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Discoveries

Cool Finds

A 10,000-Year-Old Forest Has Been Discovered, And It’s Under Water

Ancient oak trees found on the bottom of the North Sea represent a prehistoric woodland that likely spanned thousands of acres

Resin, similar to the kind shown here, is used by the newly discovered caterpillar to build its cocoon.

New Research

A Newly Discovered Caterpillar Makes a Deadly Fortress of Its Cocoon

Scientists have found a caterpillar in a Borneo forest that uses toxic tree resin to build an extra-safe home for its metamorphosis

Early Homo sapiens, a skull of which is shown here, may have coexisted with the primitive human whose jawbone was recently discovered by a fisherman off the coast of Taiwan

New Research

Did Fishermen Find Evidence of an Unknown Group of Primitive Humans?

A fossilized jawbone pulled from the seafloor near Taiwan may be from an ancient type of hominin new to science

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

New Research

Scientists Can Tell How Old a Star Is by Observing How Fast It Spins

A newly proven method can pinpoint the age of stars with at least 90% accuracy

The location of Genghis Khan's grave has been a mystery for centuries.

New Research

Amateur Explorers Are Using High-Res Satellite Images to Search for Genghis Khan’s Tomb

Amateur explorers used ultra-high resolution satellite images to help search for the grave of one of the world’s most powerful rulers

Ten-year-old Noah Cordle visited the National Museum of Natural History on November 3 to donate a Clovis point he found in New Jersey. He and his parents (right) met with the museum's Dennis Stanford (left).

This Fifth Grader Found a 14,000-Year-Old Clovis Point, Likely Unearthed From Hurricane Sandy

Noah Cordle was boogie boarding in New Jersey when he came upon an ancient hunting tool

Introducing Dendrogramma, a deep sea creature that resembles a mushroom but has more affinity to a jellyfish.

New Research

Deep-Sea Mushroom Creatures Found Off Australia

Neither fungi nor fish, these oddball organisms collected in 1986 may represent an early branch on the tree of life

An olinguito in Tandayapa, Ecuador

One Year After Discovery, Crowdsourcing the Olinguito

A year ago, researchers discovered a rare new species. That was just the beginning

Atlas V Launches the New Horizons Mission to Pluto.

Future Is Here Festival

Take a Peek Into the Future’s Present With Our Live Coverage of Smithsonian’s Two-Day Festival

The magazine’s 2nd annual conference brings together experts, authors and visionaries in the fields of science, science fiction and technology.

Did the English discover Canada's west coast hundreds of years before it was officially charted by Spanish explorer Juan Perez?

New Research

Francis Drake May Have Discovered Western Canada Hundreds of Years Earlier, Kept Quiet About It

The discovery of a 16th century coin is threatening the story of British Columbia’s history

A new species of tapir, a herbivorous mammal, was discovered in the Amazon earlier this month.

A Recap of Our Five Favorite New Species of 2013

An owl, a cat, a dolphin, and of course the olinguito, are among this year’s biggest new species finds

Campylaspis costata, a species of crawfish recently discovered in Norway.

Look Closely, And You Can Find New Species—Even in Well-Explored Countries Like Norway

Determination is all that’s needed to discover new species

Great White Sharks Swim Up, Down, Far, Wide—All Over the Place, Really—And We Had No Idea

Satellite tags map great white shark movements

The new tapir, Tapirus kabomani.

Scientists Discover a New Species of Tapir; Locals Say, “We Told You!”

The new tapir is the smallest of the world’s five known species but it still counts as one of the largest mammals found in South America

From the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

There’s a 1,200-year-old Phone in the Smithsonian Collections

One of the earliest examples of ingenuity in the Western Hemisphere is composed of gourds and twine

The olinguito, a small mammal native to South America, was announced as the first new carnivorous mammal species discovered in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years today.

For the First Time in 35 Years, A New Carnivorous Mammal Species is Discovered in the Americas

The Olinguito, a small South American animal, has evaded the scientific community for all of modern history

Pyramid at El Mirador

Extraordinary Discoveries

In archaeology and medicine

Archaeologists have been recovering historical artifacts from the vessel possibly stolen by Blackbeard since 1996.

Did Archaeologists Uncover Blackbeard’s Treasure?

Cannons. Gold dust. Turtle bones. For archaeologists researching the notorious pirate’s flagship, every clue is priceless

The consequences of burning fossil fuels are already apparent. We have just begun to see the effects of human-induced climate change.

The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries

Scientists have come to some surprising conclusions about the world and our place in it. Are some things just better left unknown?

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