What makes rainforests unique? History, not ecology.
History and geology, not current ecology, are likely what has made tropical forests so variable from site to site. [...more]
History and geology, not current ecology, are likely what has made tropical forests so variable from site to site. [...more]
What's possibly the most calming yet nerve-racking job in the world? Come behind the scenes of the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art to find out! [...more]
Depending on where the fish disperse from, the use of ‘stepping stones', flotsam or simply being an adult can help in the journey to find a new home. [...more]
The Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., is celebrating the recent hatching of two Micronesian kingfisher (Todiramphus c. cinnamominus) chicks, a female and male, born July 25 and Aug. 20, respectively. [...more]
Invertebrates make up more than 80 percent of all known species and provide humans with a myriad of valuable services—from crop pollination to their use as food—yet they are overlooked and underrepresented in conservation decisions and on priority lists of threatened and endangered species. [...more]
For the first time in decades, researchers have found a new bird species in the United States. Based on a specimen collected in 1963 on Midway Atoll, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, biologists have described a new species of seabird, Bryan’s shearwater [...more]
The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, more commonly known as the Jefferson bible, is a volume created by Thomas Jefferson containing passages he chose from the four Gospels of the New Testament. Jefferson cut these passages out and pasted them on to blank pieces of paper which were then bound into a book. [...] [...more]
Using 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional CT scans, Natural History Museum anthropologists found that the brain and major organs were removed and rolls of linen filled out the abdominal cavity. This mummification method is evidence of superior embalming, indicating a person of higher status. [...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.