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Photography

How Motel Ownership Offers Indian-Americans a Gateway to the American Dream

America’s motels are owned mostly by families from the Indian state of Gujarat, a new exhibit tells the story of life behind the lobby walls

Monks celebrating Full Moon Day light thousands of small oil lamps around a pagoda in Pindaya, a small town near Inle Lake.

Photos: Burma’s Sacred Sites

Take a trip through this emerging destination with beautiful photos submitted to our annual photo contest

North Korea from Space

Cool Finds

That Dark Spot? It’s North Korea

In images taken on the International Space Station, the country of North Korea is barely visible at all

Child-sized gas masks in elementary school, Pripyat, Chernobyl zone of exclusion

What Would the World Look Like Without People?

Photojournalist Oleg Mastruko spent eight years photographing abandoned locations for his project “Without People”

Dr. Woosuk Bang, a Ph.D. candidate at the time of this photograph, prepares his doctoral thesis experiment on the Texas Petawatt laser. Earlier experiments with terawatt class lasers proved that clusters of gaseous molecules could be converted into ion energy. Dr. Bang's experiment, among the first to be conducted with the Texas Petawatt, created an ion plasma of sufficient temperature and density to catalyze neutron fusion reactions.

Art Meets Science

Adventures In Laser Science

A photo series by Austin-based photographer Robert Shults casts physicists and their everyday life in the lab in a sci-fi B-movie light

Is It Ethical to Collect Homeless People’s Signs as Art?

On the streets, a few words on a piece of cardboard can tell a life story

Beautiful and Eerie Photographs of Starlings in Flight

Photographer Richard Barnes captures the mesmerizing geometric patterns created by flocks of European starlings

Why Was Beyonce Not Cool Enough for the Smithsonian’s New “Cool” Exhibit?

When two scholars decided to pick 100 of the coolest Americans, it got dicey; here’s why

1124 MLK Jr. Blvd., L.A. By EVOL. 2010.

The Many Faces of President Obama, As Seen in America’s Murals

From liquor stores to churches, Camilo Vergara has photographed murals of President Obama in some of the country’s poorest communities

Photos: Traffic Lights Illuminate the Night

Photographer Lucas Zimmermann puts his lens on the beauty of fog lit by the mundane

Cool Finds

Mars Got Hit By a Meteorite, And Now There’s a Picture

Follow up with NASA’s high-resolution HiRISE camera captured this dramatic impact crater

American Cool at the National Portrait Gallery

Join curators Frank Goodyear and Joel Dinerstein in a sneak peek of their new show

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Why Does This Indonesian Volcano Burn Bright Blue?

Olivier Grunewald’s dramatic photos showcase blue flames—not blue lava—that result from burning sulfur

Canada

Stunning Bubbles Frozen Under Lake Abraham

Frozen bubbles of methane trapped beneath Alberta’s Lake Abraham are beautiful, but dangerous if popped

Cool Finds

Look Closely at This Picture of John Glenn

The reflected faces of NASA staff appear in John Glenn’s spacesuit

No Instagram filter needed.

Cool Finds

See the First Photographs Ever Taken of Jerusalem

Since 1844, millions of photographs have probably been taken of Jerusalem. But these blurry snaps are the very first.

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Cool Finds

One Italian Director Animated These Old Masterpieces With New Technology

We can’t decide if these moving paintings are cool or totally creepy

Cool Finds

Fresh From 1849: The First Animated Gif of the Moon

A series of exposures shows the oldest surviving photo of the Moon

Photos: Namibia’s Wild Places

Journey through Namibia’s beautiful landscapes with these photos submitted by our readers

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Photo Contest Prize Details

Grand prize and category winners

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