Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

New Research

New Research

A Scientist’s Gender Biases Mouse Research

Mice are scared of male researchers, but not female researchers, which could affect a huge chunk of biological research

New Research

Long-Haul Space Flights Might Damage Astronauts’ Brains

This warning is based on a study involving rats, but researchers think it could apply to humans as well

New Research

Cougars Survived the Pleistocene Extinction Because They’ll Eat Just About Anything Meaty

Eating everything that’s in front of you is key to eking by when times are tough

New Research

Facebook Users Most Often Unfriend People They Knew From High School

And how does that make the victim of the unfriending feel? Surprised, usually

"Fellow hermit crab? I'll eat you up!"

New Research

Cannibalistic Hermit Crabs Salivate at the Smell of Their Dead

Instead of responding to the smell of a relative’s death as the sign that a predator could be about, hermit crabs interpret this cue as fresh dinner

New Research

Antarctica Was Once As Warm As Sunny California

Nearby polar regions got up to Florida-level temperatures

New Research

Scientists Confirm That Cats a) Are Pretty Smart, b) Don’t Really Care What You Want

Cats’ impressive individuality makes it hard to study their smarts

New Research

The Mississippi River Carries More Than Enough Sand to Rebuild Its Sinking Delta

The mighty Mississippi carries enough sand and silt to rebuild Louisiana’s disappearing marshes for the next 600 years

New Research

Mars’ Super-Thin Atmosphere May Mean that Flowing Water Was the Exception, Not the Rule

A new analysis suggests that Mars’ atmosphere was often too thin to support liquid water

Skeletal remains being dug up at La Isabela, the first European settlement in the New World, founded by Christopher Columbus is 1493.

New Research

Scurvy Plagued Columbus’ Crew, Even After the Sailors Left the Sea

Severe scurvy and malnutrition set the stage for the fall of La Isabela

Schools Ban Chocolate Milk; Kids Just Stop Drinking Milk Altogether

Kids wind up consuming less protein and wasting more milk when skim is all that’s on the shelves

The bright spot on the lower left of Saturn's A ring is not Peggy, but rather the visible sign of Peggy's gravitation distortion of the ring structure.

New Research

Saturn’s Rings May Be Shredding One of Its Moons to Bits

Or giving birth to a new one

New Research

Real-Life True Blood Might Be Used in Trial Transfusions by 2016

Researchers in the U.K. have created the first man-made red blood cells of high enough quality to be introduced into the human body

Supernova remnant Puppis A.

New Research

The Big “Gravitational Wave” Finding May Have Actually Just Been Some Dust

A supernova remnant interacting with interstellar dust could have caused the signals interpreted to be gravitational waves

New Research

Pot Smokers’ Brains Are Different

But we can’t say for sure whether it’s pot that made them that way

Mom's ample body serves as this baby's bed for now, but soon she'll grow up to build sleeping nests of her own.

New Research

Chimpanzees Are Extremely Picky About Where They Sleep

The primates painstakingly rebuild their nest from scratch every night—a pre-bed ritual reminiscent of the “Princess and the Pea”

A wolfdog.

New Research

Dogs That Should Be Guarding Sheep Are Mating With Wolves Instead

Intimate encounters between dogs and wolves are relatively common in Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains

New Research

What “Peak Beard” Says About Human Sexual Selection

Being sexy means standing out

New Research

We Might Hit Our Cognitive Peak Before 24

As we age beyond about 24, we become mentally slower and slower

New Research

A Fully Vaccinated Woman Contracted And Then Spread the Measles

This is the first time health officials have encountered a Typhoid Mary-like situation for measles

Page 244 of 296