Articles

Ensuring a bountiful harvest will require some ingenuity.

Anthropocene

How Will We Feed 9 Billion People on Earth of the Future?

This week's Generation Anthropocene reveals how seeds on ice and poisonous tubers may offer hope for food security

Activities are designed with 6 to 12-year olds in mind, and presented as open-ended questions focused on themes that rotate throughout the year.

Inspiring Invention the MacGyver Way

Visitors to the Smithsonian's new Spark!Lab are challenged to solve problems with ingenuity and a pile of off-the-shelf items

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The Innovative Spirit

Teenage Inventor Alexis Lewis Thinks That Kids Have the Solutions to the World's Problems

With a patent to her name and more likely on the way, the 15-year-old has made it her mission to inspire young innovators

Brazil's Surui people, like the man pictured above, share ancestry with indigenous Australians, new evidence suggests.

New Research

A DNA Search for the First Americans Links Amazon Groups to Indigenous Australians

The new genetic analysis takes aim at the theory that just one founding group settled the Americas

A natural gas flare burns over a fracking site in the Bakken Oil Fields of northwestern North Dakota.

Anthropocene

Recession, Not Fracking, Drove a Drop in U.S. Carbon Emissions

The switch from coal to natural gas played only a small role in the recent carbon dioxide decline

Provoking Presidential Portraits

Pat Oliphant's searing sketches cross party lines. But the portraits are all in good clean fun...or are they?

Brain-to-brain interfaces may soon be a therapeutic technique.

New Research

Linking Multiple Minds Could Help Damaged Brains Heal

Monkeys and rats hooked up as "brainets" may lead to innovative treatments for Parkinson's, paralysis and more

Smithsonian Takes a Giant Step with Its First Kickstarter Campaign to Fund the Conservation of Neil Armstrong's Spacesuit

On the 46th anniversary of the historic moonwalk, the spacesuit that made it possible is headed to the conservation lab

Hundreds of people gather at the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia to perform the Eid al-Fitr prayer. After the prayers, families and community members get together to celebrate with food and gifts.

Photos of Muslims Celebrating Eid al-Fitr Across the Globe

Muslims mark the end of Ramadan with food, festivities, gifts and prayers

Mission operations manager Alice Bowman shares the real secret behind the Pluto flyby in December 2014.

These Pictures Give a Rare Glimpse Into the Heart of the Pluto Flyby

Spanning the full 9.5 years of the mission to date, the images by Michael Soluri capture the people behind the epic close encounter

The Bay Area sees stark geographical divides between the rich and the poor

These Maps Help Explain the Numerous, Complicated Factors Behind Income Inequality

Education, housing costs and even internet access are all a part of the difficult public policy matter

Oheka Castle, Long Island, New York

You Can Still Stay a Night at These Grand Hotels From the Gilded Age

Those that survive today are a testament to Old World luxury

An illustration shows the process of cell division, which involves chromosome pairs swapping some of their genetic data.

New Research

Human Sex Chromosomes Are Sloppy DNA Swappers

The genetic bundles that code for males and females can get a little messy when they trade pieces during cell division

Seven Ways to Revamp Deserted Spaces Under New York City's Highways and Elevated Trains

The Design Trust for Public Space reimagines neglected areas under the city's infrastructure

Dolores Huerta, Huelga or Strike, Delano, California, September 24, 1965

Commentary

The Farmworker’s Champion Dolores Huerta Receives Her Due, Even as the Struggle for Justice Continues

We must continue the struggle against present-day agricultural production and labor practices, says the director of the Smithsonian’s Latino Center

Ask Smithsonian

Ask Smithsonian: What Makes Us a Righty or a Lefty?

Scientists are interested in studying why some of us are non-right-handers because it might offer insight into how the brain develops

An Anopholes mosquito, the vector for malaria, taking a blood meal from a tasty human.

New Research

Mosquitoes Can Carry, and Deliver, a Double Dose of Malaria

Insects that are already carrying one strain are more likely to pick up a second infection and harbor higher numbers of parasites

Inside of the labyrinth, along one of the bamboo corridors.

Get Lost in the World's Largest Maze

Ponder existence while wandering through the bamboo stalks of Italy's Masone Labyrinth

A tiny chair 3D printed from cellulose

You Can Now 3D Print With Liquefied Wood

A chemist at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden is making sustainable 3d printing a reality

Turns out Pluto is covered in ice mountains up to 11,000 feet high.

Behold, the First Closeup Pictures From the Pluto Flyby Are Here

From fresh-faced moons to ice mountains, these are the visual surprises that hit the ground the day after the Pluto flyby

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