Articles

Future of Energy

This Dutch Startup Is Making Bricks From Industrial Waste

StoneCycling turns ceramic tiles and toilets, discarded glass and insulation into new, eco-friendly building materials

This 3D model of a microbial community within the human gut allows researchers to study how bacterial changes influence overall health.

How Miraculous Microbes Help Us Evolve Better, Faster, Stronger

Invisible yet crucial, our microbial partners add a gene-swapping plot twist to evolutionary theory

The Tent of Casually Observed Phenologies.

Art Meets Science

Can the Art of Divination Help People Cope With Climate Anxiety?

A Brooklyn-based artist strives to create emotional connections with the looming threat of climate change.

A drone shot of a researcher collecting data on cryoconite holes on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Journey to the Center of Earth

The Tiny World of Glacier Microbes Has an Outsized Impact on Global Climate

Microbes living on glaciers collectively cover an area the size of New Hampshire—and they could have a big influence on global climate

Madame President

History of Now

The History of Women Presidents in Film

Why the science-fiction genre was the first to imagine a female commander-in-chief

Indigenous cultures of Alaska have enjoyed the frozen treat known as akutuq for many centuries. An Inupiaq word meaning “to stir,” akutuq traditionally consists of animal fat mixed with seal oil, whipped together with handfuls of berries and freshly fallen snow to make a frothy, frozen concoction.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Alaska

What Is Eskimo Ice Cream?

Answer: Not your typical summer dessert

Does 'The Last Supper' Really Have a Hidden Meaning?

Could the painting actually contain a message from Leonardo?

A wild pony blocks the trail.

The Only Place on the Appalachian Trail Where You Can See Wild Ponies

More than 100 ponies roam free on the slopes of Virginia's highest peak

Is this supposed to be a democracy or what? (Shown here: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un visiting Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in 2014.)

Metaphorically Speaking, Your Nervous System is a Dictatorship

Except when it's an oligarchy. Or a democracy. Or all three.

Scientists are able to detect the DNA of tumor cells floating in blood.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Are We Close to Having a Blood Test That Detects Cancer?

New research into "liquid biopsies" is promising, but there's still not proof they can find cancer in a healthy person

How You Wound Up Playing 'The Oregon Trail' in Computer Class

From the 1970s to 1990s, the government-owned Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium dominated the educational software market with more than 300 games

Organic! Doesn't always mean what people think it means.

Age of Humans

Podcast: Our Food, Our Selves

Food is a focal point for understanding broader environmental problems. In this podcast, we learn how food buyers are influenced in surprising ways.

The Egyptian Pharaoh With the Biggest Ego

Though little is known about Khufu, the pharaoh who oversaw the Great Pyramid's construction, vicious rumors about him persist today

Images are fast outpacing words as the major means of communication.

Commentary

How to Avoid the Pitfalls in the Politics of Graphic Messaging

The director of the National Portrait Gallery offers a few pointers on how to acquire visual intelligence

Yao honey-hunter Orlando Yassene holds a wild greater honeyguide male in the Niassa National Reserve, Mozambique.

New Research

Forget Bees: This Bird Has the Sweetest Deal With Honey-Seeking Humans

The effectiveness of the honeyguide call sheds light on why this golden relationship has stuck around so long

Inupiaq culture has traveled from fur-clad hunters with stone-tipped harpoons to kids carrying iPhones—in just 200 years.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Alaska

The Essence of Alaska Lies Somewhere Between Myth and Reality

An Alaska native grapples with the meaning of his home state

A burn patient uses VR.

Instead of Painkillers, Some Doctors Are Prescribing Virtual Reality

Virtual reality therapy may be medicine's newest frontier, as VR devices become better and cheaper

Illustration of a Velafrons, a hadrosaur whose name means "sailed forehead."

Chew on This: Powerful Jaws Fueled a Jurassic Herbivore Boom

Teeth, not flowers, might be the key to the duckbills’ success

How Did a Grizzly Bear Get on California's Flag?

As more and more settlers began to pour into California throughout the 1840s, a chain of events led to the Bear Flag Revolt

The Mauna Loa observatory.

Age of Humans

The Enduring Climate Legacy of Mauna Loa

Sixty years after a trailblazing climate scientist scaled its heights, the Hawaii-based observatory remains essential

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