This circa 1910 Yup'ik mask from Good News Bay, Alaska--made of driftwood, baleen, feathers, paint and cotton twine--is part of "Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian," an exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian, opening Saturday, Oct. 23.

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The Scarlet Knight, as the glider is called, made nautical history as the first submersible glider to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean.

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For two weeks the team recorded and documented the community’s elders, families and llamas along a pilgrimage of remembrance in Pisaq, Peru.

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A. sediba was discovered in 2008 in the Malapa Cave at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site located outside Johannesburg.

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Discovery, the longest-serving orbiter in the space shuttle fleet, will be accepted into the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum collection. The space shuttle has been the icon for American spaceflight for a generation, and Discovery has flown every type of mission during its 27-year career.

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A study published in the journal Global Change Biology finds that while fertilizer has been the dominant source of nitrogen pollution in Caribbean coastal ecosystems for the past 50 years, such pollution is on the decline, thanks in part to the introduction of more advanced, environmentally responsible agricultural practices during the last decade.

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The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian is hosting a series of public satellite broadcasts featuring a multinational team of researchers, engineers and archaeologists who are working in Peru on the origins and engineering of the Inka Road of South America.

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The fossil represents the youngest nodosaur ever discovered, and the only known specimen of a new genus and species of dinosaur that lived approximately 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Era.

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The National Museum of Natural History will construct a new dinosaur exhibition hall made possible by a $35 million donation from David H. Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries and philanthropist.

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Rope, golf balls, sweat pants, bottles and aluminum cans are a few of the discarded items biologist Matt Klope says he has found inside the […]

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Plato, the Greek philosopher and mathematician, described music and astronomy as “sister sciences” that both encompass harmonious motions, whether of instrument strings or celestial objects. […]

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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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To download the free e-book Best of Both Worlds: Museums, Libraries, and Archives in a Digital Age, by G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian, […]

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Santa Claus and his sleigh full of gifts has been upstaged early this holiday season by news of autonomous drones possibly delivering packages to your […]

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The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has acquired a large collection from the Sir Arthur C. Clarke Trust. The collection consists of 87 cubic […]

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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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  In the store-rooms of the National Museum of American History curators recently discovered a small microscope made around 1750 by John Cuff (1708-1772), a […]

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Who: Wheelerodemus muhlenbergiae What: A newly discovered species of plant eating bug belonging to the family Blissidae, members of which are found worldwide. W. muhlenbergiae […]

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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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For the first time in its history the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art opened an exhibition on the continent of Africa. “Chief S.O. Alonge: […]

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The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History recently acquired four remarkable gemstones and jewelry pieces for the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the museum.

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More than 500 carats of rough diamonds were recently donated to the Department of Mineral Sciences of the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum by Jewlers Mutual Insurance Co. of Neenah, Wis.

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The National Museum of Natural History will permanently display the Dom Pedro Aquamarine, which is the largest single piece of cut-gem aquamarine in the world, beginning Dec. 6.

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Admired from afar by the ancient Romans, the moon was once deified as a goddess, Luna. Today, two-thousand years later, geologists who scrutinize the moon’s […]

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Monday, Aug. 21 was an unusual day across North America. Early in the morning, families, colleagues and tourists were searching for special solar glasses with […]

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John Ososky, preparator in the Osteology Laboratory at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., explains how skeletons of animal specimens are prepared for exhibtion and for study—with the assistance of nearly 1 million flesh-eating beetles.

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Chip Clark came to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 1973, with a degree in biology and an interest in photography. He has been a photographer on staff ever since, documenting thousands of specimens and exhibits, and accompanying scientists on research trips around the world. He died June 12, 2010. This video interview was made by Lauren Dare, an intern with the Smithsonian Institution Archives, on May 27, 2010, as part of an oral history project for the National Museum of Natural History's Centennial (2010-2011). To learn more about Chip Clark, see his page on the Centennial website-- www.mnh.si.edu/onehundredyears/profiles/Chip_Clark.html -- where you also can find more videos and stories about the people and the work of the NMNH.

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The post Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum, discusses a new Smithsonian Website for sharing camera-trap images of wild animals appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This new PBS Newshour video takes a look at a new exhibit at the Air and Space Museum celebrating NASA's space art program.

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Digging up early human and animal remains from the field in Africa, performing examination and publishing research about her findings, then enticing and educating the public about the implications are all in a week's work for Briana Pobiner.

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Tom Crouch, Senior curator in the National Air and Space Museum's Aeronautics Division, discusses Thaddeus Lowe and the birth of American aerial reconnaissance during the Civil War. This presentation was recorded on May 11, 2011 on the National Mall.

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Kari Bruwelheide, forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, discusses how she came to work at the museum, the power of human remains and the information that bones can contain. She and her colleagues continue to discover new ways to interpret evidence from bones and burials.

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Meet the Smithsonian's Matthew Carrano, curator of Dinosauria at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Matthew studies all things dinosaur, but focuses on the evolutionary history of predatory (meat eating) dinosaurs.

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Members of the Human Origins Program team at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History describe why they love their job.

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The post Learn about the ash that comes from volcanoes with Dr. Liz Cottrell, a geologist from the National Museum of Natural History appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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Don your clean room clothing and take a glimpse into the Smithsonian's new Antarctic meteorite storage facility in Suitland, Md., where all of the Antarctic meteorites in the national collection are kept under tight security and tight airlocks.

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One of Italy’s greatest treasures, Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex on the Flight of Birds, will be exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum from […]

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How do you train a wild animal to come back to you after you have set it free? If it is a fringe-lipped bat, Trachops […]

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Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the only museum in the U.S. devoted exclusively to design, reopens after a 3-year makeover with 60 percent more exhibition […]

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The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History released a new mobile app “Skin and Bones” Jan. 13. The free app is available for download in […]

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Get a look behind the scenes as we installed “Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-vehicular Activity,” a new exhibition on view at the Museum […]

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NASA’s Kepler mission is responsible for history’s first detection of Earth-sized planets orbiting other suns in their temperate “habitable zones.” The team in charge of […]

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Sponsored by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and created by filmmaker Frank Chi, this short film features letters that young Japanese Americans in World […]

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This video highlights the mass-digitization of the National Postal Museum’s Sidney N. Shure Collection of Israeli and Palestinian stamps and covers.

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The National Air and Space Museum will reopen the “Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall” July 1 in conjunction with the museum’s 40th anniversary. The two-year […]

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Last October Smithsonian Folkways released “The Brothers Nazaroff: The Happy Prince,” a boisterous, high-energy tribute to cult Yiddish troubadour Nathan “Prince” Nazaroff, who recorded the […]

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