Article: http://j.mp/AwLdIY The global orchid community convenes in Singapore to compete for the title of best in show.

Spinning tails on the moths' wingtips scramble bats' echolocation signals to keep the moths from being eaten

Quiksilver captures stunning aerial views of the world champion surfer's dazzling technique

Eric Schulze delves into little Rover's mind to see what all that racket is about

X-rays of the mummy of an ancient Egyptian noblewoman reveal an assortment of health issues: from curvature of the spine, known as scoliosis, to other deformities that could be the result of polio.

Regular dust bathing removes pest and parasites and keeps the wild bird's iridescent feathers in top condition. (Credit: Carla Rhodes)

Not one to hide from the bitter truth, our host, Eric Schulze dishes up the answer

With an 80-acre scale model of the 1.6 million-acre Everglades wetland system, scientists study how to restore the flow of water that was interrupted years ago

A pirogue's eye view of the inlet at the edge of Harper. Some of the first groups of freed American slaves landed on the shores of West Africa near here. (Credit: Clair MacDougall)

Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Wayne-Thiebaud-is-Not-a-Pop-Artist.html He made a name for himself painting pastries and other everyday objects, but his other work--cartoons and cityscapes--showcase the scope of his talents.

From charming streets to stunning scenery, consider Hawaii, Idaho, Massachusetts, or New York for your next summer adventure. --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer & Scriptwriter: Michelle Mehrtens Producer: Nicki Marko Producer: Sierra Theobald Editor: Michael Kneller

The American Ingenuity Award winner is on the brink of using the human genome to provide better diagnostics for deadly diseases

This spring, take a break and smell the flowers in New Mexico, Kansas, California and New Jersey. --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer & Scriptwriter: Michelle Mehrtens Video Editor: Sierra Theobald

As the British marched towards the White House, the first lady ordered a portrait of George Washington to be saved

Biographer David Maraniss says that in order to truly understand Clemente's importance to the sport, you have to look beyond his spectacular numbers

Jane Butel, author and expert on food from the American Southwest, reveals the stories behind how chili peppers, beef and wine became part of the region's cuisine (Meredith Bragg)

For more than a year now, the world has been treated to breathtaking images of the outer reaches of our universe from the NASA instrument. But how does it even work? --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer & Scriptwriter: Michelle Mehrtens Video Editor: Sierra Theobald

When it comes to bird calls, every chirp, trill, and warble tells a story. From eerie screeches to melodic tunes, these distinctive sounds from nature are sure to surprise you. --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer: Michelle Mehrtens Producer: Nicki Marko Video Producer: Sierra Theobald Video Editor: Michael Kneller Script: Michelle Mehrtens, Michael Kneller Audio provided by the Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab

As the space shuttles complete their final missions, curator Valerie Neal at the National Air and Space Museum highlights the spacecraft's history and legacy in manned space flight.

Feeling blue? Try watching this one-minute video. Our Ask Smithsonian host, Eric Schulze, explains how colors affect our moods.

One of the most evocative and breathtakingly beautiful coastal landscapes in Britain is the historic county of Cornwall. It’s also a place steeped in legend, including that of Britain’s legendary King Arthur.

Forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley discusses the skeletal specimens in a new exhibit at the Natural History Museum (Meredith Bragg). Read more at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-the-scientist-who-reads-bones-40315000/

Follow us to the very first Thanksgiving celebration, where the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag came together for a historic feast.

David Lynch | Smithsonian Magazine’s 2016 American Ingenuity Award Winner for Education As a filmmaker, Lynch has a reputation for creating dark, surreal movies such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart as well as the TV show “Twin Peaks.” In the education world, he's becoming known for something very different: promoting inner peace. Over the past decade, the David Lynch Foundation has sponsored Transcendental Meditation classes for half a million children in places as far-flung as the Bronx, Detroit, Los Angeles, Congo and the West Bank. The program, called Quiet Time, is now at the center of one of the largest-ever studies of meditation for children—a 6,800-pupil research project conducted by the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago and designed to learn if meditation can help kids in highly stressful environments fare better at home and in school. Read more about Lynch’s work: http://smithmag.co/9sHhtm | #IngenuityAwards And more about the American Ingenuity Awards: http://smithmag.co/77xPqy

