Articles tagged as Death | Smithsonian Magazine

Should Saint Bernadette be laid to rest in the town she made famous…or the one she chose to live in?

May 5, 2015

Lenin's body in 1991. Thanks to the Lenin Lab, the corpse still looks virtually the same today.

Cool Finds

Meet the Group of Scientists That Keeps Lenin’s 90-Year-Old Corpse Fresh

90 years later, Vladimir Lenin’s body is still maintained by a Russian lab

May 1, 2015

Cool Finds

Eau de Death: Perfumer Develops Scents Based on Dead Loved Ones

A French perfumer is attempting to harness the emotional power of scent

April 27, 2015

The yurt, a portable, circular hut, has been a part of Central Asian nomadic culture for centuries. During the Soviet era, metal was abundant and cheap, so metallic yurts frequent Kyrgyzstan ancestral cemeteries. An Islamic crescent tops this yurt, and a Kyrgyz hunting eagle spreads its wings in the background.

Kyrgyzstan’s Otherworldly Cities of the Dead

Photographer Margaret Morton traveled to the remote corners of the Central Asian nation to document its city-like ancestral cemeteries

April 9, 2015

An attempt at a wingsuit world record over Skydive Perris in Southern California

Why I Still Skydive

The author found a new life’s calling in skydiving and continues to jump to this day, despite losing her life partner to the sport

April 2, 2015

New Research

Why These Stone-Age Farmers Took the Flesh Off Their Dead

New research shows evidence of an early burial rite

March 30, 2015

The carriage that transported President Abraham Lincoln, Mary Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris to Ford's Theatre is on view at the American History Museum through May 25, 2015.

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

This is the Carriage That Took Lincoln on his Fateful Trip to Ford’s Theatre

As the April anniversary of Lincoln’s last ride approaches, an historian recounts the president’s other horse and buggie moments

March 23, 2015

A mummified corpse of a Chinchoro girl between 4,000 and 8,000 years old gets a cleaning.

New Research

Saving the World’s Oldest Mummies From Rot in a Warmer, Wetter World

Why are the ancient bodies of the Chinchorro people stored in a Chilean museum rapidly degrading into black ooze?

March 10, 2015

Climbers in the Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest.

Nepal announces that the Khumbu Icefall, where 16 sherpa were killed last year, is now off-limits

February 19, 2015

Naked mole rats are likely contenders for the most hideously adorable creature on Earth - but also one of the longest lived.

New Research

The Secret to a Long Life: Be Cooperative and Live Underground

Naked mole rats enjoy exceptionally long, healthy lives, and there’s more than good genes at work

January 27, 2015

The naturally mummified body of Ötzi is seen in a cooling chamber at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano.

New Research

The 61 Tattoos of Ötzi, the 5,300-Year-Old “Iceman”

Scientists have mapped the body art of one of archeology’s biggest super stars in hopes to better understand the role tattoos played in early civilization

January 27, 2015

Two Christie's employees look at paintings set to be auctioned off in the Art of the Surreal sale.

New Research

To Appreciate Surrealistic Art, Think About Death

Two new studies indicate that thoughts about death can influence how we perceive art

January 23, 2015

Cool Finds

The Doctor Who Introduced the Virtues of Hand Washing Died of an Infection

A sad fate: Ignes Semmelweis, a maternity doctor who fought for hospital sanitation, died of sepsis

January 15, 2015

Henry Ford whispers in Thomas Edison's ear

Cool Finds

A Test Tube in Michigan Holds the Air From Thomas Edison’s Death Room

Two famous inventors, one glass tube and a museum mystery

January 7, 2015

We just have so much to look forward to

December 31, 2014

Health workers wearing protective clothing prepare to carry an abandoned dead body presenting with Ebola symptoms at Duwala market in Monrovia August 17, 2014.

The viral outbreak doesn’t appear to be slowing

December 30, 2014

Only 5 Northern White Rhinos remain. A powerful image of three of them under guard by Kate Brooks.

The death of a captive rhino at the San Diego Zoo brings the species closer to imminent extinction

December 15, 2014

New Research

Nearly 400 Journalists Have Been Murdered Over the Past Ten Years

Only ten percent of their killers are ever reprimanded

November 6, 2014

Admire Rakti exercises on November 3rd, getting set for the fatal race.

Admire Rakti wasn’t even the only horse to die at the races

November 4, 2014

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo during its initial unveiling in 2009.

The private spaceflight company was testing a new fuel for their experimental spaceship

October 31, 2014