CURRENT ISSUE

September 2013

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Features

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Passion Play

Al Pacino gets ready for the next act in his high-wire career—bringing live theater to the movie screen

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Tracking Balboa

Five hundred years after the explorer spied the Pacific, we retrace his epic slog

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No Alpha Males Allowed

Peace-loving South American monkeys and the U.S. scientist who champions their future encourage us to rethink our aggressive nature

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Soul of the Machine

David Hockney’s long, fierce love-hate relationship with technology is on display in a major new retrospective opening next month

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The Ephemeral City

In India, the world’s largest gathering attracts tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims— and a team of Harvard researchers seeking answers of their own

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Replaceable You

The same technologies driving the revolution in personal electronics are ushering in a new era in bionic limbs and organs

Argument from Design

A new poem by David Yezzi

Departments

Contributors

Contributors

Letters to the Editor

Discussion

Discussion

From the Secretary

From the Castle

150 years later, the war is still in focus

Phenomena

Color

Although colors exist only in the mind’s eye, they create a universal language

Hidden Landscapes

A Milan-based artistic duo uses color to reveal a series of dreamlike panoramas concealed in white light

Coloring Books

An artist reveals how each book has its own unique spectrum

Phenomena

Glow With the Flow

A mysterious ancient goblet leads scientists to develop a sensitive new nanotechnology

Phenomena

Gaming the Brain

What happens when your eyes and brain don't agree

Around the Mall

Into the Wired

Grand-scale ecology brings a Virginia forest under unprecedented scrutiny

Around the Mall

Playlist

Finger-Pickin' Good

Around the Mall

Ask Smithsonian

Your questions answered by our experts

Books

Books

Reckoning with 1945. Plus: discoveries at sea, Benjamin Franklin’s quiet sister and down and out in the South

Fast Forward

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