Archive | October, 2009

Video: Common birds in Washington, D.C. are helping Smithsonian scientists track intensity of the West Nile Virus

Video: Common birds in Washington, D.C. are helping Smithsonian scientists track intensity of the West Nile Virus

Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo have taken blood samples from thousands of birds and mosquitoes in an effort to track the progress of the West Nile Virus in the eastern United States. Come along in this video as Smithsonian scientists net birds living in downtown Washington, D.C., extract small amounts of blood, and then release them back into the "wild." [...more]

Featured Comments (0)

New Acquisition: With 1844 first edition, Smithsonian Libraries completes its collection of Charles Darwin’s three-volume geology series

New Acquisition: With 1844 first edition, Smithsonian Libraries completes its collection of Charles Darwin’s three-volume geology series

Smithsonian Institution Libraries has recently acquired a rare first edition of Darwin's Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, Visited During the Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. [...more]

New Acquisitions, geology Comments (2)

Mangroves research by Candy Feller, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center botanist

Mangroves research by Candy Feller, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center botanist

Follow botanist Candy Feller of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center as she conducts field work on mangrove ecosystems at Carrie Bow Cay, a Smithsonian field research station in the Caribbean. [...more]

Video, conservation biology Comments (0)

A dry spring in Panama means more sulfur butterflies, study reveals

A dry spring in Panama means more sulfur butterflies, study reveals

A new census of tropical sulfur butterflies (Aphrissa statira) migrating across the Panama Canal has revealed the central role that weather plays in determining why populations of these lemon-yellow insects vary from year to year. [...more]

conservation biology Comments (1)

Smithsonian botanist writes book on his discoveries in the secret land of Myanmar

Smithsonian botanist writes book on his discoveries in the secret land of Myanmar

The Weeping Goldsmith, written as a first-person narrative, follows Botanist John Kress through nine years as he surveys Myanmar’s teak forests, bamboo thickets, timber plantations, rivers and mangroves to document its incredible botanical biodiversity. [...more]

Book Review Comments (0)

Meet our Scientists—Videos!

Science Spotlight

This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of long-proboscid insects that lived in Asia from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. The paper documents the first formal record of fossil Aneuretopsychidae in China. The new fossils reveal previously unknown and detailed structure of the mouthparts, antennae, head, thorax, legs and abdomen of this distinctive insect lineage.

Science Spotlight Archives