Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Health

Last year, Sesame Street introduced Julia, a Muppet with autism.

Sesame Place Becomes First Theme Park to Be Designated a Certified Autism Center

The International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards announced the honor on World Autism Day

Rare Case of ‘Coffin Birth’ Seen in Medieval Grave

The pregnant woman’s remains may also suggest that she underwent cranial surgery due to a life-threatening complication

A vintage ad for patent medicines, which usually didn't list their active ingredients. We now know that many contained morphine, cocaine, opium and more.

How Advertising Shaped the First Opioid Epidemic

And what it can teach us about the second

The emotional interface tracks physiological signals associated with emotional states and translates them into music.

Can Biomusic Offer Kids With Autism a New Way to Communicate?

Biomedical engineers are using the sound of biological rhythms to describe emotional states

When persons with dementia engage with others who share their passion for the game, colorful memories can emerge.

A New Therapy Has People With Dementia Sharing Baseball Memories

Where were you when Willie Mays made ‘The Catch?’ Chatting with other fans, watching footage of old games and even playing wiffle ball can be therapeutic

An illustration depicting the life cycle of a cancer cell

This DNA-Based Attack Against Cancer May Just Work

A newly approved treatment is a milestone in gene therapy for cancer

Macrophages begin to fuse with, and inject its toxins into, the cancer cell. The cell starts rounding up and loses its spikes.

Where We Are in the Hunt for a Cancer Vaccine

Two new studies have promising results

Vanessa Brandon worried that her cancer was a burden on her family: “I don’t want my sickness to become their sickness.”

Could Immunotherapy Lead the Way to Fighting Cancer?

A new treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer is offering hope to patients with advanced disease

Your Low-Calorie Sweetener Could Be Making You Fat

There are several ways that consuming artificial sweeteners might contribute to obesity

Periplaneta Americana

New Research

Cockroach Genome Shows Why They Are Impossible to Kill

The massive genome includes code for neutralizing toxins, regrowing limbs and a thousand genes for detecting food and chemicals

Thanks to its neutral taste, cricket flour hides well in oatmeal and baked goods. But a Canadian grocery chain isn't hiding its unusual ingredient: it's putting a picture of a cricket on its logo.

Why Canada Wants You to Know You’re Eating Crickets

In some countries, insects may finally be getting their due as affordable, nutritious protein sources

A sunny day in Finland, the world's happiest country in 2018 according to new UN report.

Europe

UN Report Finds Finland Is the Happiest Country in the World

In the 2018 World Happiness Report, Finland scored high on six key variables

People drink 500 billion plastic bottles of water a year, according to The Guardian.

Study Finds Microplastics in More than 90 Percent of Tested Water Bottles

But the effects of microplastics on human health are far from clear

A beach in Naples.

For the Third Year in a Row, This City Was Tapped as America’s Happiest

The area’s success may be due, in part, to the fact that it is home to a large number of older Americans

The Proliferation of Happiness

A professor of consumer culture tracks the history of positive psychology

The sensor can be stuck on the skin like a Band-Aid.

These Flexible Sensors Could Help Monitor a Stroke Patient In Recovery

Worn on the throat to evaluate speech, or on the body to track movement, stretchable sensors could lead to better rehabilitation

The trepanated skull of a Neolithic woman. The fact that the hole is rounded off by ingrowth of new bone suggests that the patient survived the operation.

No, Getting a Hole Drilled in Your Head Was Never a Migraine Cure

The ancient and controversial procedure was used for a slew of reasons, but to ‘let the headache out’ was not one of them

New Research

No, Your Nose Isn’t as Big as That Selfie Makes It Seem

If you take a selfie from just 12 inches away, it may make your nose look 30 percent bigger

Making history

Trending Today

Five Things to Know About Roger Bannister, the First Person to Break the 4-Minute Mile

The Oxford medical student, who died on March 3 at age 88, broke what was believed to be an impossible record

"The Night," Michele di Rodolfo del Ghirlandaio, oil on panel, Galleria Colonna, Rome, Italy

New Research

Earliest Images of Breast Cancer Found in Renaissance Paintings

The signs of illness in the paintings illustrate that breast cancer is not just a modern malady

Page 55 of 120