Meilan Solly

Meilan Solly

 

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

An artist's rendering of the recomposition facility

Washington Becomes First State to Allow 'Human Composting' as a Burial Method

The accelerated decomposition method transforms remains into soil and uses just an eighth of the energy required for cremation

France outlawed ortolan hunting in 1999, but the ban was rarely enforced until 2007 and remains unevenly implemented

Ortolans, Songbirds Enjoyed as French Delicacy, Are Being Eaten Into Extinction

Hunters illegally catch some 30,000 of the 300,000 ortolans that pass through southwestern France every migration season

Michelangelo likely sketched "The Seated Man" while working as an apprentice in Domenico Ghirlandaio's studio

Art Historian Says He Has Identified the Earliest Known Michelangelo Drawing

The sketch, now on view in Budapest, likely dates to between 1487 and 1490

Tiger sharks appear to prey on migrating songbirds that fall into the ocean during autumnal storms

Baby Sharks Do (Do, Do, Do, Do, Do) Eat Songbirds

A survey of 105 tiger sharks’ stomach contents revealed the remains of 11 land-based bird species

The shift will be funded by a $10 million donation from MOCA's Board of Trustees president, Carolyn Powers

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles Will Soon Offer Free Admission

The move will be funded by a $10 million donation

Walt Whitman in 1869, as photographed by William Kurtz

Rare Walt Whitman Artifacts Go on View at Library of Congress for Poet's 200th Birthday

The library holds the world’s largest collection of Whitman-related items

Lee Krasner has long been viewed as a fringe character in the American Abstract Expressionist canon, but a new retrospective challenges this notion

Revisiting the Artistic Legacy of Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock's Wife

A London retrospective unites almost 100 of the genre-bending artist’s works

All four chicks are growing quickly, quadrupling in size from around 8 centimeters tall at birth to more than 30 centimeters last week

Tower of London Welcomes Baby Ravens for the First Time in 30 Years

The four chicks eat at least once every two hours, feasting on a diet of quail, mice and rats

Monterrey A stem post

Virtual Reality Museum Allows Users to Explore Five Shipwrecked Vessels

The online portal features 3-D models, video footage and mosaic maps of five 19th- and 20th-century shipwrecks

"Rabbit" sold at Christie's for a record-breaking $91.1 million

Jeff Koons’ ‘Rabbit’ Breaks the Auction Record for Most Expensive Work by Living Artist

The stainless steel sculpture sold for $91.1 million, surpassing the $90.2 million record set by David Hockney last November

Constance Wu's character, Rachel Chu, wears the gown to a wedding

Constance Wu’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Dress Is Coming to the Smithsonian

Curator Theo Gonzalves says he hopes the gown will enable Asian American visitors “to see themselves in the museum, … see themselves in American history"

The synthetic DNA contains 61 codons, as opposed to the 64 typically found in living organisms

Scientists Create E. Coli Bacteria With Completely Synthetic Genome

The synthetic organisms appear to function much like their natural counterparts

Structures unearthed at Achtriochtan may be linked with the bloody massacre

Archaeologists Are Excavating Site of Scottish Massacre That Inspired the ‘Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding

In 1692, members of the Campbell clan turned on their MacDonald hosts, killing at least 38 men and sending women and children fleeing into the hills

In trials, the app detected the presence of ear fluid with 85 percent accuracy

Researchers Develop App That Plays Chirping Sounds to Check for Ear Infections

Although EarHealth isn’t currently available for purchase, the team hopes to receive F.D.A. approval by the end of 2019

Can a bike ride a day keep the doctor away?

Welsh Doctors Can Now Prescribe Free Bicycle Rides

The pilot program joins a recent spate of 'social prescribing' activities to hit the U.K.

Scientists have been tracking Mauna Loa's carbon dioxide levels since 1958

Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach Highest Point in Human History

Last Friday, carbon concentrations at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory topped 415 ppm

The study's authors outline three possible scenarios for the unusual fossil's formation

This 100-Million-Year-Old Squid Relative Was Entrapped in Amber

The ancient ammonite was preserved alongside the remains of at least 40 other marine and terrestrial creatures

Over the next 80 years, one-third of panda territory will become too hot to support bamboo growth

China’s National Panda Park Will Be Three Times the Size of Yellowstone

The vast space will connect China’s fragmented panda populations, enabling the land giants to better find mates and diversify their species’ gene pool

Illustration from woodblock-printed text on the life of Gautama Buddha

Library of Congress Digitizes Taiwanese Watercolors, Rare Chinese Texts

The library's rare Chinese book collection includes 5,300 titles, 2,000 of which will ultimately be included in the online portal

Moving forward, the researchers hope to study how paper wasps use transitive inference in social interactions

Wasps Are the First Invertebrates to Pass This Basic Logic Test

New research suggests paper wasps are capable of transitive inference, a form of logic used to infer unknown relationships on the basis of known ones

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