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Smithsonian Institution

Since its founding in 1846, the Smithsonian Institution has been committed to inspiring generations through knowledge and discovery. The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex, consisting of 21 museums, eight research centers, numerous education and cultural centers, and the National Zoological Park.

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 27 articles
GOP 2024 Convention attendees use clear plastic tote bags, usually with convention-related names or terms. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

‘MAGA BLACK’ hats, clear swag bags, the first Trump/Vance signs: Highlights of what the Smithsonian is archiving from the Republican convention

Claire Jerry, Smithsonian Institution and Jon Grinspan, Smithsonian Institution

Tight security may be the reason that the GOP Convention isn’t filled with the homemade, and often wacky, stuff that’s usually found by Smithsonian political ephemera curators at the event.
Smithsonian curators collect campaign material like these tall state standards used at the 2016 GOP convention. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

How Smithsonian curators scavenge political conventions to explain the present to the future and save everything from hats to buttons to umbrellas to soap

Naomi Schalit, The Conversation

Curators from the Smithsonian will be at the GOP convention collecting items from buttons to banners. Their goal: to add objects to the museum’s collection that will ‘make sense of our moment.’
The bamboo coral Isidella displaying bioluminescence in the Caribbean in 2009. Sönke Johnsen

From glowing corals to vomiting shrimp, animals have used bioluminescence to communicate for millions of years – here’s what scientists still don’t know about it

Danielle DeLeo, Florida International University and Andrea Quattrini, Smithsonian Institution

Dozens of animals, some on land but many in the ocean, can produce light within their bodies through chemical reactions. Scientists are still trying to understand when and why this trait developed.
Ancestral seal hunting happened at the edge of the Sít Tlein (Hubbard) glacier. Emily Kearney-Williams © Smithsonian Institution

Scientists and Indigenous leaders team up to conserve seals and an ancestral way of life at Yakutat, Alaska

Aron L. Crowell, Smithsonian Institution and Judith Dax̱ootsú Ramos, University of Alaska Southeast

Collaborative research by archaeologists, environmental scientists and tribal elders combines science and Indigenous knowledge to tell the story of centuries of life at a glacier’s edge.
I feel a song coming on … Paul Starosta/Stone via Getty images

Why don’t female crickets chirp?

Floyd W. Shockley, Smithsonian Institution

Only male crickets have wing structures that produce sound, but females are very good at following the signal.
Planting trees on deforested lands in Panama. Jorge Aleman/Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Paying people to replant tropical forests − and letting them harvest the timber − can pay off for climate, justice and environment

Jefferson S. Hall, Smithsonian Institution; Katherine Sinacore, Smithsonian Institution, and Michiel van Breugel, National University of Singapore

It might seem counterintuitive to suggest timber harvesting when the goal is to restore forests, but that gives landholders the economic incentive to protect and manage forests over time.
Indigenous Coast Salish women wove woolly dogs’ fur into blankets. Artist's reconstruction by Karen Carr

Mutton, an Indigenous woolly dog, died in 1859 − new analysis confirms precolonial lineage of this extinct breed, once kept for their wool

Audrey T. Lin, Smithsonian Institution; Chris Stantis, University of Utah, and Logan Kistler, Smithsonian Institution

Dogs have lived with Indigenous Americans since before they came to the continent together 10,000 years ago. A new analysis reveals the lineage of one 1800s ‘woolly dog’ from the Pacific Northwest.
Ilustração mostra carcaça de preguiça gigante enquanto um dos ocupantes do Abrigo de Santa Elina trabalha na fabricação de joias com seus ossos. Júlia D’Oliveira

Joias de ossos de preguiça gigante encontradas no Brasil entram no debate da ocupação humana das Américas

Mírian Liza Alves Forancelli Pacheco, Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar); Briana Pobiner, Smithsonian Institution, and Thais Rabito Pansani, Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar)

Novas evidências arqueológicas reforçam a hipótese de que a ocupação de humanos modernos nas Américas ocorreu muito antes do que se pensava
Researchers discovered five new species of black corals, including this Hexapathes bikofskii growing out of a nautilus shell more than 2,500 feet (760 meters) below the surface. Jeremy Horowitz

Scientists discover five new species of black corals living thousands of feet below the ocean surface near the Great Barrier Reef

Jeremy Horowitz, Smithsonian Institution

Black corals provide critical habitat for many creatures that live in the dark, often barren, deep sea, and researchers are learning more about these rare corals with every dive.
Eelgrasses covered with small snails, which keep the leaves clean by feeding on algae that live on them. Jonathan Lefcheck

Restoring seagrasses can bring coastal bays back to life

Robert J. Orth, Virginia Institute of Marine Science; Jonathan Lefcheck, Smithsonian Institution, and Karen McGlathery, University of Virginia

Healthy seagrasses form underwater meadows teeming with fish and shellfish. A successful large-scale restoration project in Virginia could become a model for reseeding damaged seagrass beds worldwide.
Footprints, preserved in solidified ash, hint at human behavior from as long as 19,000 years ago. Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce

Prehistoric human footprints reveal a rare snapshot of ancient human group behavior

William E.H. Harcourt-Smith, Lehman College, CUNY and Briana Pobiner, Smithsonian Institution

The footprints of over 20 different prehistoric people, pressed into volcanic ash thousands of years ago in Tanzania, show possible evidence for sexual division of labor in this ancient community.

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