CURRENT ISSUE
June 2024
Features
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Earth Quest
What new volcanic caves are revealing about early life on our planet
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The Calorie Countess
A century ago, Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters introduced Americans to a revolutionary tool for losing weight. We're still living with the consequences
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Exploring the Lost Treasures of Pisidia
In southern Turkey, an extensive new trail network spirits trekkers to a crossroads of ancient civilizations
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Start the Presses
Before he helped launch a revolution, Benjamin Franklin was colonial America’s leading newspaper editor and printer of novels, almanacs, soap wrappers, and everything in between
Departments
Discussion
Your feedback on brilliant sea slugs, nostalgic drinks and hidden history
Why This Year's Smithsonian Folklife Festival Honors Indigenous Americans
The annual summer tradition will celebrate the National Museum of the American Indian and the people it honors
The Wheel Deal
This space-age sensation kicked the American road trip into high gear
Classical Talent
A new show illuminates the success of a Caribbean-born painter in Paris
One for the Books
A full 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio will go on view as the renovated Folger Library makes its debut
Tracking Our Ancestors
Newly dated footprints show that humans lived in North America far earlier than we knew
Check It Out
The curious box deciphered an arcane kind of code to offer grocery shoppers a trip into the future
Absolutely. Fabulous.
A heady, exquisitely delightful new book reveals the power behind the sequins
What Plovers Do
Camouflaged by the sand, these threatened shorebirds aim to hide from predators. Now conservationists are trying to give their breeding efforts a boost
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