The only explanation for such symmetry across these vast distances, explains Smithsonian anthropologist Dennis Stanford, is that the method of creating the points was handed down from person to person. [...more]
New images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon's crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. [...more]
A mysterious cycle of booms and busts in marine biodiversity over the past 500 million years could be tied to a periodic uplifting of the world's continents, scientists report [...more]
Inveraray Castle in Argyllshire, Scotland, was one of the places visited by James Smithson (1764–1829), geologist and founder of the Smithsonian Institution, during the summer of 1784 while he was traveling on a scientific expedition to the remote island of Staffa on Scotland’s Northwest coast. Steven Turner, Division of Medicine and Science curator at the [...] [...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]
During a press conference Friday, July 22 at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, NASA announced that Gale Crater will be the landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory. Scheduled to launch in late 2011 and arrive at Mars in August 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory is a rover that will assess the planet’s “habitability”—if it ever was, or is today, an environment able to support microbial life. [...more]
The pendant took Grand Prize in the National Saul Bell Design Competition in 2008 and features a beautiful 3.76-ct pink tourmaline from Nigeria. [...more]
To understand the long-term effects of a prolonged tropical storm in the Panama Canal watershed, Robert Stallard, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, and Armando Ubeda, the LightHawk Mesoamerica program manager, organized four flights over the watershed to create a digital map of landslide scars. [...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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