Smithsonian Magazine

Shipwreck Divers Discovered a 162-Year-Old Bottle of Guinness Brewed During the Reign of Queen Victoria—and They Want to Take a Swig

The beer was preserved in a sealed glass bottle and may be safe to sample. The team is also hoping to sequence the DNA of the yeast to recreate what the stout would have tasted like in the 19th centur ...
Smithsonian Magazine

A Historian at MIT Discovered the Surprising Truth About This Chinese Label Long Thought to Be a Souvenir of the Boston Tea Party

As a historian of China who studies how societies come to accept ideas as knowledge, Tristan Brown doesn’t formally research American history often. So when the American Historical Review called on ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Thousands of Years Ago, Denisovans Might Have Been Huge, Especially Compared to Their Archaic Human Neighbors

A new study, which has not been peer reviewed, suggests Denisovans might have towered over their ancient hominin peers. Pexels Closely related to both modern humans and Neanderthals, the Denisovans ...
Smithsonian Magazine

This New App Created in Collaboration With the Rainy Lake Ojibwe Community Aims to Preserve Indigenous Language and Knowledge

The new app was created with the Rainy Lake Ojibwe community. Motorola and the Lenovo Foundation. A new free app aims to ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Following Pope Leo XIV’s Encyclical, the Vatican Announces a New Art Triennial Celebrating Human Creativity and Empathy in the Age of A.I.

The Vatican this week announced the creation of a new global art triennial that aims to uplift contemporary art and celebrate the ability of human creativity—not technology—to spark introspection and ...
Smithsonian Magazine

NASA Completes Daring ‘Big Bang’ Fix on the Voyager 2 Probe, Allowing It to Keep Studying Interstellar Space

NASA’s twin probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are more than 13 billion miles away from Earth and counting, making them the farthest-flung human-made objects. But they’re also operating way above their ...
Smithsonian Magazine

How the Boogie Board Became One of Summer’s Most Popular Toys

Fifty-five years ago, surfer Tom Morey cut a piece of polyethylene foam with a carving knife and created a wave-riding board with a low barrier of entry ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Who Has Opposable Thumbs and a Prehensile Tail? This Tree Rat That Few Have Ever Seen

After sequencing the DNA of the world’s only Emmons’s tree rat specimen, museum scientists have returned to the Bornean forest to learn more about the mysterious rodent ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Pumas Might Be Making Your Drive Home Safer. When the Predators Are Around, Deer Tend to Avoid Roads, Preventing Some Collisions

Although mountain lions are fearsome predators, the wild cats might also help keep humans safe in a surprising way. When the large carnivores—sometimes also called pumas, cougars or panthers—are ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Archaeologists in England Preparing for Road Construction Unearthed a Roman-Era Fingernail Cleaner With a Handle Shaped Like a Penis

The Romans considered the phallus a symbol of good luck and used it to decorate objects, mark walls and inspire sculptures ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Jackie the Bald Eagle, Who Captured Hearts Around the World Via Livestream, Has Died After Battling a Mysterious Illness

A raptor center in California had been caring for the animal since mid-July, after she had an altercation with two young ...
Smithsonian Magazine

An 11-Year-Old Boy in a Small Midwestern Town Just Became the Guinness World Record Holder for Being the Youngest Museum Curator

Four years after Anderson Taylor began collecting specimens, he opened the Cambridge Natural History Museum in Cambridge, ...