Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Environment

In Mexico's Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, America's most beloved native insect faces threats from illegal loggers and avocado growers.

New Research

The Best Way to Protect the World’s Forests? Keep People in Them

Instead of kicking indigenous groups out, let them continue to manage these lands effectively, argues a new report

This year's science left us speechless and maybe a tiny bit more knowledgeable.

The Top 9 Baffling, Humbling, Mind-Blowing Science Stories of 2016

From gravity’s song to the evolutionary secrets of dogs, this year unlocked a treasure trove of scientific discovery

New Research

France Is Paving More Than 600 Miles of Road With Solar Panels

In five years, France hopes the panels will supply power to 5 million people

A bonfire of elephant ivory burns in Kenya's Nairobi National Park in July 1989.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Wondering What a Bonfire Does to Your Lungs? We Answer Your Burning Questions

Setting large piles of stuff aflame can have significant environmental and human health impacts

Swabbing the toads to sample their microbiomes.

Meet the Colorful New Weapon Scientists Are Using to Save Toads From a Devastating Fungus

Researchers are supplementing the amphibians’ natural microbiomes with a fluorescent fungus-fighter they’ve dubbed “Purple Rain”

Electronic waste, shown here, is just part of the "technosphere," which comprises the totality of the stuff humans produce.

Age of Humans

Humans Have Bogged Down the Earth with 30 Trillion Metric Tons of Stuff, Study Finds

The authors say this is more proof that we are living in an Age of Humans—but not all scientists agree

"Dude, I thought he said he'd be here at 4."

New Research

How Cheetahs “Spot” Each Other

Cheetah meetups: In a novel study, researchers show that roaming cheetahs likely use their noses to seek each other out after weeks apart

Canada

The Town That Polar Bears Built

Get to know the four-legged residents of Churchill, Canada

A California Startup Is Using Ashes to Protect Forests

Better Place Forests is accepting reservations from those who wish to have their remains scattered in a redwood forest in northern California

A sinkhole recently discovered in northwestern China.

Cool Finds

Massive Cluster of Sinkholes Found Deep in China’s Mountainous Northwest

The network of pockmarks is packed with old-growth forests and giant flying squirrels

With its peace accords up in the air, the Colombia's diverse ecosystems face an uncertain future. Shown here: the valley of Cocora near Salento, Colombia.

How Colombia’s Failed Peace Treaty Could Wreak Havoc on Its Diversity-Rich Ecosystems

A potential influx of legal and illegal mining leaves the country’s megadiverse landscapes—and the communities who depend on them—in jeopardy

Trending Today

India Inches Closer to Creating World’s Largest River Network

The plan to interlink rivers would connect up to 30 rivers via 30 canals and 3,000 dams

Meandering river in Nyingchi, Tibet, China

Trending Today

Watch 32 Years of Our Changing Planet Unfold With Google Timelapse

A satellite-eye’s-view of growing cities and climate change

Roughly 400 people attempted to mount the blockaded Backwater Bridge last night, resulting in another clash between protestors and police.

Trending Today

Police Spray Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters With Water and Tear Gas in Freezing Temperatures

Latest clash comes over access to a barricaded bridge

As a professional falconer, Rosen has trained all of her birds, which now number close to a dozen. Her brood includes Ziggy, a hybrid prairie-gyrfalcon.

Why Winemakers are Turning to Falconry to Tackle Pests

Napa Valley vintners are finding this tried-and-true deterrent more effective than modern technology

Spotted: one adventurous female panther.

Cool Finds

Why Scientists Are Psyched About a River-Crossing Panther

This big cat is the first female thought to enter the area in over 40 years

Payam Pourtaheri and Ameer Shakeel enjoy casual conversation with Radia Perlman, 2016 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee during the Meet the Experts session at 2016’s Collegiate Inventors Competition.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Could These College Inventors Tackle the Global Pesticide Problem?

Developed by a team of University of Virgnia students, AgroSpheres break down pesticide residues on crops hours after they are applied

Smog often chokes New Delhi's skies, but this year's cloud is the worst on record.

Trending Today

New Delhi Scrambles to Curb Record Smog

Will the measures be enough to help the smoke-choked city improve air quality?

A forest grows in miniature at Metrotech Commons in Brooklyn for Spencer Finch’s “Lost Man Creek."

Art Meets Science

A Miniature Living Redwood Forest Springs Up In Brooklyn

Artist Spencer Finch explores landscape by building a tiny, scale replica of a California grove

Cross River gorilla photographed by a camera trap

Trending Today

Six-Lane Highway Threatens Nigeria’s Last Rainforests

A proposed project in Cross River State would cut through protected areas and threaten endangered species like the Cross River gorilla

Page 35 of 50