In 1999, Maureen Dowd devoted her existence to ruining Monica Lewinksy's life. She was 47 then. She had just been dumped by Michael Douglas for Catherine Zeta-Jones. Dowd is 72 now.

Our group sat in a circle at a 15th century Inca site. We each held three coca leaves glued together with llama fat and concentrated on protection, prosperity and a balanced life. A young shaman named Lucas alternately prayed in Quechua and explained things to us in Spanish, both translated by our guide Wilfredo Huillca. The shaman added quinoa, corn, confetti and other symbolic items to Pachamama, the Andean earth mother. Fortunately, modern rituals substitute animal cookies for alpaca sacrifices.[...]

In the field, digital technology saves immense amounts of time and limits fruitless digging. In the classroom, VR recreations help bring the past to life.

Modern humans and Neanderthals interacted over a 200,000-year period, says geneticist Joshua Akey.

These are just a few of the geoglyphs in southern Peru, known as the Nazca lines, thought to be at least 2,000 years old.

From the ancient origins of zero to the paradox of motion, NOVA’s teaching resources immerse students in the wonder of math.

From Petra to the Amazon to ancient China, NOVA has you covered.

Ancient Maya had a rich history and complex culture that is only now being fully appreciated.

Intrinsically disordered protein domains often have multiple binding partners. It is plausible that the strength of pairing with specific partners evolves from an initial low affinity to a higher affinity. However, little is known about the molecular changes in the binding mechanism that would facilitate such a transition. We previously showed that the interaction between two intrinsically disordered domains, NCBD and CID, likely emerged in an ancestral deuterostome organism as a low-affinity interaction that subsequently evolved into a higher-affinity interaction before the radiation of modern vertebrate groups. Here we map native contacts in the transition states of the low-affinity ancestral and high-affinity human NCBD/CID interactions. We show that the coupled binding and folding mechanism is overall similar but with a higher degree of native hydrophobic contact formation in the transition state of the ancestral complex and more heterogeneous transient interactions, including electrostatic pairings, and an increased disorder for the human complex. Adaptation to new binding partners may be facilitated by this ability to exploit multiple alternative transient interactions while retaining the overall binding and folding pathway.

Written by the former chief historian of NASA, the book examines the evolution of our cosmic understanding—from early civilizations to the present day

Archaeologists in Saqqara make a dazzling discovery: a late period Egyptian coffin with a gilded mask. Now, to bring it to the surface, they use a pulley known as a "tambora," a technology that dates back to Ancient Egypt

A series of remarkably well-preserved human remains in a remote cave in Scotland has archaeologists grappling with a staggering question: were these bodies brought here during the Bronze Age to be mummified?

Ancient Greeks were endlessly fascinated by Egyptian culture, and especially the Egyptian Gods whom they saw as versions of their own. So much so that they ended up adopting Egyptian culture and customs as their own.

Archaeologists uncover an exciting find: a tomb that predates most of the others in the area by around 2,000 years. Inside, is a series of perfectly preserved inscriptions on a panel known as a "false door’."

Reclining and dining in the ancient classical world

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

A short movie explores 3D scans of some of the mid-Cretaceous lizards found trapped in amber. (courtesy of Daza et al., Science Advances)

Archaelogists uncover what appear to be cat mummies–a common practice around the Ptolemaic period. But an x-ray scan reveals a surprise: the mummies are just bandages. So what happened?

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.

Teeth are key to identifying elderly remains

This stripy toe sock appears to have warmed the foot of a tot in the late antiquity period

New DNA analysis adds to growing research indicating the famous Pacific island did not collapse from overuse of resources before the arrival of Europeans

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

Experts are carefully uncovering traces of the original paint and fragments of gold leaf that once adorned the 2,000-year-old Temple of Edfu

As hundreds of motorists take to the desert, their tracks damage the massive geoglyphs made by Indigenous groups in northern Chile

Built by the Moche people in the seventh century, the stunningly painted space shows signs of heavy use, including an eroded throne and traces of human hair

The long-term loan is the latest agreement Yemen has made with a museum in order to protect its cultural heritage amid ongoing civil war

At the site known as Oued Beht, archaeologists uncovered evidence of a large farming settlement where people used advanced techniques

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

Colossal Biosciences reports it extracted DNA and RNA from the Tasmanian tiger specimen, a key step forward in its effort to create a modern proxy of the extinct species. Other scientists are calling for data to back up the claim

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

The deep penetrations suggest that the feline was pressing its claws into the clay, a behavior sometimes known as "making biscuits"

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

The 4,500-year-old pyramids of Giza are the backdrop for "Forever Is Now," which features sculptures, installations and immersive artworks that explore the relationship between the past and present

Texts like the "Sortes Astrampsychi" promised insights on clients' love lives, career prospects, financial woes and families

China’s Zhurong rover has discovered formations on Mars that could signal the remnants of a once vast ocean. Landing in the Utopia Planitia region, the rover identified formations commonly linked to past water presence, supporting the theory that Mars was once home to a massive body of water. While the findings do not offer definitive proof, they bring scientists closer to understanding Mars' history and its potential to support life.

A newly discovered rock shelter in Tajikistan’s Zeravshan Valley shows evidence of repeated human occupation over 130,000 years. The site contains artifacts from Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo sapiens, suggesting it may have been a migration hub. Archaeologists believe the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) in Central Asia served as a migration route, enabling possible interactions between these species.

Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, and Pedro Pascal face off in Ridley Scott's "Gladiator II." Review.

Fossils in rocks that are 3.8 billion years old have puzzled biologists as they look nothing like modern cells, but now it seems they may be an ancient precursor life form that was unable to control its structure

Evolutionary molecular biologist Beth Shapiro on the hunt for ancient DNA and her groundbreaking de-extinction and environmental mission  

The second series of this show about Earth 66 million years ago is a joy to watch - but it inspires more than it informs. A little more science would have been nice

A 33-million-year-old layer of Earth's crust is laced with helium-3, which is normally only found in space. Now we might have an explanation for how it got there

A better picture of the hidden landscape beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica could help us understand how the ice will respond to climate change

Two strange, high-density blobs buried more than a kilometre underground may have come from the ancient world Theia, which is thought to have slammed into Earth to create the moon

Before Mesopotamian people invented writing, they used cylinder seals to press patterns into wet clay – and some of the symbols used were carried over into proto-writing

The earliest evidence of livestock with modified horns has been discovered in ancient Egypt – sheep skulls with horns that point in unnatural directions suggest humans forced them to grow that way

Data collected by the Zhurong rover and orbiting satellites suggests the existence of an ancient shoreline in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars

A Greek philosopher’s musings on pleasure, contained in ancient papyrus scrolls buried by Mount Vesuvius’s eruption 2000 years ago, have been rediscovered with the help of AI