Scientists

Pope’s pit viper, a venomous species that lives across Southeast Asia. Someone who is allergic to one type of snake is likely allergic to many types because their venoms have a similar composition.

What Happens When Scientists Become Allergic to Their Research

Researchers spend long periods of time around the organisms they study, and sometimes that exposure has unintended effects

An artist's rendering of the five-planet system that orbits star HD 108236, or TOI-1233. In the foreground is a hot, rocky planet that resembles Earth.

Balancing Homework and A.P. Classes, These High Schoolers Discovered Four Exoplanets

Thanks to a Harvard-Smithsonian mentoring program, high school students Kartik Pinglé and Jasmine Wright helped discover new worlds

A female macaque relaxes at Jigokudani. The Japanese word means “hell’s valley,” after the volcanic activity that heats the springs.

What Japan's Wild Snow Monkeys Can Teach Us About Animal Culture

Scientists have been studying the primates at some of the nation's hot springs, and what they have learned about evolution is astonishing

An RN administers the Covid-19 vaccine to a nurse at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia.

The Ten Most Significant Science Stories of 2020

From the rapid development of vaccines for Covid-19 to the stunning collection of an asteroid sample, these were the biggest science moments of the year

Newton held unconventional religious beliefs and dabbled in alchemy and the occult.

Isaac Newton Thought the Great Pyramid Held the Key to the Apocalypse

Papers sold by Sotheby's document the British scientist's research into the ancient Egyptians and the Bible

A Tyrannosaurus rex posed with a Triceratops at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Hypersensitive Profanity Filter Censors 'Bone' at Paleontology Conference

Moved online due to the pandemic, an automated content filter banned terms including "sexual," "pubic" and "stream"

The Pacific bigfin squid Magnapinna pacifica in the Smithsonian collections that Mike Vecchione and Richard E. Young used to describe the deepest-known species of squid.

The Wonderfully Weird World of Deep-Sea Squids

For this month's "Meet a SI-entist," the Smithsonian's curator of cephalopods says these are the "intelligent invertebrates"

A 1928 portrait of physicist Albert Einstein by Lotte Jacobi

Tesla's Patents, Einstein's Letters and an Enigma Machine Are Up for Auction

Christie's Eureka! sale features personal and academic objects owned by 20th-century scientists

Researchers found that the less likely a student’s gender and racial groups were to be represented in their field, the more likely they were to introduce novel conceptual linkages in their work.

Deep Biases Prevent Diverse Talent From Advancing

A new study indicates that underrepresented students in science-related fields are innovating at high rates—but not reaping commensurate rewards

Danish physician Nadja Albertsen spent a year at Concordia Research Station in Antarctica.

Ten Tips From Scientists Who Have Spent Months in Isolation

Find a hobby, for starters, and don't forget the mission, say scientists who have worked at remote research stations

Chinese authorities found that He's team falsified regulatory paperwork.

Scientist Behind First CRISPR-Modified Babies Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

He Jiankui faced backlash immediately after announcing the twins’ birth late last year

At Agate Fossil Beds National Monument near the town of Harrison, Nebraska, visitors can view in the outcropping a curious spiral-shaped fossil called Daimonelix, also known as Devil's Corkscrew.

How Scientists Resolved the Mystery of the Devil's Corkscrews

Smithsonian paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues tells the tale of a fossil find that bedeviled early 20th-century researchers

Margaret Rossiter's research spotlights the women in science whose intellectual contributions have not been given their due.

Women Scientists Were Written Out of History. It's Margaret Rossiter's Lifelong Mission to Fix That

The historian has devoted her career to bringing to light the ingenious accomplishments of those who have been forgotten

By day the members of the Megatherium Club, united by youth, ambition, intelligence and a deep and abiding love of the natural world, hunched over jars of marine worms in alcohol or endless trays of fossils…At night they were ready to cut loose.

The Hard-Drinking Early Smithsonian Naturalists of the Megatherium Club

William Stimpson created a fraternity of young scientists and named it for an extinct North American sloth

This New Plastic Can Be Endlessly Recycled

The new material, dubbed PDK, can be deconstructed down to the molecular level

1921 Christmas greetings slide by Arthur Earland

The Nerdiest Christmas Cards Ever May Be These Microscope Slides Composed of Shells

The unusual holiday exchange, which lasted decades during the early 20th-century, hints at the drama between the two colleagues

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Watch the Strongest Indoor Magnetic Field Blast Doors of Tokyo Lab Wide Open

The unexpectedly large 1,200 tesla boom could help researchers explore quantum physics and help in the quest for nuclear fusion

Venting frustrations

Cannibalism, Roller Coasters and Self-Colonoscopies in the News? It's Ig Nobel Season

The satirical awards celebrate some of the strangest scientific research

Researchers Find More Evidence for the Higgs Boson

Analysis of years of data from the Large Hadron Collider shows evidence the particle decays into bottom quarks

The charred papyrus scroll recovered from Herculaneum is preserved in 12 trays mounted under glass. Here is PHerc.118 in tray 8. The scroll was physically unrolled in 1883-84, causing irreparable damage.

Buried by the Ash of Vesuvius, These Scrolls Are Being Read for the First Time in Millennia

A revolutionary American scientist is using subatomic physics to decipher 2,000-year-old texts from the early days of Western civilization

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