Articles

Amager Resource Center, Copenhagen, Denmark. Under construction. This power plant, which turns household waste into electricity, is the cleanest in the world. "Normally, you want to be as far away from the power plant as possible because of the toxins, but in this case you literally have fresh mountain air on the roof of the building. Since we have snow in Denmark, but we don't have hills, we made the roof into a big ski slope," Ingels explains. The chimney puffs a giant steam ring each time a ton of carbon dioxide is emitted.

Designing Buildings For Hot Climates, Cold Ones and Everything in Between

A decade's worth of sustainable projects by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his firm, BIG, are now on display at the National Building Museum

Neuschwanstein Castle, the ultimate fairy-tale castle, is the 13th most visited castle in the world.

The World’s Most-Visited Castles and Palaces

From Paris to Beijing, these historic castles and palaces draw millions of visitors for a glimpse of the lifestyles of the rich and famous

Art Molella delivers his speech on innovation.

The Innovative Spirit - OLD

The Recipe for Innovation Calls for a Little Chaos and Some Wall Bashing

Scholar Art Molella chronicles the habits, habitats and behaviors of the men and women who invent

In some parts of the country, this is what duck sauce looks like. In others, not so much.

Ask Smithsonian

What Exactly Is Duck Sauce?

Trying to get to the bottom of this Chinese food mystery sends our writer on a wild goose chase

Wild Inside the National Zoo: Reptile Rejuvenation

Reptiles have personalities, too. Caretakers at Smithsonian's National Zoo introduce us to some of their most charismatic creatures

A devil burns gunpowder during the festival of Els Foguerons de Sa Pobla.

Catalonia

One Night Each Winter, Devils Run Through the Streets of Barcelona

Since the early 1990s, Barcelona's winter bonfire festival has celebrated the intersection of Catalan and Majorcan cultures

An aerial view of the New Zealand coast shows marine terraces lifted up by an earthquake.

Scientists Have Imaged the Base of a Tectonic Plate

The discovery of a slippery layer off the coast of New Zealand could help explain plate movement

In the garden, Levisticum is a tall plant with dark leaves and greenish-yellow flowers. Under a microscope, however, it can morph into a cellular rainbow. This image was made using polarized light to enhance contrast. Waves in polarized light share an orientation, and special filters can block out any unpolarized waves and make the fine details easier to see.

New Exhibit Showcases the Power of Light in Our Everyday Lives

The open-source show "LIGHT: Beyond the Bulb" crosses disciplines to show the many ways photonics has improved our lives

Faced with the only high-cost options, Smithsonian researcher Whitman Miller began building his own portable, inexpensive monitoring stations.

Saving Money is Great, but Saving the Chesapeake Bay Will Be Even Better

Whitman Miller's “off the shelf” technology may answer complicated questions about rising CO2 and ocean acidification

How to Lie for Your Life

Helias Doundoulakis, a young WWII spy for the U.S., was sent to German-occupied Thessalonike to gather enemy secrets

A male houbara bustard putting on an infinitely sexy "booming" display to impress the ladies.

New Research

Old Male Bustards Have Less Desirable Sperm

Male birds don’t just lose their female-wooing prowess as they age, but also their ability to sire healthy chicks

Choose among these three cultural icons for the comedian who will be featured at the National Portrait Gallery.

Sponsor: National Portrait Gallery

Which of These Comedians Should the Portrait Gallery Put on Display?

This is no laughing matter for the Smithsonian museum

Your big toe is an example of how "boundary conditions" can affect the curvature of a nail.

Toenail Physics Explains Why Big Toes Are More Likely to Suffer Ingrown Nails

The delicate balancing act between stresses of growth and adhesion can help demystify some painful nail disorders

The 1354 painting, Dwelling in Seclusion in the Summer Mountains, by the artist Wang Meng is now on view at the Freer Gallery through May 31.

Why this 14th-Century Chinese Artist Is Having a Rebirth

The rare works of Wang Meng, an artist with a brilliance for brushstrokes, bring millions at auction

The Hemingwrite is a newfangled take on the old school typewriter, featuring cloud back-up.

This Week in Crowdfunding

Five Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded: From a Digital Typewriter to Treadmill-Powered Gaming

A Los Angeles group is also creating greeting cards with personalized audio messages from top celebrities

Best Space Photos of the Week

Cosmic Jaw-Droppers Include a Twisted Galaxy and an Aurora Rocket Volley

From Martian vistas to glowing red nebulae, check out our picks for the best space images of the week

This temporary tattoo could save diabetics from the daily annoyance of pin pricks to their fingers.

Hacking the Human Body With Temporary Tattoos and Tiny Implants

Using electrical charges to treat diseases, from diabetes to obesity, is picking up speed

The sun sets behind the BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole.

Nope, We Have Not Detected Gravitational Waves (Yet)

Leaked news from teams studying the early universe says the signal hailed as our first peek at space-time ripples really is just dust

A finely crafted galley ship, with a dragon's head, is built and burned every year.

Europe

Vikings Storm the Streets at Up Helly Aa, Europe's Biggest Fire Festival (Photos)

Hundreds of local residents took to the streets, brandishing thousands of flaming torches, in an homage to Shetland's Viking heritage

A satellite image shows the huge snowstorm that blanketed the northeastern United States this week. The blizzard was an example of how storms are getting less common but more intense.

Anthropocene

Climate Change Is Altering the Global Heat Engine

Thermodynamics help explain why storms will become fewer in number but stronger in intensity as the planet warms

Page 525 of 1280