finds

This Twitter Account Turns Emojis Into Gallery Art

Tiny pictures, high art?

Harper Lee didn't like publicity.

Cool Finds

Listen to a Rare Interview With Harper Lee

“[A]ll I want to be is the Jane Austen of South Alabama,” she told radio host Roy Newquist in 1964

NASA's OSIRIS-REx project will send a craft to a near-Earth asteroid and take a sample to study back on Earth.

Cool Finds

NASA Wants You to Send Your Art to an Asteroid

The agency is looking for creative contributions as it readies its mission to study and sample a near-Earth asteroid

Cool Finds

This French Town Is Covered in Citrus Sculptures

Ten-foot-tall lemon sculptures herald the Fête du Citron

Cool Finds

This Stunning Dragon Dance Was All for the Sake of Tea

Your next cup could be filled with New Year’s luck

The perfectly preserved Bronze Age wheels in the dig go round and round.

Archaeologists Uncovered a Perfect Bronze Age Wheel

Excavations at “Britain’s Pompeii” are on a roll

Mozart and Salieri—rivals or BFFs?

Cool Finds

A German Composer Uncovered a Collaboration Between Mozart and Salieri

Their epic rivalry might not have been all that

For only $10, you can spend a night in a faithful recreation of van Gogh's "The Bedroom," wonky angles and all.

Cool Finds

Rent a Recreation of Van Gogh’s Bedroom and Other Artistic Airbnbs

Odd houses and intricately designed bedrooms are a staple of short-term rentals

Cool Finds

Watch a Stunning Time-Lapse of Cave-Bound Glowworms

These New Zealand sparklers aren’t stars—they’re insects

Cool Finds

Happy 452nd Birthday, Galileo

The revolutionary who helped shape modern astronomy

Cool Finds

This Unfinished Film Highlights the Daily Lives of Black Americans in the 1960s

‘The American Negro’ shares stories of black surgeons, mothers and workers

Cool Finds

Chow Down on a Plastic-Eating Fungus

Plastic trash could have a delicious future

Page 133 of 284