Every new year is a new opportunity for the "worst year ever."

History of Now

Why 2016 Is Only the Most Recent Worst Year Ever

This year has been miserable for many, but it has plenty of competition from its predecessors in the 20th century

Violence can spread like an epidemic among impressionable teenagers, according to new research.

New Research

Violence Among Teens Can Spread Like a Disease, Study Finds

Surveys of thousands of American teens add evidence to the theory that violence spreads in communities like a contagion

Flickering images can induce seizures in people with epilepsy.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Why Do Flashing Images Cause Seizures?

For people with epilepsy, a flashing screen can be more than a passing annoyance

Social media is changing the nature of personal communication

Smithsonian Podcast

How the Cell Phone Is Forever Changing Human Communication

An ongoing study by Smithsonian anthropologists investigates the dramatic shifts wrought by the smart phone

President Coolidge conducts the first official transatlantic phone call with the king of Spain in 1927

History of Now

From the Telegram to Twitter, How Presidents Make Contact With Foreign Leaders

Does faster communication cause more problems than it solves?

Trending Today

What Happens to Obama’s Social Media Accounts When He Leaves Office?

The White House and National Archives have come up with a strategy to smoothly transition the POTUS Twitter and other communications channels

This photo by Girma Berta on Instagram helped win the photographer a $10,000 grant.

Cool Finds

Getty Instagram Grant Winners Document the Drama of the Everyday

From teen moms to slices of street life

Cool Finds

New Movie Posters Turn Scientists Into Superheroes

The Center for Infectious Disease Research recasts the fight against disease in a series of movie and comic book-style posters

History of Now

Black Tweets Matter

How the tumultuous, hilarious, wide-ranging chat party on Twitter changed the face of activism in America

Karl Marx by John Collier, 1977

Commentary

Karl Marx, My Puppy ‘Max,’ Instagram and Me

A historian tries hard to understand modern society and buys a #cutepuppy

President Ronald Reagan, just moments before he was shot by John Hinckley

History of Now

The Media Learned Nothing After Misreporting the Reagan Assassination Attempt

As the shooter John Hinckley returns to life outside of imprisonment, it’s worth looking back at every thing the media got wrong that day

Cool Finds

These Meals Are Made of Paper

Stop-motion spaghetti? Yes, please

Migaloo and a companion in 2005.

Cool Finds

Track the Whereabouts of This Rare White Whale on Twitter

These beautiful creatures have long delighted those lucky enough to catch a glimpse

Avi Avital is the featured performer in "InstaConcerto for Mandolin and Orchestra," a 75-second concerto written for Instagram.

Cool Finds

This Classical Mandolinist Makes Music With…Instagram?

“InstaConcerto for Mandolin and Orchestra” plays with a genre known more for its selfies than its chamber music

“Brian Bilston” sits above his parody of a W. B. Yeats poem.

Why Twitter’s “Poet Laureate” Has No Plans to Unmask His Real Identity

He tweets under the guise of @Brian_Bilston and uses the platform to reinvent the age-old form of writing

March on Washington, August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial

How the Redesign of U.S. Money Shows the Power of Protest

A Smithsonian curator notes how a heavy dose of social activism prompted the U.S. Treasury to honor historic social and political movements

The Innovative Spirit fy17

How Computer Scientists Are Using Twitter to Predict Gentrification

Cambridge researchers have created a way to predict a neighborhood’s fortunes in coming years by analyzing social media data

For Those Clutching Pearls Over Buzzfeed: A History of Newspapers Reveals That It’s Always Been This Way

From user-generated content to political screeds, the future of news happens to look a lot like the past

Newspapers chronicled gun incidents, referring to them as "melancholy accidents"

History of Now

When Newspapers Reported on Gun Deaths as “Melancholy Accidents”

A historian explains how a curious phrase used by the American press caught his eye and became the inspiration for his new book

Maria Goeppert Mayer, co-winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on nuclear shell structures. She is just one of hundreds of women added to Wikipedia by the Wikiproject Women Scientists

Cool Finds

How a College Student Led the WikiProject Women Scientists

Emily Temple-Wood’s Women Scientist project is writing female researchers back into the conversation

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