Behind the Scenes with Harry Rubenstein At the National Museum of American History (Beth Py-Lieberman, Ryan Reed and Molly Roberts). Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/life-of-lincoln.html

The act of dive bombing during World War II was a death defying trial of skill and nerve. You aimed your plane down, four miles above the ocean and plummeted at speeds of up to 275 miles per hour

Think blockbuster movie and you’ve got an idea of how this story ends

Many cultures have found ways to preserve the human body after death, but how? In this one-minute video, our Ask Smithsonian Host, Eric Schulze, wraps up the answer.

From the stars moving across the night sky to clouds moving over snow-capped mountains, photographer John Eklund captures the beauty of the region

National Portrait Gallery historian David C. Ward discusses images of Abraham Lincoln that document his life in the White House (Anika Gupta, Beth Py-Lieberman, Jesse Rhodes and Ryan Reed). Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/life-of-lincoln.html

Fannie Lou Hamer, a voting rights activist, suffered unspeakable violence and intimidation at the hands of white supremacists and police. Her response: to elevate her cause by launching a long-shot campaign for the U.S. Senate

This relic from ancient Persia had a profound influence on the Founding Fathers. More on the Cyrus Cylinder: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-cyrus-cylinder-goes-on-view-at-the-sackler-gallery-1334866/

Alexander Nemerov looks back at the artist's life and how earlymisfortunes shaped his interpretation of the 1940s

Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have achieved a degree of power in the music industry that singer/songwriters of earlier eras like Joan Baez—as the folk icon tells us—never even contemplated. Six decades ago, Baez was part of a folk revival that regarded music not merely as entertainment but as a vessel for political engagement and social change. In the documentary Joan Baez: I Am a Noise, the now-83-year-old musician and activist reflects on her career and legacy. Smithsonian senior editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz interviewed Baez about the film and about the shifting intersection of art and activism. We present excerpts from that conversation in this episode. Then, veteran music critic Evelyn McDonnell discusses how the political dimensions of pop music have changed since Baez’s era, and what it means that many fans now look Beyoncé and Taylor Swift not just for great music, but for comment on the state of the world. Clips from Joan Baez: I Am a Noise in this episode are used with permission from Magnolia Pictures & Mead Street Films. Learn more about that film here (https://www.magpictures.com/joanbaez/) . Evelyn McDonnell’s latest book is The World According to Joan Didion (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-world-according-to-joan-didion-evelyn-mcdonnell?variant=41001679487010) . You can learn more about Evelyn and her work at her site, Populism (https://populismblog.wordpress.com/about-2/) . 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, Rye Dorsey, 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.

The team at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy needs to transport Kinani, a blind male elephant, to a 4,000-acre compound where he'll be able to roam freely without disturbing other wildlife. Weighing in at nearly eight tons, it'll take careful maneuvering and custom equipment to bring the animal to his new sanctuary.

Have you ever wondered why Yellowstone is full of hot springs, bubbling mudpots and geysers like Old Faithful? In this one-minute video, Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze explains the supervolcano that lies beneath this national park and answers the life-or-death question: Will it erupt in a fiery inferno anytime soon?

Henry Ford spent the majority of the war as a pacifist. By 1917, however, his state-of-the-art assembly line was churning out vital engine parts to feed the war machine.

More on 3D scanning: http://j.mp/JM43KD Specialists are using new technology to unravel a mystery in the Smithsonian collections.

The answer…and why you should care

Soaring over Utah, it's easy to imagine that you've left Earth and have stepped onto another planet.

Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/In-Search-of-the-Mysterious-Narwhal.html Staff writer Abigail Tucker relates her experiences reporting from the small Arctic village of narwhal hunters.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., it covered the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under tons of ash. Millennia later, in the mid-18th century, archeologists began to unearth the city, including its famed libraries, but the scrolls they found were too fragile to be unrolled and read; their contents were thought to be lost forever. Only now, thanks to the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning, scholars of the ancient world have partnered with computer programmers to unlock the contents of these priceless documents. In this episode of “There’s More to That,” science journalist and Smithsonian contributor Jo Marchant tells us about the yearslong campaign to read these scrolls. And Youssef Nader—one of the three winners of last year’s “Vesuvius Challenge” to make these clumps of vulcanized ash readable—tells us how he and his teammates achieved their historic breakthrough. Read Smithsonian’s coverage of the Vesuvius Challenge and the Herculaneum scrolls here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-students-decipher-first-passages-2000-year-old-scroll-burned-vesuvius-eruption-180983738/) , here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/buried-ash-vesuvius-scrolls-are-being-read-new-xray-technique-180969358/) , and here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/archaeologoists-only-just-beginning-reveal-secrets-hidden-ancient-manuscripts-180967455/) . 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, Rye Dorsey, 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.

Home to the worlds largest shell collection, the Smithsonian catalogues and studies shells both large and small, spiky and smooth (Brendan McCabe).

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.

Selected by Eli Reed for our special issue, this up-and-coming photographer discusses his work

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.

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.

Teeth are key to identifying elderly remains

Archaeologists unearthed a series of mudbrick rooms filled with religious tributes, soldiers' personal effects, engraved weaponry and animal bones

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

Researchers say that the iconic painting's swirling sky lines up with Kolmogorov's theory of turbulence, suggesting that the artist was a careful observer of the world around him

An A.I.-assisted study identified 303 previously unknown geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert. The art features surprising figures, like orcas holding knives

A new “health check” for our planet sounds an alarm bell on rising ocean acidification, which is driven by carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere

The Dutch seized the majority of the items in the aftermath of a brutal 1906 conflict that killed an estimated 1,000 Balinese

A new exhibition in New York City uses more than 200 texts and artifacts to contemplate Lincoln's rise to the nation's highest office

A recurrent nova, known as the Blaze Star or T Coronae Borealis, is predicted to soon appear in the night sky. But the exact timing of the rare eruption remains unknown

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton shared the award for their work on artificial neural networks and machine learning

David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper revealed how amino acids shape protein structure, a finding that could aid in drug discovery

Breathtaking shots shine a light on the wonders of wildlife and the threats that human activities pose to the natural world

In the ’90s, many scientists disputed an epidemiologist’s warning that the fast-paced life extension of the 20th century would plateau. Now, a new study suggests he was right

Using advanced imaging techniques, researchers discovered modern glue, drill holes and even a fragment of a drill bit in the pastiches

Scientists aren't sure how the circular indentations some 450 feet below the surface formed, but they hope to investigate further

Experts added a carbon fiber pole to help anchor the "Apollo Belvedere," which had developed cracks along the legs and knees. Now, the looming Roman sculpture is finally back on display

Hundreds of artifacts have been unearthed at a burial mound in the city of Chifeng, but researchers are particularly intrigued by the six-inch-long object

NOAA designated the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary this month, following a decade of advocacy by supporters. The protected site will be finalized after a 45-day review period

Step right up and see the spooky circus dolls—from creepy clowns to frightening fortune-tellers—in a Minnesota museum's vintage toy collection

Study participants with lifelong anosmia sniffed less than those with a normal sense of smell. Future research could shed light on whether this has negative implications for their health

Geologists suggest the catastrophic impact of "S2" delivered key nutrients to the oceans, prompting microorganisms to thrive

Researchers trained African giant pouched rats to detect commonly smuggled items, including rhino horns and elephant tusks

Introduced in 1934, the federal duck stamp contest has raised more than $1.2 billion and protected at least 6.5 million acres across the nation. Now, an art exhibition at Connecticut’s Bruce Museum honors the competition’s history

Unlike other birds, which get pigments from their diets, parrots produce their own—but scientists never fully understood the underlying mechanisms, until now

The species may have been carried to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta in ballast water on ships

The Shipwreck Treasure Museum in Cornwall, England, is selling its collection, which includes items connected to nearly 150 shipwrecks

Babies who were conceived and born during the period of rationing in the United Kingdom were less likely to develop certain diseases as adults, a new study finds