Rick Wunderman of the Global Volcanism Program at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History talks about the current volcanic activity in Iceland. [...more]
The number and diversity of tectonic landforms in our solar system “is truly remarkable,” Watters and Schultz write. Photographs of these structures have stimulated a range of scholarly investigations. [...more]
A meteorite that crashed through the roof of a Lorton, Va., doctors’ office on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 was recently identified by scientists in the Division of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Local newspapers reported that thousands of people from southern New Jersey to southwestern Virginia witnessed the meteorite streak [...] [...more]
The Hope Diamond’s red glow has long been considered a unique property of that stone. Most blue diamonds produce a bluish-white phosphorescence if exposed to ultraviolet light. The few other diamonds known to emit red phosphorescence were commonly assumed to have been from the even larger original stone from which the Hope was cut. [...more]
For those who think that global warming is a 21st-century phenomenon, Scott Wing, a scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, has news about the past. [...more]
Yellow lady’s slippers, watercolor by Kathleen Garness, from the National Museum of Natural History exhibit “Losing Paradise? Endangered Plants Here and Around the World,” opening Aug. 14. The exhibition, a collaborative effort between the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Natural History Museum, showcases botanical illustrations and features work from several renowned artists, including Alice Tangerini, one of the Smithsonian’s acclaimed scientific illustrators.
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