Smithsonian Magazine

NASA Report Reveals the Failures That Left Two Astronauts ‘Stranded’ on the International Space Station

As such, Starliner’s homecoming that September was in autonomous mode and the astronauts remained on the ISS. It wasn’t until ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Mark Your Calendar: March Happenings at the National Museum of American History

MALL ENTRANCE CLOSURE: Note: The museum’s Mall Entrance at Madison Drive, between 12th and 14th Streets, will remain closed ...
Smithsonian Magazine

You Can Buy One of History’s Rarest Baseball Cards—if You Have Several Million Dollars to Spare

The newly graded T206 Honus Wagner card has been in the same family for 116 years. It wasn't on experts' radar until last ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Eating Challenges Are All the Rage. But When Was the Last Time You Saw Someone Eat a Mutton Shoulder Bone?

Even before the internet, overindulgence was something of a spectator sport for those who reveled in gastronomic glory ...
Smithsonian Magazine

A Stay at Ellis Island Hospital Could Determine Whether an Immigrant Had a Chance to Start a New Life in America

Some 276,000 patients were admitted to the medical facility between 1892 and 1951. But the abandoned complex has long been ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Vincent van Gogh Adored the Color Yellow. A New Exhibition in Amsterdam Wants You to Fall In Love With the Hue, Too

“Exhibition Yellow: Beyond van Gogh’s Color,” on view now through mid-May, begins with a stunner: Sunflowers (1889). This ...
Smithsonian Magazine

This Giant Carnivore Ran on Hooves. Scientists Are Investigating Its Massive Skull and Crushing Teeth to Decipher the Beast’s True Nature

For more than a century, paleontologists have been piecing together how the mysterious predator Andrewsarchus is related to ...
Smithsonian Magazine

This Massive, Meat-Eating Dinosaur Was a ‘Hell Heron’ That Waded Into Shallow Waters to Nab Slippery Fish

Paleontologists unearthed a new species of Spinosaurus in the Sahara Desert in Niger, a discovery that adds to the debate over whether the prehistoric creatures were fully or semi-aquatic ...
Smithsonian Magazine

How Often Do You Fart? This ‘Smart Underwear’ Can Keep Track, Because Figuring Out a Baseline Is Important for Science

Researchers have launched a study to find a typical range for flatulence, which has been harder to measure than you might ...
Smithsonian Magazine

The Sahara Desert Hasn’t Always Been a Dry, Desolate Landscape. Some Scientists See Signs It May Be Greening Again

Petroglyphs on sandstone at a national park in Chad bear witness to wildlife that once roamed the area before the continent’s ...
Smithsonian Magazine

‘Yankee Doodle’ Was One of America’s Earliest Protest Songs. But Its Origins Are Shrouded in Mystery

Historians have debunked many of the popular theories surrounding the tune's creation. Still, its legacy as a patriotic ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Scientists Once Thought This Snail Was Extinct. But a Surprising Discovery and Decade-Long Conservation Effort Revived the Species

In the early 1990s, scientists worried that the greater Bermuda land snail—found only on the North Atlantic Ocean archipelago ...