Carleton Watkins' 19th-Century Photographs of Yosemite Valley (Produced and Narrated by: Brendan McCabe. Text by Bruce Hathaway). Read more at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-muirs-yosemite-10737/

“Superman isn’t coming. It is a moment in our time when we must look to ourselves, and not take for granted or wait for something from the top to come down, but rather…pick up the torch, carry the torch, to find information and the truth…” – Erin Brockovich applauds Marc Edwards and LeeAnne Walters for their work exposing the Flint water crisis | Smithsonian Magazine American #IngenuityAwards Read more about Edwards and Walters’ work: http://smithmag.co/D4dIHy The Smithsonian has been celebrating innovation in American culture for more than 150 years, and following in this tradition, Smithsonian magazine presents the American Ingenuity Awards, honoring revolutionary breakthroughs in the arts and sciences, education and social progress. http://smithmag.co/R7hyRO

Capturing a piece of an asteroid and bringing it to Earth is even more difficult than it is time-consuming. After four years in space, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx craft made a brief landing on the asteroid Bennu to collect samples of the ancient rock. Six months later, part of the spacecraft began its journey home to Earth, and earlier this fall, that sample collection canister landed, via parachute, in Utah. Scientists will be studying those samples of Bennu for decades in the hope of unlocking the mystery of how life on Earth began — but they’ve already learned enough to get them excited. In this episode, we speak with Linda Shiner, the former editor of Air & Space / Smithsonian magazine, about the challenges and triumphs of the OSIRIS-REx mission, and what scientists hope it will teach us about how life on Earth began. Find prior episodes of our show here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast/) . There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Genevieve Sponsler, Terence Bernardo, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Music by APM Music.

This video does not contain hidden messages that will make you want to watch more Smithsonian videos.

A shipwreck discovered off New Zealand dates to a time before Cook's arrival

Teeth are key to identifying elderly remains

Some researchers initially dismissed the remains of Palaeopascichnus lineari as teeny turds from a bygone era

In a 11-4 vote, the City Council decided to remove the 65-foot-tall monument from its location in the heart of the city

Investigators discovered that the original print of "The Roaring Lion" had been sold to a buyer in Italy

A melting glacier caused a mountain in Greenland to collapse into a narrow fjord, setting off an oscillating wave that rattled seismic detectors around the world

Two Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority railcars were added to an artificial reef off the coast of Georgia to create more wildlife habitat

"Le Lyonnais" descended into the depths off the coast of Massachusetts after colliding with the "Adriatic," a sailing vessel that left the floundering steamship to fend for itself

The noisy-but-shy bird, known as the hoiho, has earned the most votes for a second time amid threats to its survival

Officials launched an investigation and recovered the $360,000 print less than a week after it vanished from Grove Gallery. Two men have been charged for the crime

"A Soldier's Journey," a 58-foot-long bronze artwork depicting vivid scenes from the war, was illuminated for the first time at a ceremony on September 13

Experts have confirmed that the image of "Knight, Death and the Devil" is a real master engraving by the renowned German artist Albrecht Dürer

When the blaze in Moscow subsided on September 18, 1812, the French—who had traveled hundreds of miles into Russia—were left without vital resources as a brutal winter approached

The annual award ceremony featured costumes, songs and paper airplanes as scientists recognized comedic research across ten disciplines

Kleptoparasitism, in which a bird harasses another to steal its food, might introduce avian flu to the continent, currently the only one without the severe H5N1 strain

Scientists identified traces of the drug in the brain tissue of two individuals buried in the crypt of a hospital in Milan

The artist's cityscapes, once dismissed as too masculine, would later influence the floral artworks that became central to her iconic style

The vertical sign stretched across three stories of the Manhattan hotel, which once welcomed the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin

Due to a drought in Eastern Europe, the scuttled German vessels are reemerging 80 years after they disappeared beneath the river's surface

The “beloved” rodent named Cinnamon was spotted this week with help from drones. She has been wandering and eating grass after escaping her zoo enclosure last Friday

A blockbuster exhibition in London examines the Dutch Post-Impressionist's creative output between 1888 and 1890, which was one of the most productive periods of his career