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]
The fossil represents the youngest nodosaur ever discovered, and the only known specimen of a new genus and species of dinosaur that lived approximately 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Era. [...more]
The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, the oldest rare book collection of the Smithsonian Libraries, recently enriched its collection with an intriguing 16th century work in astronomy titled, Christop Clavius’s In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius. Romae, 1570. Apud Victorium Helianum. [...more]
More than 500 carats of rough diamonds were recently donated to the Department of Mineral Sciences of the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum by Jewlers Mutual Insurance Co. of Neenah, Wis. [...more]
This interior robot was recently added to the permanent robotics collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as a donation from Sandia National Laboratories. First introduced in 1985, it was the only robot at that time able to navigate a building without a pre-programmed pathway or floor wiring. Other recent donations from Sandia [...] [...more]
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.
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