Articles

Baby tree saplings, cloned from giant redwoods in California, chill out in the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive's propagation area.

Age of Humans

The Race to Save the World's Great Trees By Cloning Them

A nonprofit dedicated to preserving old, iconic trees is cloning them in hopes of preserving them for the future

A young chimpanzee sets out for a stroll in Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park.

New Research

Walking Chimps Move in Surprisingly Similar Ways to Humans

Motion-sensor studies showing how chimpanzees walk upright could help scientists better understand the evolution of bipedalism

Looking down into the Big Delta.

This Giant Contraption Can Print a House

Inspired by wasps' nests, an Italian company is printing inexpensive houses for the developing world

Heart Valves at the National Museum of American History

Innovative Spirit Health Care

A Man With a Lot of Heart Valves Donates His Unusual Collection

Minneapolis entrepreneur Manny Villafana says his collection at the American History Museum is filled with stories of both failure and success

Ask Smithsonian

Ask Smithsonian: How Does Night Vision Work?

The ability to see in the dark is becoming more accurate and more portable

The sign language capture device

This Wearable Device Translates Sign Language To English

The prototype detects hand and finger movements and turns them into words on a screen

You Do Not Want to Get Tased by This Eel

The electric eel generates electric shocks of up to 1,000 volts, 80 times the electric voltage of a car battery. Watch a caiman learn this the hard way

Topmix Permeable

This Concrete Can Absorb a Flood

A UK company has developed a permeable pavement that can drink 1,000 liters of water per square meter in a minute

The shiny, dark crust of a meteorite emerges from the snow during an ANSMET collection trip to Antarctica.

Space Rock Hunters Are About to Invade Antarctica

Scientists with the ANSMET program will endure six weeks near the South Pole during an annual field trip to find meteorites

The Kirtland's warbler needs humans to cut and replant the trees it nests in. Without this work, the species' painstaking recovery from less than 1,000 males to over 2,000 could be erased.

Age of Humans

This Bird Didn’t Start the Fires, But It May Need Them to Survive

An endangered bird once threatened by humans now relies on us for its survival

The flat-tail horned lizard's desert habitats in the American West are changing rapidly, thanks to us humans.

Age of Humans

Even Desert Lizards Are Feeling the Heat Due to Climate Change

But Smithsonian scientists are probing the flat-tail horned lizard's DNA to save the rare species

A relative unknown, Werner Forssmann won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for inventing the cardiac catheter. Some of his equally qualified peers have not been as fortunate.

How Not to Win a Nobel Prize

A search through the Nobel archives shows how the history of the famous prize is filled with near misses and flukes

Where the Nazis Hid $3.5 Billion of Stolen Art

In 1945, the Nazis hid their stolen art in a sealed salt mine. But when U.S. troops arrived, they found that the opening to the mine had been destroyed

Demonstrators express support for The Perfect Moment, an exhibition by Robert Mapplethrope that included nude and sexually graphic photos.

When Art Fought the Law and the Art Won

The Mapplethorpe obscenity trial changed perceptions of public funding of art and shaped the city of Cincinnati

Cumulus clouds don't literally have silver linings, but their edges are sharper than we thought.

New Research

Holograms Show That Puffy Clouds Have Sharp Edges

A laser-based imaging technique let scientists see what happens to water droplets at the borders of cumulus clouds

Hot or not? Your answer may depend on your life experiences as much as your genes.

New Research

What's Beautiful? It Depends on What Your Eyes Have Already Beheld

Opinions about beauty may be shaped just as much by past social interactions as by our genes

With jaws agape, the Smithsonian's T. rex will eat "Hatcher," the Triceratops.

When T. Rex Meets Triceratops in the New Dino Hall, It Will Be a Violent Affair

The Natural History Museum's dinosaur display highlights the “red in tooth and claw” nature of the Cretaceous way of life

An Ercoupe flies over the nation's capital.

The Rise and Fall of the Plane "Anyone Could Fly"

It was billed as the "Model T" of airplanes. So what happened?

How to Harvest and Dry Herbs

A guide to keeping a little bit of summer in your meals far into winter

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Venice

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Venice

Discover Venice anew, from its rich history and many cultural quirks to its delightful, present-day customs and excursions

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