Sarah Parcak | Smithsonian Magazine’s 2016 American Ingenuity Award Winner for History This tech-savvy researcher of our past uses satellites and other remote-sensing tools to discover and explore stunning new evidence of lost cultures—including, just this year, another possible Viking site in North America. In addition, she has located an astonishing number of ancient Egyptian remains—thousands of settlements, lost tombs and hidden pyramids. A Yale- and Cambridge-trained Egyptologist and archaeologist, Parcak is a professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she serves as founding director of the Laboratory for Global Observation. Read more about Parcak’s work: http://smithmag.co/ZuwTGP | #IngenuityAwards And more about the American Ingenuity Awards: http://smithmag.co/77xPqy

The 12,000 year old skeleton of a teenage girl was found in Hoyo Negro, an underwater cave system on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Arcimboldos-Feast-for-the-Eyes.html The Hapsburg Dynasty's court painter's unique style of portraiture, using fruits, vegetables and animals to compose his faces -- has fascinated artists and the general public for centuries.

Last summer, news reports of orcas deliberately tearing the propellers off of yachts in the Strait of Gibraltar thrilled observers who were eager to cast these intelligent and social pack hunters as class warriors striking a blow for the “common mammals” against the one percent. That turned out to be wishful thinking, according to guest Lori Marino, a biopsychologist who studies whale and dolphin intelligence. She told us that these six-ton whales were just having fun—if they wanted to harm the occupants of those boats, we’d know it.  Even so, these encounters are becoming a predictable seasonal occurrence between the months of May and August: A 50-foot charter vessel sank after its hull and rudder were damaged in an orca encounter near the Strait of Gibraltar on May 12. So here again is our episode on the perils of assigning human motives to wild animals, featuring Marino and Smithsonian assistant digital science editor Carlyn Kranking. This episode was originally released in September 2023.   Dr. Marino invites you to learn more about The Whale Sanctuary Project at their site (https://whalesanctuaryproject.org/about-the-whale-sanctuary-project/) . You can also see Dr. Marino in the documentary films Blackfish (2013), Unlocking the Cage (2016), and Long Gone Wild (2019). Find prior episodes of our show here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast/) . And read the transcript of this episode here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/are-wild-animals-really-just-like-us-180982939/) . There’s More to That (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast) 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.

Recently digitized footage showing Marines loading onto LST with supplies on equipment and waiting on the beach, among other things. (U.S. Marine Corps History Division and Moving Image Research Collections, University of South Carolina)

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

At the Coastal Discovery Museum’s exhibition, visitors will be able to view a 3D digital interactive that reconstructs the original Fort San Marcos on Santa Elena. (Credit: Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn)

“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

Teeth are key to identifying elderly remains

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

New research suggests the sarcophagus' occupant, previously known only as "the horseman," is Joachim du Bellay, a French Renaissance poet who died in 1560

The technology, enabled by thorium atoms, could keep time more accurately than atomic clocks and enable new discoveries about gravity, gravitational waves and dark matter

The mysterious missive was written by P.J. Féret, who conducted an archaeological dig at the same site in northern France in 1825

Unexplored iron-rich magma could help power current and future technologies

The predatory pod hunts off the coast of Chile and is led by a matriarch called Dakota

The "John Evenson" tugboat was helping another ship enter the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal in Wisconsin when it sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan in 1895

The newly restored "Charing Cross Bridge," which once hung in the politician's drawing room, is now on display at London's Courtauld Gallery

A new analysis suggests that the piece was created by several artists working in the Italian Renaissance painter's studio—and that Botticelli himself may have worked on important details

Home to more than 300 artists, the neighborhood was submerged under the record-high waters of the French Broad River

The 4,000-year-old burial chamber featured hieroglyphs referring to the woman, known as Idi, as the "lady of the house"

The recent excavation beneath the Treasury has revealed 12 complete human skeletons and a trove of grave goods dating back 2,000 years

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

The structure—also the earliest of its kind in the Asian country—dates to around 350 C.E.

