stronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to find evidence our Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in an enormous halo of hot gas that extends for hundreds of thousands of light years.

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The Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, a unique program in terms of its academic offerings and contributions to the field of conservation, celebrated the completion of its expansive new academic facilities today, Oct. 18, at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

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Vampire Squid Illustration, 1889 This Smithsonian Snapshot celebrates the Halloween season with this 1889 scientific illustration of a vampire squid from Smithsonian Libraries. Its jet-black […]

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This 1889 scientific illustration of a vampire squid from Smithsonian celebrates Halloween. The squid’s jet-black skin, the caped appearance of the webbing between its arms […]

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The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has been awarded a NASA project to build the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument. TEMPO will measure North American air pollution, from Mexico City to the Canadian tar/oil sands, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, hourly and at high spatial resolution.

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New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest a highly distorted supernova remnant (shown here) may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy.

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Until now, supernovas came in two main “flavors.” A core-collapse supernova is the explosion of a star about 10 to 100 times as massive as […]

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Marmosets on track for obesity appeared to be more efficient in their feeding behavior. “Although all animals consumed the same amount of liquid, the ones […]

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Covered in venomous spines the exotic and strikingly banded Indo-Pacific lionfish would be a painful mouthful to any creature that may try to catch and […]

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Douglas Owsley, the division head for physical anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, presented today a forensic analysis of 17th-century human remains […]

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Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have discovered an unprecedented bonanza of black holes in the Andromeda Galaxy, one of the nearest galaxies […]

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Emmett Duffy, currently the Gluckman Professor of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, has been appointed director of the Smithsonian’s […]

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The Smithsonian is delighted to be included in this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival (June 26 – July 2 in Aspen, Colo.) which will gather some of […]

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The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum announced that it will receive a $6 million donation from the Thomas W. Haas Foundation to establish an […]

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Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are celebrating the birth of a female Przewalski’s (Cha-VAL-skee) horse—the first to be born via artificial insemination. The […]

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Hot spots of mercury pollution in aquatic sediments and soils can contaminate local food webs and threaten ecosystems, but cleaning them up can be expensive […]

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Kepler-78b is a planet that shouldn’t exist. This scorching lava world circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less […]

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Hopes are high for Comet ISON, which has the potential to become the most spectacular comet seen in years. ISON is speeding through the inner […]

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A groundbreaking study by Harvard University’s Harvard Forest and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute reveals that, if left unchecked, recent trends in the loss of […]

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The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute rung in 2014 with the hatching of the most endangered species in its collection—a Micronesian kingfisher—Jan. 1. The chick, whose […]

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John Kovac of the Harvard-­Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. 

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Identifying larval stages of marine fishes in the open ocean is difficult because the young fishes often bear little or no resemblance to the adults […]

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A newly released study focusing on an extinct species, the Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis), has revealed just how evolutionarily unique its only two living […]

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For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The newly opened […]

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The name Panama is said to mean “abundance of fish.” Now a new study estimates that between 1950 and 2010, the amount of fish taken […]

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It is related to one of the world’s most destructive invasive species, and possibly the slimiest. Thirty-five pounds of live giant West African snails (Archachatina […]

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Fifteen years ago, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. Since its deployment on July 23, 1999, Chandra has […]

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The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the SVF Foundation have launched a new collaboration to strengthen rare and endangered livestock breed conservation through the preservation […]

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New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory offer a glimpse into the environment of a star before it exploded earlier this year, and insight into […]

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Imagine sitting down at your favorite restaurant when something under the table begins painfully pinching and snipping at your toes. This is basically how T. […]

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Cassiopeia A, or Cas A for short, is one of the most well studied supernova remnants in our galaxy. But it still holds major surprises.  […]

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Yabbies, mudbugs, crayfish, crawdads, call them what you will, but one-third of the world’s crayfish species are facing extinction according to a recent report by […]

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A bird’s nest is a small bowl-shaped collection of twigs and straw built on a tree branch. Right? Well…maybe. As Chris Milensky, museum specialist in […]

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Tucked in the shadow of the towering Skylab exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, there’s an inferno raging. Lucky for all of […]

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Scientists examining the stomach contents of invasive lionfish caught on the inner barrier reef of Belize have discovered that nearly half of the diet of […]

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Ever heard the joke about flying in from Mexico, and boy, are my arms tired? Try telling that to the blackpoll warbler. Researchers recently tracked […]

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Ah, that new car smell. New plane smell is nice, too. Bright and shiny and fresh is good, right? Sure, unless it is a very […]

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Cobia, a promising fish for aquaculture, lives throughout the world’s oceans except in the Central and Eastern Pacific. In August 2015, a large number of […]

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Seven fossil teeth exposed by the Panama Canal expansion project are the first evidence of a monkey on the North American continent before the Isthmus […]

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Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise…and you know the rest, probably even if you’re not a huge fan of […]

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In 1935, 101 cane toads from Hawaii were set loose in Australia to help control beetles that were decimating the Australian sugar crop. But instead […]

The post Discovery: Australia’s invasive cane toads modify their bodies to conquer new territory faster appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

In 1969, 60 to 100 peacock bass imported from Buga, Colombia, were introduced into a pond in Panama for sport fishing. Several individuals escaped. By […]

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Fat, toxic and nocturnal, cane toads (Rhinella marina) are abundant today in Hawaii, even though they are South American natives. Released on the Hawaiian Islands […]

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Washington, D.C. is a city of symbols. The rites, rituals, and places that define Washington capture the aspirations of our nation and its citizens. Just […]

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The next time you swat a fly ponder this: inside its belly is the DNA of whatever it ate before landing on your picnic dinner—roadkill, […]

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Plastic debris floating in the ocean has become a powerful new passport to far-away destinations for a wide variety of invasive species, according to new […]

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According to a new survey of residents living near two major national parks in Panama, jaguars deserve increased protection. Nature and wildlife are considered national […]

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