Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Technology

Polar bears live in rugged, hard-to-reach places in the Arctic.

DNA Pulled From Paw Prints May Help Researchers Study Elusive Polar Bears

As rising temperatures threaten the Arctic mammals, scientists are turning to new, non-invasive methods to study them

Pressurized water shoots from the drill’s head to cool the marble and prevent excessive dust (detail).

Can Robots Replace Michelangelo?

In the birthplace of Italian sculpture, a powerful automated machine tries its hand at an ancient craft

Advances in technology are making altering or faking content increasingly easier.

Merriam-Webster’s 2023 Word of the Year Is ‘Authentic’

As technology’s ability to manipulate reality improves, we’re all searching for the truth

Why can't machines process CO2 the way trees do?

Why Can’t Machines Process CO2 Like Trees? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

The Lyric’s senior director of digital initiatives, Brad Dunn, meets with SoundShirt designers at CuteCircuit in London.

Art Meets Science

This High-Tech Shirt Helps Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Patrons Feel Music

Guests at Chicago’s Lyric Opera can now immerse themselves in performances through the SoundShirt’s vibrations

Researchers plan to launch the wooden artifical satellite in summer 2024. 

Could Wooden Satellites Reduce Space Junk? The First Is Set to Launch Next Year

NASA and Japan plan to test a biodegradable satellite made of wood, which burns up more easily than metal on reentry

John Legend is one of nine musicians who agreed to participate in YouTube's new Dream Tracks experiment.

Art Meets Science

YouTube’s New A.I. Music Generation Tool Mimics the Voices of Popular Singers

So far, nine artists—including John Legend, T-Pain, Demi Lovato and Charli XCX—have volunteered their voices

A museum visitor wears the new headset, which collects brainwave data that is used to create real-time images visualizing their response to art.

Art Meets Science

See What Your Brain Does When You Look at Art

A new device translates museum-goers’ brainwaves into a simplified real-time visualization

An early Minitel terminal made in France and introduced in the early 1980s

The History of the Internet, From MP3s to MySpace Tom

A new online museum explores the digital artifacts that defined the internet’s early days

New research suggests rats can mentally navigate to locations they've visited before.

Rats Can Use Imagination to Navigate in Virtual Reality, Study Finds

Like humans, the rodents appear to be able to visualize walking through locations they’ve previously visited

The Beatles perform at the Circus Krone Building in Munich on June 24, 1966. The newly released song features contributions from all four band members.

The Beatles Release Their Last Song, ‘Now and Then,’ Featuring A.I.-Extracted Vocals From John Lennon

Based on a demo recorded by Lennon in the 1970s, the song is the “closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room”

Researchers at the University of Chicago have developed a new technique that allows artists to embed invisible “poison” into their work that misleads A.I. models.

Art Meets Science

Artists Can Use This Tool to Protect Their Work From A.I. Scraping

Nightshade subtly alters the pixels of an image to mislead A.I. image generators, ultimately damaging the models

A blood smear of a patient with sickle cell. The crescent-shaped sickle cells can be seen in the smear.

Gene-Editing Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease Moves Closer to Approval

FDA advisors said the benefits seem to outweigh any possible risks, and the agency will decide whether to approve it by December 8

Steiner's comic is the most reprinted New Yorker cartoon of all time.

‘New Yorker’ Cartoon About a Dog on the Internet Breaks Auction Records

The iconic 1993 image by Peter Steiner just became the most valuable single-panel comic ever sold

A new generation of blood pressure measuring devices that don’t require an inflatable cuff around the arm may make it easier to manage hypertension.

New Devices Could Change the Way We Measure Blood Pressure

Embedded in a cellphone or in accessories such as rings, bracelets or watches, the novel tools aim to make it easier to manage hypertension

None

How Scientists Tracked the Movements of a 17,000-Year-Old Woolly Mammoth

Isotopes tell the epic tale of one ancient mammal’s odyssey across Alaska

In 1980, the Viking Orbiter took 102 individual images of Mars that scientists eventually assembled into this stunning composite photo. The dark gash across the planet’s face is the Valles Marineris, a canyon that’s up to 6 miles deep and over 2,500 miles long.

The Seven Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made by Exploring Mars

Scientists have learned a lot since they started sending crafts and rovers to our red neighbor

Signage at Netflix's campus in Hollywood, California

Netflix Plans to Open Brick-and-Mortar Stores in 2025

Visitors will dine at themed restaurants and participate in immersive experiences

A Herculaneum scroll being scanned at Institut de France by Brent Seales and his team

Cool Finds

This 21-Year-Old Used A.I. to Decipher Text From a Scroll That Hasn’t Been Read in 2,000 Years

The papyrus scroll is one of hundreds that were carbonized in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E.

Researchers have only discovered a small fraction of the pre-Columbian earthworks in the Amazon rainforest, according to new research.

The Amazon May Be Hiding More Than 10,000 Pre-Columbian Structures

Based on a new aerial survey and modeling study, archaeologists suggest at least 90 percent of sites known as earthworks remain undetected

Page 16 of 40