The National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution have announced a new partnership to share responsibility for selected National Park Service natural history collections, making them more readily available to researchers through the Smithsonian. [...more]
NASA transferred the space shuttle Discovery to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum during a ceremony on Thursday, April 19, at the museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The keynote address was given by astronaut John Glenn, who is the oldest member of a Discovery crew. Shown here: The start of Discovery’s [...] [...more]
Two IMAX cameras were recently donated to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum by NASA. From 1984 to 1998, the two-dimensional IMAX cameras traveled to space with NASA astronauts on 17 different space shuttle missions. A series of six giant-screen films were produced as a result of footage obtained on the missions, including “The [...] [...more]
The shuttle made its final flight on the back of a modified 747 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Virginia’s Dulles International Airport Tuesday, April 17. At 9:48 a.m. it flew over the airport at about 300 feet and then went around Washington, D.C., for about an hour and 15 minutes. [...more]
A mineral dealer from Dallas recently donated this fine specimen of Chinese cinnabar–the common ore of mercury–to the Department of Mineral Sciences of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. This twinned crystal is approximately 3 centimeters across. The specimen was donated to replace one that was damaged during the Aug. 23, 2011 earthquake. (Photo [...] [...more]
DNA analysis has established that creatures captured during a voyage to the mid-Atlantic are members of the Torquaratoridae; a recently discovered family of acorn worms. [...more]
With the gift of a Siemens SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner from Siemens Healthcare, Smithsonian researchers are acquiring information about museum objects that is fundamentally changing the way scientists examine specimens [...more]
Thunder, lightning and strong winds greeted the National Zoo’s two female red panda cubs when they were born June 17, and that stormy night has now determined their names. One cub, Pili, received her name today after voting closed on NBC Washington’s website. Pili, which means “clap of thunder” in Chinese, was the winner among [...] [...more]
Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have found that fledgling catbirds living in the suburbs are extremely vulnerable. Almost 80 percent are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. Nearly half of the deaths are connected to domestic cats. The team studied catbird nests in 3 suburban neighborhoods in Maryland: Spring Park, Opal Daniels Park, and Bethesda. Learn more about this 2011 study by clicking here. (Catbird photo by Gerhard Hofmann)
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