Science

Three generations of the Marsili family at home in Siena, Italy. From left: Maria Elena; Letizia and her son Ludovico; matriarch Maria Domenica.

The Family That Feels Almost No Pain

An Italian clan's curious insensitivity to pain has piqued the interest of geneticists seeking a new understanding of how to treat physical suffering

The arrestingly modern hominin at the Neanderthal Museum, near Dusseldorf, is the work of renowned paleo-artists Adrie and Alfons Kennis.

What Do We Really Know About Neanderthals?

Revolutionary discoveries in archaeology show that the species long maligned as knuckle-dragging brutes deserve a new place in the human story

A photographic plate of the 1919 total solar eclipse, taken by Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin and Charles Rundle Davidson during an expedition to Sobral, Brazil. The 1919 eclipse was used by Arthur Eddington, who observed it from the island of Principe off the west coast of Africa, to provide the first experimental evidence of Einstein's theory of relativity.

What the Obsolete Art of Mapping the Skies on Glass Plates Can Still Teach Us

The first pictures of the sky were taken on glass photographic plates, and these treasured artifacts can still help scientists make discoveries today

Scientists and ocean advocates are hoping to find a way to both protect sea turtles and other threatened species and help fishermen make a living.

How Scientists Are Using Real-Time Data to Help Fishermen Avoid Bycatch

Using a strategy called dynamic ocean management, researchers are creating tools to forecast where fish will be—and where endangered species won't be

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Smithsonian Voices

Why Is This Smithsonian Paleontologist Dressed as Santa?

Cat-loving paleontologist answers your questions in the National Museum of Natural History's YouTube series, "The Doctor Is In."

Shortly after the first human space flight, the Soviet Union began planning to send a woman to space.

The First Group of Female Cosmonauts Were Trained to Conquer the Final Frontier

Two decades before the first American woman flew to space, a group of female cosmonauts trained in Star City of the Soviet Union 

Identical twin astronauts, Scott and Mark Kelly, are subjects of NASA’s Twins Study. Scott (right) spent a year in space while Mark (left) stayed on Earth as a control subject.

NASA's Study of Astronaut Twins Creates a Portrait of What a Year in Space Does to the Human Body

Wide-ranging research compares astronaut Scott Kelly to his earthbound twin brother, Mark

The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun.

Astronomers Capture First-Ever Image of a Supermassive Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope reveals the silhouette of a black hole at the center of a galaxy 55 million light-years away

Cherokee syllabary inscription from 1.5km into Manitou Cave (average element vertical height approximately 80mm)

Cave Markings Tell of Cherokee Life in the Years Before Indian Removal

Written in the language formalized by Sequoyah, these newly translated inscriptions describe religious practices, including the sport of stickball

Margaret Dayhoff was a pioneer of using computers to tackle some of the biggest scientific questions of the day.

How Margaret Dayhoff Brought Modern Computing to Biology

The pioneer of bioinformatics modeled Earth’s primordial atmosphere with Carl Sagan and made a vast protein database still used today

Scientists Spot Beautiful Optical Illusion at Bottom of the Sea

More than 6,000 feet under the surface of the ocean, the extreme conditions can play tricks on your eyes

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Smithsonian Voices

Smithsonian Paleontologist Hans Sues Is Taking Your Questions About Dinos, Humans and Even, Cats

Smithsonian's new YouTube series, "The Dr. Is In."

A partially exposed, 65-million-year-old fish from the Tanis deposit in North Dakota.

Fossil Site May Capture the Dinosaur-Killing Impact, but It’s Only the Beginning of the Story

The Tanis site in North Dakota contains evidence of the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs

Typical Tiwanaku-period offerings at Khoa Reef in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, including stone carvings and sacrificial animal bones.

Before the Inca Ruled South America, the Tiwanaku Left Their Mark on the Andes

Artifacts including gold medallions and sacrificial llama bones reveal the ritual pilgrimages taken around Lake Titicaca

This moth specimen was mistakenly identified as a butterfly in 1793, leaving biologists to wonder what happened to the missing "butterfly" for more than 200 years.

One of the 'Rarest Butterflies Ever' May Have Been a Moth All Along

A species description from more than two centuries ago has fooled scientists until now

An illustration of Crawford Long removing a tumor from the neck of James Venable.

How Ether Went From a Recreational 'Frolic' Drug to the First Surgery Anesthetic

Before ether was used as an anesthetic in surgery, doctors relied on less effective techniques for pain relief, such as hypnosis

Colors in nature can be produced by both pigments that absorb some light and microscopic structures that change the wavelength of light.

How Do Scientists Know What Colors Prehistoric Animals Were?

Fossil expert Maria McNamara explains how paleontologists are starting to investigate the hues of the past

Roxie Laybourne's work changed the role of museums in public life by turning the Smithsonian’s collection of thousands of birds into an applied science tool.

Meet Roxie Laybourne, the Feather Detective Who Changed Aviation

A new Sidedoor episode tells the story of Roxy Laybourne, a Smithsonian scientist who pioneered the field of forensic ornithology

Jennifer Levasseur from the National Air and Space Museum notes that the museum’s supply of popular astronaut foods is less comprehensive than its collection of rejects. “We only get what they didn’t eat (above: Apollo 17's spiced fruit cereal is now in the collections)."

Rita Rapp Fed America’s Space Travelers

NASA’s food packages now in the collections of the Air and Space Museum tell the story of how a physiologist brought better eating to outer space

An artist's concept of the Axel rover rappelling into a lunar pit.

NASA Considers a Rover Mission to Go Cave Diving on the Moon

The deep caverns and pits that dot the lunar surface could hold clues to the moon's history and perhaps provide shelter for future human exploration

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