Smithsonian Magazine

How a Bunch of Broke Teachers Created a Hot New Way to Vacation

In 1953, young New York teacher David Ostroff typed up a list of colleagues who would be happy to exchange their homes during ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Earth’s True North and South Poles Have Wandered Four Times Over the Past 320 Million Years, Study Suggests

The phenomenon, which involves the geographic poles, is distinct from when the magnetic poles move. The planet's solid crust ...
Smithsonian Magazine

A Farmer in Egypt Stumbled Upon a Pink Stone and Called the Authorities. They Found the Remains of Two Colossal Statues of Ramses II Beneath the Property

Archaeologists recovered the head of one statue that might have measured nearly 28 feet tall. It could point to a major ...
Smithsonian Magazine

How Colorado’s Wildlife Mitigation Efforts—Including the Largest Animal Crossing Overpass in North America—Are Making Everyone Safer

Animals can now cross a dangerous stretch of Interstate 25 thanks to new infrastructure, including fences, underpasses and a ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Dam Removals Are Bringing Fish Back Across the Northeastern United States, Striking Down One Tiny Barrier at a Time

While the demolition of big dams in the West gets more attention, many of these often-obsolete obstructions are also coming ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Arthur Conan Doyle Based Sherlock Holmes on a Real-Life Scottish Surgeon Who Used Deduction to Diagnose Patients and Investigate Crimes

A new book chronicles the exploits of Joseph Bell, an Edinburgh lecturer whose lessons sparked the creation of the world's ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Wildlife Experts Stunned to Find That Bird Flu Killed Jackie, the Beloved, Internet-Famous Bald Eagle

Jackie died in August after receiving weeks of intensive care at the Ojai Raptor Center in California. The necropsy results ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Rembrandt Turned Ancient Myths Into ‘Supremely Human’ Works of Art. An Upcoming Exhibition Traces the Inspiration He Took From Antiquity

"Rembrandt and the Ancients" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will unpack an "underexplored but vital" part of the Dutch ...
Smithsonian Magazine

A New Contender for the World’s Oldest Shipwreck Has Been Discovered Off the Coast of Turkey. Its Ancient Cargo Is a ‘Time Capsule’ From 4,700 Years Ago

The ship was likely transporting huge jars of olive oil or wine across the Mediterranean when it sank to the seafloor. One ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Small Dogs Tend to Live Longer Than Big Dogs. Scientists Say They Might Finally Know Why—and It Goes to the Molecular Level

Larger breeds like Great Danes seem to accumulate changes to chemical tags on their DNA more quickly than tinier breeds, such ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Microplastics Have Been Linked With Myriad Human Health Problems. Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out How They Harm the Body

Lab experiments suggest that tiny bits of plastic can react with water inside us to produce highly reactive molecules. They ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Archaeologists in Egypt Discover a Mud-Brick Tomb Featuring a Heartbreaking Elegy to an Ancient Man’s Father

The 19-line poem was inscribed on a stone slab in the Bir al-Shaghala necropolis. The lament "is a highly literary and ...