Meilan Solly

Meilan Solly

 

Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's senior associate digital editor, history.

Rose Cleveland (left) and Evangeline Simpson Whipple (right) exchanged passionate love letters throughout the course of their nearly 30-year relationship

New Book Chronicles First Lady Rose Cleveland’s Love Affair With Evangeline Simpson Whipple

Rose and her longtime partner are buried side by side in the Italian town where they once shared a home

To lower one's risk of contracting infection, avoid eating raw or undercooked shellfish and cover open wounds with bandages before venturing into the water

Warming Waters May Be Driving Flesh-Eating Bacteria to East Coast Beaches

Patients can contract vibriosis by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters, or handling infected animals while sporting an open wound

John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, the creators of BASIC.

New Hampshire Is First State to Install Highway Marker to Computer Programming

The roadside sign is dedicated to BASIC, a computer programming language developed at Dartmouth College in 1964

The hydrogel mimics the epiphragm, a temporary adhesive layer that hardens when dried and softens when rehydrated with water

Snail-Inspired Super Glue Can Support the Weight of a 200-Pound Human

The adhesive offers both impressive strength and reusability, avoiding the problems posed by strong but irreversible glues and vice versa

Thanks to a $392,000 restoration campaign, tourists can now explore the space, roaming the baths’ still-standing walls and the extensive network of tunnels hidden below

You Can Now Tour the Tunnels Beneath Rome’s Baths of Caracalla

The newly opened underground network features a brick oven once used to heat the baths' caldarium, as well as a contemporary video art installation

Archaeologists unearthed the cannonballs while excavating the ruins of Zishtova Fortress in Bulgaria

Trove of Cannonballs Likely Used by Vlad the Impaler Found in Bulgaria

The primitive projectiles probably date to the Romanian ruler's 1461 through 1462 siege of Zishtova Fortress

The team studied heritability of behavioral traits in three breeds: Maine Coon, Ragdoll and Turkish Van

Your Cat's Attitude Actually Is Closely Linked to Its Breed, Survey Shows

Nearly half of breed behavioral differences can be attributed to hereditary factors

The tough little egg made it all the way through the digestive system of a coscoroba swan like this one.

A Swan Swallowed This Fish Egg, Pooped It Out—and Then 49 Days Later, It Hatched

The new study is one of the first to demonstrate fish egg dispersal via avian fecal matter

The Rebecca Salome Foster monument pictured before (left) and after (right) restoration

Long-Forgotten Monument to Prison Reformer Will Be Reinstalled in New York Courthouse

Rebecca Salome Foster was known as the "Tombs Angel" in recognition of her work with inmates housed at a Manhattan prison known as "The Tombs"

Frida Kahlo photographed with Diego Rivera and Malu Block.

This May Be the Only Known Recording of Frida Kahlo’s Voice

The sound of the speaker on recording, which was found earlier this year, has been described as 'sweet, delicate, very feminine'

The specimen is the first (partial) carcass of an adult Pleistocene steppe wolf—an extinct lineage distinct from modern wolves—ever found

A Perfectly Preserved 32,000-Year-Old Wolf Head Was Found in Siberian Permafrost

Given the head’s state of preservation, researchers are hopeful that they can extract viable DNA and use it to sequence the wolf’s genome

Hans Holbein's portrait of Anne of Cleves convinced Henry VIII of his bride-to-be's charms

Historian’s New Novel Raises Controversial Theory: Henry VIII Divorced Anne of Cleves Because She’d Already Given Birth

Alison Weir acknowledges the claim, which pulls on previously unexplored evidence, is "inconclusive and speculative" but says it might make readers think

Participants likely used wooden bowls known as braziers to burn cannabis and release its mind-altering vapors

The First Evidence of Smoking Pot Was Found in a 2,500-Year-Old Pot

A new study suggests ancient humans used cannabis to commune with nature, spirits or even the dead

Speech2Face has its limitations, including a gender bias that led it to associate higher-pitched voices with women and lower-pitched ones with men

Artificial Intelligence Generates Humans’ Faces Based on Their Voices

In trials, the algorithm successfully pinpointed speakers’ gender, race and age

Otto Frank pictured holding a copy of "The Diary of Anne Frank"

Letters Written by Anne Frank’s Father, Otto, Will Be Digitized to Mark Diarist’s 90th Birthday

The notes stem from a 1970s pen pal correspondence between Otto and a young artist named Ryan Cooper

A woman looks at wreckage of trucks in the ghost city of Pripyat during a tour in the Chernobyl exclusion zone on June 7, 2019.

HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ Miniseries Is Driving Tourists to the Nuclear Disaster Site

Chernobyl tourist agencies have reportedly experienced a 30 to 40 percent jump in bookings since the show’s premiere

An individual who opts for chicken over beef every day for a year could lower their emissions by roughly the same amount released by driving a car for 3,700 miles

Choose Chicken Over Beef to Dramatically Cut Carbon Footprint, Study Shows

By swapping beef for a poultry-based product just once a day, an individual can reduce their dietary carbon footprint by around 48 percent

Detail of the roof in the central nave of la Sagrada Familia. The columns are designed to invoke trees and branches.

137 Years After Construction Began, La Sagrada Familia Receives Building Permit

The church's trustees hope to complete construction by 2026, the centenary of architect Antoni Gaudi's death

All you'll need to see Jupiter is a pair of binoculars

Tonight Is the Best Time of the Year to See Jupiter and Its Many Moons

Jupiter will reach opposition the night of June 10, forming a straight line with Earth and the sun

Another newly described species, "Litoria vivissimia," has a similarly pointed nose

Meet the Newly Described Long-Nosed Pinocchio Frog

The tree frog’s nose alternately sticks out straight or droops downward—much like a certain fictional wooden puppet

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