Authorities have not yet identified the cause of death for the 12.5-foot-long shark, which was named Koala

Pathogens are more common in polar bears living in the Chukchi Sea now than they were three decades ago, a new study suggests—but it's not yet clear what that means for the mammals' health

The new research could change history's understanding of the sprawling trade network that connected Europe and the Middle East to East Asia

Despite its unusually small size, the newly unearthed House of Phaedra is covered in elaborate frescos depicting mythological scenes

Since her birth in 1909, Francis lived through two world wars, segregation, the fall of the Soviet Union, multiple pandemics and the invention of the cellphone

While most wooden artifacts disintegrate after thousands of years, the newly unearthed oak tool has remained in remarkable condition

The team was analyzing the structure of a royal palace’s gate when they discovered 12 statues made out of sandstone

The votive plaque was found amid the ruins of an ancient Roman fortress. Researchers think a temple dedicated to the mysterious deity may have stood nearby

The 3,800-year-old site near the city of Luxor holds the remains of 11 individuals, who may have been members of the same family. Researchers think the tomb was used for several generations

Found in a cremation cemetery in Belgium, the skeleton includes bones dating to the Neolithic period and a Roman-era skull, according to a new study

Once the first primate made a break, the 42 others followed suit in a simple case of monkey-see, monkey-do

It's not the first time savvy entrepreneurs have marketed canned air to tourists. Similar products have been sold at vacation destinations for decades

The Whitney Museum has been gifted 400 works by the famed pop artist, while the Smithsonian Archives of American Art will receive half a million documents

It's not clear how the juvenile male ended up so far north, but experts suggest he was motivated by his appetite

On this day in 1912, a team found the remains of Robert Falcon Scott and the crew of the "Terra Nova" expedition. A would-be rescuer said he was forever haunted by the "horrible nightmare"

It fell to Belle da Costa Greene, a Black woman whose racial identity was kept secret for decades, to catalog J.P. Morgan's immense collection of books and art

A researcher studying the rise of extremism in Atlantic Canada warns Ku Klux Klan Halloween costumes are just one example of an insidious effort by far-right groups to normalize hateful attitudes.

Volunteers will be cutting hair at a salon based inside a Cape Breton food bank. The goal is to provide clients with the same salon experience paying customers would receive.

RCMP are investigating after officers discovered human remains in an abandoned, burned vehicle in Greenhill, N.S.

The union representing dockworkers in Montreal says Canada's labour minister forcing its members back to work at ports in Montreal and Quebec City marks a "dark day for workers' rights."

Mosquitoes take blood meals from a diverse range of host animals and their host associations vary by species. Characterizing these associations is an important element of the transmission dynamics of mosquito-vectored pathogens. To characterize mosquito host associations, various molecular techniques have been developed, which are collectively referred to as blood meal analysis. DNA barcoding has diverse biological applications and is well-suited to mosquito blood meal analysis. The standard DNA barcoding marker for animals is a 5' fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene. A major advantage of this marker is its taxonomic coverage in DNA sequence reference databases, making it feasible to identify a wider range of mosquito host species than with any other gene. However, the COI gene contains high sequence variation at potential priming sites between vertebrate orders. Coupled with the need for primer sequences to be mismatched with mosquito priming sites so that annealing to mosquito DNA is inhibited, it can be difficult to design primers suitable for blood meal analysis applications. Several primers are available that perform well in mosquito blood meal analysis, annealing to priming sites for most vertebrate host taxa, but not to those of mosquitoes. Because priming site sequence variation among vertebrate taxa can cause amplification to fail, a hierarchical approach to DNA barcoding-based blood meal analysis can be applied. In such an approach, no single primer set is expected to be effective for 100% of potential host species. If amplification fails in the initial reaction, a subsequent reaction is attempted with primers that anneal to different priming sites, and so on, until amplification is successful.

With president-elect Donald Trump promising to drill in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Gwich'in are preparing to fight for the Porcupine caribou herd.

Water quality guidelines for mercury are 0.02 micrograms per litre of water. Several results show that levels at four sites are far above that threshold. During the second week of October, one value close to the mine was more than seven times the acceptable level.

Hay River RCMP say they believe two weekend incidents, including one in which a person was shot, are linked to drugs and organized crime.

In the Jim Crow South, activists became martyrs at the hands of white racists, all for the just cause of using the vote to fight for equality and freedom

Eight years ago, a woman filed a complaint about two RCMP constables in Moncton. She accused them of having "an improper and racist attitude" and of discriminating against her and her husband during an investigation into a stolen truck and trailer.