Articles

Chester Medicine Crow (Apsáalooke, Crow) and his grandfather Joe Medicine Crow (Apsáalooke, Crow)

Remembering Dr. Joe Medicine Crow

He showed us we are capable of great things when we look within ourselves, says scholar Nina Sanders

Feather identification expert Roxie Laybourne stands surrounded by colorful birds. This image took roughly eight hours to set up.

The Story Behind Those Jaw-Dropping Photos of the Collections at the Natural History Museum

The images capture only a fraction of the millions of creatures and objects that are stored away from the public eye

Don Cheadle stars as Miles Davis in the new film Miles Ahead.

Smithsonian Jazz Expert Gives Liner Notes to the New Miles Davis Biopic

The American History Museum's James Zimmerman dives into Miles Davis' sound and style

Waterfall Display

A Show of Over 6,000 Orchids Celebrates a Victorian-Era Obsession

Succumb to "Orchidelirium" at The New York Botanical Garden

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: India

What to Read, Watch and Download Before Your Trip to India

Know before you go

Rare Find: The $30,000 Sword George Custer Used in Battle

Here's how one of Custer's rare swords found itself in the hands of a lucky collector

Hoh Rainforest moss

National Parks

Is This the Quietest Square Inch in the U.S.?

An acoustic ecologist reveals his findings

Halo says its headphones can strengthen muscle memory.

Can Headphones That Shock Your Brain Help You Run Faster and Jump Higher?

They're called Halo Sport, and they send electrical charges into the brain that their inventors say can boost athletic performance

Super-Natural (2011/2016), Han Seok Hyun. Artist Han Seok Hyun sourced green materials from supermarkets in Boston and his home city of Seoul for this fanciful landscape.

11 Artists Capture What It Is Like to Live in a Megacity

"Megacities Asia," a new exhibition at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, features 19 installations inspired by cities with populations of 10 million or more

Stunning Timelapse of a Dragonfly Growing Wings

Watch the transformation unfold before your eyes

Whitney Plantation, Big House

Inside America’s Auschwitz

A new museum offers a rebuke — and an antidote — to our sanitized history of slavery

Edelweiss.

Switzerland

Switzerland's Most Beautiful Alpine Gardens

The best place to see Switzerland's stunning flora is high up in the mountains

Ancient Mayan skull and bones remain in a Mexican sinkhole, remnants of a long-ago human sacrifice. The victims of sacrifice in Mayan rituals were varied, ranging from slaves to captive rulers of other lands.

New Research

Human Sacrifices May Lie Behind the Rise of Ancient Social Status

Dark practices may have helped the elite keep the lower classes in line, a new study hints

Jaya Jaitly has fought for the survival of traditional crafts such as the earthen pots, pans, planters, piggy banks and pradip, or oil lamps.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: India

Meet the Woman Fighting for the Survival of India's Traditional Crafts Culture

Jaya Jaitly aims to protect India's cultural heritage from the threat of globalized marketplaces

These Light-Up Fishing Nets Could Save Sea Turtles

New research shows attaching LED lights to fishing nets can keep turtles from becoming accidentally entangled

Butterflies Zigzag Wildly for a Reason

A butterfly's slow wing beat enables it to make rapid and unpredictable changes of direction. Here's why that's such a useful trait

The fake egg looks and feels the same as a real vulture egg.

Scientists Are Using Electronic Eggs to Study Vultures

A sensor-packed egg, developed by a team at Microduino, could lead to clues about the birds' livelihood

A Cheese-Lover’s Guide to the Midwest

America's heartland is a cheesy paradise

The Incredible History of Sunken Ships in San Francisco

In 1850, hundreds of migrant ships arrived in San Francisco, fueled by gold rush. But many of these ships weren't needed after that and were simply sunk

As we turn towards Kawaihae, I get another turn at the steering paddle. All of us steered at different times, sometimes two or three at once to handle the paddle in rough seas.

A Firsthand Account of What It Takes to Pilot a Voyaging Canoe Across the Ocean

More than just a desire to learn, a seat aboard the historic vessel Hōkūle`a requires skill, dedication and well, . . .obsession

Page 445 of 1280