A new exhibition spotlights a trio who pushed the boundaries of American art and illustrated the experiences of World War II incarceration | Continue reading
Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" documented the killings of a family of four in rural Kansas on this day in 1959 | Continue reading
A new exhibition in Helsinki spotlights the Gothic themes and influences that connected works by renowned late 19th- and early 20th-century artists | Continue reading
The enormous organism is bigger than a blue whale and made up of millions of genetically identical, tiny animals called polyps | Continue reading
After the volcanic eruption of 1980, scientists released the burrowing rodents for only a brief time, but their activities left a remarkably enduring impact, according to a new study | Continue reading
The USS "Edsall," a 314-foot-long destroyer, fought off Japanese forces for more than an hour before sinking beneath the surface on March 1, 1942 | Continue reading
November's spectacle closes out a series of four big and bright full moons that have captivated sky watchers since late summer | Continue reading
Staffers at the Dorchester County Historical Society in Maryland were baffled by the unusual machine, so they asked the public for help in determining its purpose | Continue reading
Scientists are seeing signs of resistance to the infections that have been wiping out the world’s amphibian populations—and they're developing methods to fight the pathogen | Continue reading
The now-beloved book, which centers on a sailor seeking revenge against a sperm whale, was initially met with lukewarm sales, only achieving iconic status after the author's death | Continue reading
Called aerobraking, the technique allows the highly classified craft to change orbit without using propellant—and some are wondering why the agency has let us in on this news | Continue reading
A new exhibition at the author's home in Chawton, which has never previously displayed all six first-edition books together, is part of preparations for the author's 250th birthday celebrations | Continue reading
Though the nearly full moon will likely outshine some of these speedy meteors, you may still be able to catch a glimpse of bright fireballs and low Earth-grazers | Continue reading
For the first time, researchers were able to see inside the mummies in the Chicago Field Museum's collections. Their findings paint a more comprehensive picture of ancient Egyptian life | Continue reading
The roughly six-hour flyby in 1986 revealed Uranus' protective magnetic field was strangely empty. Now, researchers say that the data could have been affected by a solar wind event | Continue reading
The cathedral has been under renovation since 2019, when it was badly damaged in a fire. Crews are testing the bells before the historic structure reopens on December 8 | Continue reading
The fireball—one of many decommissioned satellites from SpaceX's internet service—was spotted by dozens of people across at least four states, and many mistook it for a meteor | Continue reading
The celebrated Underground Railroad conductor received posthumous recognition for her service as a spy, scout, nurse and cook during the Civil War | Continue reading
From the Ford Nucleon to the Studebaker-Packard Astral, these vehicles failed to progress past the prototype stage in the 1950s and 1960s | Continue reading
In 1833, hundreds of thousands of shooting starts inspired songs, prophecies and a crowdsourced research paper on the origins of meteors | Continue reading
The 1951 artwork, "La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman)," stands over six feet tall and features paintings of "hybrid creatures and lush dreamscapes" | Continue reading
Mary, a 54-year-old Asian elephant at the Berlin Zoo, is the “queen of showering,” but her companion Anchali seems to have figured out how to exploit that habit to play pranks | Continue reading
Sławomir and Szymon Milewski were searching for a Roman road when they stumbled upon the cache of coins, which is worth more than $120,000 | Continue reading
A Romare Bearden print served as a starting point for the American playwright's 1987 drama, which follows a Black family's struggle to decide the fate of an ancestral heirloom | Continue reading
During a release of captive-bred snails in September, researchers discovered wild-born individuals from the Partula tohiveana species—which had been considered extinct in the wild—marking a huge milestone in a global effort to save them | Continue reading
A new study has shattered historians' long-held assumptions about some of the people who died in Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 C.E. | Continue reading
The artificial waste could fertilize the ocean and sequester carbon | Continue reading
From the formation of inner ear bones to the rise of hair to cover our bodies, these developments made us distinct from other animals | Continue reading
On this day in 1912, a team found the remains of Robert Falcon Scott and the crew of the "Terra Nova" expedition. A would-be rescuer said he was forever haunted by the "horrible nightmare" | Continue reading
It's not clear how the juvenile male ended up so far north, but experts suggest he was motivated by his appetite | Continue reading
It's not the first time savvy entrepreneurs have marketed canned air to tourists. Similar products have been sold at vacation destinations for decades | Continue reading
Once the first primate made a break, the 42 others followed suit in a simple case of monkey-see, monkey-do | Continue reading
While testing the "infinite monkey theorem," mathematicians found that the odds of a chimpanzee typing even a short phrase like "I chimp, therefore I am" before the death of the universe are 1 in 10 million billion billion | Continue reading
Found in a cremation cemetery in Belgium, the skeleton includes bones dating to the Neolithic period and a Roman-era skull, according to a new study | Continue reading
The bone, described two decades after its discovery, suggests the species might have grown up to 20 percent bigger than other terror birds | Continue reading
The robbers only made away with two of the screen prints, which they swiped from a gallery in the Netherlands. They abandoned the other artworks on the street | Continue reading
The pathogen takes over the brains of its hosts and controls them for its own sinister ends | Continue reading
The 1898 Wilmington massacre left dozens of Black North Carolinians dead. Conspirators also forced the city's multiracial government to resign at gunpoint | Continue reading
The 4,500-year-old pyramids of Giza are the backdrop for "Forever Is Now," which features sculptures, installations and immersive artworks that explore the relationship between the past and present | Continue reading
The beloved reptile in Australia died last weekend and was thought to be up to 120 years old, though that age is only an estimate. Research on his bones might reveal a more exact number | Continue reading
The 3,800-year-old site near the city of Luxor holds the remains of 11 individuals, who may have been members of the same family. Researchers think the tomb was used for several generations | Continue reading
On its 66th flyby of the king of planets, Juno has captured spectacular views of the stormy atmosphere, processed by citizen scientists | Continue reading
Steve Lazarides' personal collection of prints, original works, handwritten press releases and burner phones sold at auction for around $1.4 million | Continue reading
In a rare technique among mammals, the bats burn proteins from blood, rather than carbs or fat, to power their pursuits of prey, according to a new study | Continue reading
These amazing images from the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest show the Arctic animals at their fierce but adorable best | Continue reading
Once one of the world’s most dangerous border crossings, Berlin's symbol of death and division has been turned into a tangible way to experience history | Continue reading
The work, now on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, tells the story of two characters on the island—the last people alive in the world | Continue reading
The storm decimated a region rich with dozens of species already struggling with habitat loss and disease | Continue reading