The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies is hosting “Climate Change,” a three-day, free, education online conference Tuesday, Sept. 29 through Thursday, Oct. 1. This […]

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The giant squid was collected during a 60-day scientific study in which NOAA scientists were studying the availability and diversity of sperm whale prey. The squid was caught in a trawl net pulled behind a research vessel at a depth of more than 1,500 feet.

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Determining the locations of future highways and roads in countries with tropical rainforests will be the greatest single factor in influencing future forest loss, fragmentation and degradation. In broad terms, roads can be thought of as the enemies of rainforests. By spreading people out across the forest, roads inherently promote rapid and widespread deforestation.

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The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has opened a new Public Observatory that contains a 16-inch, 3,000-pound Boller and Chivens telescope, on loan from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Through this powerful telescope, museum visitors can now observe the sun (with a special filter), the moon and the brighter stars and planets, such as Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, during daylight hours. Funding for the project was provided by the National Science Foundation.

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Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo have taken blood samples from thousands of birds and mosquitoes in an effort to track the progress of the West Nile Virus in the eastern United States. Come along in this video as Smithsonian scientists net birds living in downtown Washington, D.C., extract small amounts of blood, and then release them back into the "wild."

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A major new exhibition hall dedicated to the discovery and understanding of human origins will open next year at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History: The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins

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The National Zoo has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish a captive population of the Virginia big-eared bat at the National Zoo’s Conservation & Research Center near Front Royal, Va. Only 15,000 Virginia big-eared bats remain living in caves in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina, and these are threatened by the white-nose syndrome.

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Invasive species, contaminants, excessive nutrient's and sediment are just some of the many factors threatening sensitive wetlands and seagrass beds.

The post Smithsonian to lead study on degradation of nearshore coastal habitats of the Chesapeake appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Dennis W. Kelly has been named director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., effective Feb. 15, 2010.

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Timing was critical because female giant pandas ovulate only once a year. A short period of two to three days around ovulation is the only time she is able to conceive. Gestation typically lasts from 90 to 185 days.

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A meteorite that crashed through the roof of a Lorton, Va., doctors’ office on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 was recently identified by scientists in the […]

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It’s not an exaggeration to say Hedrick was ecstatic when she peered into her inverted phase contrast microscope and found "Amphisolenia quadrispina" floating in her sample. “For 20 years I’ve been hoping to see something like this,” she says.

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A new study published in the Feb. 2 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that forests in the Eastern United […]

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White, who was a student at Columbian College from Accomack County, Va., died of pneumonia and complications from a mitral heart defect. When his coffin was unearthed, his identity was a deep mystery.

The post Remains of William Taylor White (1837-1852) donated to Smithsonian with his coffin and clothing appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Eleven bats remain in the National Zoo’s colony. The initial challenge the team faced was how to feed the animals. Virginia big-eared bats, which are a subspecies of the Townsend’s big-eared bat (Corynorhinuss townsendii), eat while flying.

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The Caddo people of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma have maintained many of their traditional ways and actively work to preserve their unique tribal cultural today. One example is the pottery of Jeri Redcorn.

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Take to the water with this behind-the-scenes video about Maryland blue crab research at the Smithsonian's Environmental Research Center. Fisheries Ecologist Eric Johnson takes viewers on a journey along the Rhode River to show how scientists tag and monitor Maryland blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

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Smithsonian scientist Tom Watters explores the universe. His most recent discovery the moon is shrinking. Watch the video to learn more about his research.

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Breitburg and her team want to determine just how much stress they cause. Over the next five years they will conduct a series of lab and field experiments that examine how diel-cycling hypoxia and the associated acidification affects the growth and disease rates in striped bass, the eastern oyster and other ecologically and economically important Chesapeake Bay species. They will also study the animals’ behavioral responses to these changes.

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The Kepler spacecraft was launched in March of 2009 to study extrasolar planets. One of its major goals is the detection of terrestrial planets in habitable zones.

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To celebrate a cool Halloween creature--bats--we teamed up with the Smithsonian’s Kristofer Helgen, curator of mammals at the National Museum of Natural History. Here, he answers three commonly asked questions about these winged mammals.

