Science

The ginkgo biloba or Maidenhair tree has been around for at least 270 million years, making it the botanical equivalent of the shark.

Age of Humans

The World Told Through the Eyes of the Ginkgo Tree

By deciding this ancient plant was worthy of their attention, humans ended up dramatically shaping its evolution

An illustration of the spiky new dinosaur Zuul.

New Research

Introducing 'Zuul,' an Ankylosaur That Could Really Make Your Ankles Sore

A finely preserved fossil sheds new light on the curious tail of armored dinos

The stone flakes are flying, but what brain regions are firing?

New Research

How Smart Were Early Humans? “Neuroarchaeology” Offers Some Answers

Brain Imaging Gives Insight Into Early Human Minds

Frances Oldham Kelsey, a pharmacologist with the Food & Drug Administration, helped prevent a generation of children born with congenital deformities in the United States.

Women Who Shaped History

The Woman Who Stood Between America and a Generation of 'Thalidomide Babies'

How the United States escaped a national tragedy in the 1960s

Drinking fountain on the Halifax County Courthouse (North Carolina) in April 1938.

New Research

Racism Harms Children's Health, Survey Finds

Racism may not be a disease, exactly. But a growing body of research finds that it has lasting physical and mental effects on its victims

“It's hard to imagine," says Smithsonian scientist Carlos Jaramillo,"that you could have the Caribbean ocean in the west Amazon."

A Vast and Now Vanished Amazon Sea Is Discovered

About 18 million years ago, the Caribbean Sea seasonally flooded inland forests, where enormous crocodiles and turtles roamed

Environmental chemists are developing a method that could suck toxic metals out of marine environments.

How Electrified Steel Could Suck Toxic Metals From the Ocean

After a century of strip mining and deforestation, New Caldonia researchers are working to de-contaminate marine waters

Fruit bats are thought to be the natural host for the Ebola virus. Groups like USAID PREDICT regularly monitor such diseases in wildlife to prevent the jump from animal to humans.

The Next Pandemic

Can Saving Animals Prevent the Next Deadly Pandemic?

A global disease monitoring network is banking on the idea that healthier wildlife means healthier humans

Mateo-Vega (right) shows Emberá and Kuna colleagues how to take forest measurements. From left to right, indigenous technicians Edgar Garibaldo, Chicho Chamorro, Baurdino Lopez, Evelio Jiménez, Alexis Solís.

Future of Conservation

How Scientists And Indigenous Groups Can Team Up to Protect Forests and Climate

A collaboration between Smithsonian researchers and the Emberá people of Panama aims to rewrite a fraught narrative

Footage of the Alarming Moments Before the Everest Avalanche

An earthquake in Nepal fills hikers on Everest with fear. Once the tremors subside, however, a new threat begins to loom on the horizon: an avalanche

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures three of Saturn's moons—Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas—in this group photo.

Space Hub

How and When Did Saturn Get Those Magnificent Rings?

The planet's rings are coy when it comes to revealing their age, but astronomers are getting closer

Neuroscience is giving new meaning to the phrase "get on my wavelength."

New Research

Students’ Brains Sync Up When They’re in an Engaging Class, Neuroscience Shows

What does it really mean to get our brains on the same wavelength?

Unlikely savior: The remarkable properties of spaghnum moss help preserve long-dead bodies, sequester carbon and even heal wounds.

World War I: 100 Years Later

How Humble Moss Healed the Wounds of Thousands in World War I

The same extraordinary properties that make this plant an “ecosystem engineer” also helped save human lives

Roadmap is a new idea whose aim is to facilitate action on climate change without any of the usual suspects—governments, countries, international bodies, negotiating parties.

Using a New Roadmap to Democratize Climate Change

A new tool aims to bypass governments and put the power of climate action in the people’s hands

From the tiniest to the most massive of poos, physics predicts we should all spend the same amount of time on the john.

New Research

A Grand Unified Theory of Pooping

Why you and an elephant spend the same amount of time on the john

Roughly 70 pink pigeons exist in captivity around the world, including this one at the San Diego Zoo.

Future of Conservation

Threatened Species? Science to the (Genetic) Rescue!

This still-controversial conservation technique will never be a species' panacea. But it might provide a crucial stop-gap

In a post-9/11 world, border walls between countries have become more common. But the science is severely lacking in our understanding of how they impact species and fragment ecosystems. Here, a continuous wire fence marks the border between the U.S. and Mexico near Tijuana.

Future of Conservation

How a Border Wall Could Wreak Ecological Havoc

Also in this episode of <i>Generation Anthropocene</i>: The case of U.S. Navy ships, beached whales and deadly sonar pings

This Couple Filmed the Everest Avalanche Coming at Them

A young couple hiking in a Himalayan valley are caught in the middle of an earthquake that sets off a giant avalanche

The surface of mastodon bone showing half impact notch on a segment of femur.

New Research

Remarkable New Evidence for Human Activity in North America 130,000 Years Ago

Researchers say prehistoric mastodon bones bear human-made markings

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