Articles

The Factory That Oreos Built

A new owner for the New York City landmark offers a tasty opportunity to recap a crème-filled history

Don't be fooled by this roly-poly furball. These mischevious creatures need constant attention and round-the-clock care.

Pandamonium

Why Photographing Pandas Is More Challenging Than You Might Think

Photojournalist Ami Vitale describes her years of work capturing the lovable furballs

Why Deception Valley's Deadly Heat is Good for Wildlife

The harsh climate of Deception Valley, a remote section of the Kalahari, deters people from living there

A Curtiss "Jenny" biplane carrying mail for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before takeoff from the Polo Grounds in Washington, D.C.

Delivering the Mail Was Once One of the Riskiest Jobs in America

A new exhibition at the National Postal Museum honors the nation’s first airmail pilots

The Clown Egg Registry contains dozens of eggs and is a way to ensure that the likeness of no two clowns are identical.

Europe

How Do You Copyright a Clown Face? Paint It On an Egg

Since the 1940s, eggs have been the canvas of choice for registering performers' unique makeup designs

Reebok marketed their slim, pliable Freestyle shoes to aerobics lovers in the 1980s.

A Brief History of America’s Obsession With Sneakers

Invented for athletics, sneakers eventually became status symbols and an integral part of street style

Why King Harold's Rapid Coronation Sparked Outrage

The fast ascension of Harold Godwinson to the English throne in 1066 was greeted with fury by rivals Duke William of Normandy and Viking Harald Hardrada

A very happy World Bee Day to you. Let's talk pollinators.

How to Protect Your Local Pollinators in Ten Easy Ways

As the first annual World Bee Day looms, insect and garden lovers are abuzz with excitement

Sacred Sites Can Also Be Hotspots of Conservation

Protecting burial grounds, temples and churchyards can bolster wildlife and forests

The new water purification technique involves draping a sheet of carbon-dipped paper in an upside-down "V." The paper's bottom edges soak up water, while the carbon coating absorbs solar energy and transforms it into heat for evaporation.

Could This Low-Cost Device Provide Clean Drinking Water To Those In Need?

Engineers have created an upgraded solar still that uses carbon paper and the sun to purify water at an unprecedented rate

Ceramic box base with a Chinese inscription that mentions a place, Jianning Fu, which dates from AD 1162 to 1278. From the Java Sea Shipwreck.

New Research

An 800-Year-Old Shipwreck Helps Archaeologists Piece Together Asia’s Maritime Trade

A new date for the Java Sea shipwreck could shed light on the politics of Chinese trade routes

Busting dams

How a British Engineer Made a Bomb That Could Bounce On Water

Seventy-five years ago, Barnes Wallis masterminded a famous World War II attack that involved skipping a bomb into German dams

You Won't Believe the Size of Botswana's Salt Flats

In Deception Valley, giant salt flats the size of Portugal are a major boon to the Botswanan economy

Polar bears have come to be known as climate change's ultimate victim, but in some places, they're still a menace to humans.

Where the Doomed, Beloved Polar Bear Is Still a Dangerous Predator

A grassroots guard in Alaska works to keep people safe from bears, while also keeping bears safe from people

Josiah Henson as a young man at left, and at right, at age 87, photographed in Boston on June 17, 1876

The Story of Josiah Henson, the Real Inspiration for 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin'

Before there was the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a formerly enslaved African-American living in Canada wrote a memoir detailing his experience

Mrs. Jane Loudon’s The Ladies' Flower-Garden of Ornamental Greenhouse Plants (1848)

A Botanical Wonderland Resides in the World of Rare and Unusual Books

The Smithsonian’s librarian and antiquarian Leslie Overstreet time travels, sharing centuries of horticultural splendors

Agnesi was an Italian mathematician, philosopher, theologian, and humanitarian.

Women Who Shaped History

The 18th-Century Lady Mathematician Who Loved Calculus and God

After writing a groundbreaking math textbook, Maria Agnesi quit math for good

How the Rajneesh Cult Overran This Oregon Town

In the early 1980s, an Indian guru named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh arrived in the town of Antelope, Oregon and set up a commune for his followers

“Inverted Jennies” grew in notoriety; as one writer note, they “blossomed into the Taj Mahal of stamps."

How the Inverted Jenny, a 24-Cent Stamp, Came to Be Worth a Fortune

Mark the centennial of an epic mistake at the National Postal Museum where several of these world-famous stamps are on view

Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine by Kadir Nelson (detail, above) is on view at the National Portrait Gallery through November 4, 2018.

Women Who Shaped History

Famed for “Immortal” Cells, Henrietta Lacks is Immortalized in Portraiture

Lacks's cells gave rise to medical miracles, but ethical questions of propriety and ownership continue to swirl

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