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New research by astrophysicist David Kipping has revealed that in some special cases, a star can be weighed directly. Such a star must have a planet orbiting it with a moon orbiting the planet.

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An instrument on board NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, developed by Smithsonian scientists, is giving unprecedented views of the Sun's innermost corona 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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Twenty years ago scientists at the Marine Invasions Lab of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., began studying the interactions between native grass […]

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"Physics for the 21st Century," a free, on-line course developed at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics about current research in physics is now available.

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The new agreement, effective immediately through Dec. 5, 2015, stipulates that the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park will conduct research in the areas of giant panda breeding and cub behavior.

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To honor Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer John Huchra, who passed away in October 2010, his friends and colleagues at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have created a […]

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A new species of Brazilian leaf beetle named Cachiporra extremaglobosa, (which translated means the “extremely globular billy club leaf beetle,”) was recently discovered by scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

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Last week, the Kepler team and CfA astronomers announced the discovery of a system of six transiting planets around one Sun-like star. The previous record holder for the number of transiting planets was three.

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Using modern genetic analysis, combined with traditional morphology, scientists from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Ocean Science Foundation have discovered seven […]

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Recent work has added dozens of new measurements to star-forming regions in the Milky Way. These measurements have changed the map of the Milky Way, indicating our galaxy has four spiral arms, not two, as previously thought.

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Smithsonian WILD! a new Web site from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute designed to showcase the use of motion-triggered 'camera traps' by Smithsonian researchers, has been launched at the Web address siwild.si.edu.

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On April 4 the Smithsonian and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will launch VANISHED, an 8-week online/offline environmental disaster mystery game for middle-school children, meant […]

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Evidence for a diversified sea-based economy among North American inhabitants dating from 12,200 to 11,400 years ago is emerging from three sites on California's Channel Islands.

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To help regulators and engineers develop and test such treatment systems, and ultimately enforce these standards, a team of researchers developed a statistical model to see how to count small, scarce organisms in large volumes of water accurately.

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“Our results support the idea that environmental conditions on tropical non-breeding areas can influence the departure time for spring migration,” said Colin Studds, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Migratory Bird Center and lead author of the study.

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The April 5 exhibits, “In the Mummy’s Tomb,” “Making a Mummy” and “What’s in a Face,” focus on Egyptian burial rites.

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The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has been selected by the National Science Foundation as the recipient of a 12-meter (39-foot) radio antenna designed for submillimeter-wavelength astronomy. The ALMA Vertex Prototype Antenna was one of three antennas built as prototypes for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, a 66-dish radio observatory currently being constructed in Chile.

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Sita (SEE-ta), a 2-year-old female clouded leopard at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., gave birth to these two cubs on Monday, […]

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In addition to the species name, Leafsnap provides high-resolution photographs and information about the tree's flowers, fruit, seeds and bark—giving the user a comprehensive understanding of the specie

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The most widely used methods for calculating species extinction rates are "fundamentally flawed" and overestimate extinction rates by as much as 160 percent, life scientists report May 19 in the journal Nature.

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Researchers at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and partnering organizations will build a frozen repository of Great Barrier Reef coral sperm and embryonic cells. Genetic banks composed of frozen biomaterials hold strong promise for basic and applied research and conservation of species and genetic variation.

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Smithsonian scientists have discovered hundreds of new species around the world. To mark this year’s International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22, here is a […]

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Five cheetah cubs were born May 28 to 6-year-old Amani at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. Amani is a dedicated mother according to keepers, who have observed her nursing and grooming the cubs.

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A scientist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute uses a pick to dislodge the fossil skull of an extinct toothed whale from sediments on the […]

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The whole-genome analysis of two Tasmanian devils—one that died of a new contagious cancer known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD) and one healthy animal—is at the center of a new management strategy to help prevent the extinction of this species.

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Scientists and educators from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and George Mason University broke ground June 29 on a green-design conservation complex that embodies the concept of the living classroom.

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This image of lawyer Clarence S. Darrow (center) talking with group of men in Dayton, Tenn., in July 1925 is one of 10 photographs from […]

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Now, a new study of hellbenders by scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute will place these amphibians at the center of the conservation of Appalachian salamanders.

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This is the first report of this invasive species in this area, and may indicate a recent range expansion of the snakehead population.

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