Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

New Research

Diamond crystal on kimberlite from Eastern Siberia

Journey to the Center of Earth

This African Plant Leads the Way to Diamond Deposits

A palm-like plant seems to grow only on top of diamond-rich deposits called kimberlite pipes

New Research

This is How Bombardier Beetles Fire Explosives From Their Butts

The beetls have a special chamber in their abdomens where they mix together chemicals to produce an explosive reaction

New Research

Most Surgery Outcomes Aren’t Tracked

New analysis finds only 153 clinical registries nationwide

New Research

Researchers Come Closer to Making Everyone a Universal Blood Donor

The approach uses an enzyme to snip off the parts of blood cells that can prove problematic

A 1911 illustration of a vampire squid

New Research

Poop Eating Vampire Squids Aren’t Actually Squids at All

The strange-looking animals have a very different reproductive strategy than other cephalopods

New Research

Even Ocean Creatures Struggle With Light Pollution

Artificial lights are disrupting the lives of underwater animals

New Research

Most Countries Have No Plans For When Antibiotics Stop Working

World Health Organization sounds the alarm on “one of the biggest threats to the future of global health”

New Research

People Are Too Optimistic About How Much Optimism Matters

Looking on the bright side doesn’t actually make dark things bright

Blood Falls seeps from the end of the Taylor Glacier into Lake Bonney.

New Research

Scientists Find Life in Antarctica’s Blood Red Falls

The underground microbes could help scientists detect life on other planets.

A Diana monkey, perhaps tuning in to the distress calls of fellow primates.

New Research

Monkeys Can Hack Each Other’s Grammar

Campbell’s monkeys add suffixes to alarm calls to indicate specific threats, and Diana monkeys tune in for their own benefit

New Research

Harnessing the Power of Peer Pressure Could Help Reduce Traffic

People are more likely to carpool if they think their peers are doing it too

A giant rice rat specimen from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France

New Research

How Settlers Wiped Out the Caribbean’s Rodents of Unusual Size

The eradication of rice rats in the Lesser Antilles was part of a massive mammal extinction event

Light micrograph of a two-celled human zygote (the earliest stages of the embryo)

New Research

Gene Editing in Human Embryos Ignites Controversy

Chinese researchers have published the results of using a new gene-editing tool on human embryos

New Research

Scientists Clash Over Stegosaurus Sexing

A new paper is causing controversy with claims that dinosaurs’ sex can be determined by their bones

Several Yanomami at the community of Irotatheri, in Venezuela, wait to preform a dance for visiting journalists

New Research

Even an Isolated Amazonian Tribe’s Microbes Are Antibiotic Resistant

The finding of antibiotic resistance in people who have never taken antibiotics highlights how hard it will be to combat superbugs

New Research

A Record-Breaking Clock Won’t Lose a Second For Another 15 Billion Years

Strontium atomic clocks could eventually help scientists map the Earth’s shape

New Research

Cognitive Scientists Question a Journal’s Gender Balance

A major journal publishes a special issue with a striking lack of women authors

An illustration of some of the debris in low Earth orbit

New Research

Scientists Want to Use Lasers to Shoot Down Space Junk

The idea sounds farfetched, but it may be better than previous solutions

New Research

Hormones Show Dogs Don’t Just Think of Us As Providers of Food

When dogs and humans share long looks, a chemical involved in social bonding surges through their bodies

Borneo orangutan

New Research

Learn the Secrets of Ape’s Sleeping Habits

Apes sleep better and longer than other primates

Page 209 of 295