Magazine

Tony the Tiger, a 550-pound Siberian-Bengal mix, lives in a cage at a Louisiana truck stop.

America Has a Tiger Problem And No One’s Sure How to Solve It

No one even knows how many of the big cats are in the United States

Can the Siberian Tiger Make a Comeback?

In Russia’s Far East, an orphaned female tiger is the test case in an experimental effort to save one of the most endangered animals on earth

Zhao Hua Hong is one of the last living foot-binding practitioners.

Why Footbinding Persisted in China for a Millennium

Despite the pain, millions of Chinese women stood firm in their devotion to the tradition

The International Space Station Will Soon Be Able to Measure Forest Density Using Lasers

Strengthening the planet’s forests is one critical way to combat climate change

Do Wolves Wag Their Tails Like Dogs and More Questions From Our Readers

Other questions ask if DNA testing has led to the redesignation of species

The Wrists of Birds Reveal Evolution Undoing Itself

Contrary to earlier claims, a new study shows that evolution may be reversible

The Clermont traveled the Hudson at an astonishing five miles per hour.

The Unbelievable Success of the American Steamship

How “Fulton’s Folly” transformed the nation’s landscape

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Discussion

From our readers

Unpublished Photos by Gordon Parks Bring a Nuanced View of 1950s Black America

An exhibit in Boston highlights unpublished photos from the acclaimed <i>Life</i> magazine photographer

Beware of this meat-eating Albertosaurus on the Royal Tyrrell Museum plaza.

Canada

Want to Excite Your Inner Dinosaur Fan? Pack Your Bags for Alberta

Canada’s badlands are the place to see fantastic dinosaur fossils (and kitsch)—and eye-opening new evidence about the eve of their fall

Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan: a landscape “lonely as a dream,” wrote Edward Abbey.

Evotourism ®

When Texas Was at the Bottom of the Sea

A hike to the “top of Texas,” the world’s most famous fossil reef, leads to a new sense of the sublime

The wounded soldiers above were photographed at a hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia, between 1861 and 1865.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Did Civil War Soldiers Have PTSD?

One hundred and fifty years later, historians are discovering some of the earliest known cases of post-traumatic stress disorder

“You could say that saving species is in my blood,” says Chris Darwin, a conservationist who lives in the mountains explored by his great-great-grandfather.

Evotourism ®

How Australia Put Evolution on Darwin’s Mind

The famous naturalist’s revolutionary theory first took shape not in the Galápagos but in the primeval Blue Mountains

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“Descent of Man”, a New Poem by Timothy Steele

The award-winning poet penned this new piece about evolution

Women, she said, “get more glory”—but “more notoriety when they crash.”

Will the Search for Amelia Earhart Ever End?

More than eight decades after she disappeared in the South Pacific, the aviator continues to spark intense passion—and controversy

How to Create a Virtual Organism

Through OpenWorm, scientists are hoping to allow anyone with a computer to unlock the secrets of animal behavior

From the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

There Are 120 Years of Lakota History on This Calendar

The visual recording of life in the nation sheds light on a vanished culture

King led a throng of 25,000 marchers through downtown Montgomery in 1965.

The Radical Paradox of Martin Luther King’s Devotion to Nonviolence

Biographer Taylor Branch makes a timely argument about civil right leader’s true legacy

Think Big

Why String Theory Still Offers Hope We Can Unify Physics

Evidence that the universe is made of strings has been elusive for 30 years, but the theory's mathematical insights continue to have an alluring pull

How Did Right-Handedness Evolve? And More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

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