Articles

Capitol Discovery

Senate staffers come across a historic treasure in a dusty storage room

NaNa dune, named after the Beach Lady

Beach Lady

MaVynee Betsch wants to memorialize a haven for African-Americans in the time of Jim Crow

Keeping our valuable collections (Chinese ivory) from risk.

Curiosities and Wonders

Where do you put all those treasures?

Kandula frolicking with mother Shanthi at the National Zoo at 8 months.

Great Expectations

Elephant researchers believe they can boost captive-animal reproduction rates and reverse a potential population crash in zoos

Indicating that Neanderthals buried their dead, a stone-lined pit in southwest France held the 70,000-year-old remains of a man wrapped in bearskin. The illustration is based on a diorama at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Rethinking Neanderthals

Research suggests they fashioned tools, buried their dead, maybe cared for the sick and even conversed. But why, if they were so smart, did they disappear?

Naturalist and writer Burroughs (above, left, with conservationist Muir) fretted that he was "the most ignorant man" aboard ship.

North to Alaska

In 1899, railroad magnate Edward Harriman invited preeminent scientists in America to join him on a working cruise to Alaska, then largely unexplored

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True or False? Extinction Is Forever

Researchers' efforts to clone the vanished Tasmanian tiger highlight the quandary of reviving long-gone creatures

Margaret Mead

Coalition of the Differing

It took Margaret Mead to understand the two nations separated by a common language

Through the elliptical opening of its East Portal visitors will see the sky in a new way.

James Turrell's Light Fantastic

The innovative artist has devoted his life to transforming

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Into the Breach

David Douglas Duncan's Life photographs captured the courage and anguish of marines in Korea, bringing home the gravity of war

"Hitch your wagon to a star," wrote Emerson, whose Concord, Massachusetts, residence (c. 1900) is now a museum, Emerson House.

Still Ahead of His Time

Born 200 years ago this month, Ralph Waldo Emerson had some strange ideas about the natural world. Recent research suggests they might even be true

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Humans and War; American Manners

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Winter of Discontent

Even as he endured the hardships of Valley Forge, George Washington faced another challenge: critics who questioned his fitness to lead

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YES DISASTROUS TIMES

Our unusually far-flung correspondents report

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Torn Asunder

Enslaved Africans endured the largest forced migration in history

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Iraq's Unruly Century

Ever since Britain carved the nation out of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the land long known as Mesopotamia has been wracked by instability

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Mystery Bumps

Scientists knew that alligators' jaws are covered in bumps but it took biologist Daphne Soares to figure out why

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Finally, the Top of the World

A witness to the first ascent of Mount Everest recalls Edmund Hillary's aplomb, Tenzing Norgay's grace and other glories of the "last earthly adventure"

Central St. Petersburg, with its scores of palaces (including the Belozersky), has witnessed many crises in Russia's turbulent history.

Russia's Treasure-House

Searching for the past on the eve of St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary, a former foreign correspondent finds the future

The Hatiguanico River, largely untouched by industry or farming, flows through the Zapata Swamp. Tarpon is the catch of the day.

The Nature of Cuba

Tiny frogs. Vast swamps. Pristine rivers. Whether by design or default, the island boasts the Caribbean's best-kept wildlands. But for how long?

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