Rick Wunderman of the Global Volcanism Program at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History talks about the current volcanic activity in Iceland.

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The post After a bulldozer unearthed five statues in Ain Ghazal, Jordan in 1984, Smithsonian conservators carefully restore these otherworldy figures appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post Invasive Caribbean lionfish under scrutiny by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute intern appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Paleoecologist Conrad Labandeira travels to the Karoo Basin of South Africa to find leaf fossils from the Permian-Triassic boundary, the time of the Earth's largest mass extinction. What can bug bites on leaves tell us about our own uncertain times?

The post Video: On the hunt for 251-million-year-old insects in South Africa appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

As enjoyable as scientific work can be, says entomologist Dave Roubik, its greatest satisfactions are often long delayed. He gives the best example from his career: a seventeen-year study that finally helped to change our understanding of the notorious "killer bees."

The post Long-term killer bee study in tropics yields unexpected discovery: invasive killer bees are good for the native bees appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

In 2010 Dr. Rachel Collin visited her colleagues at the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia to collect some very special snails for her research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama.

The post Smithsonian biologist Rachel Collin visits the Universidad Austral de Chile to collect special snails for her research. appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

On June 7 the Sun unleashed an spectacular solar flare with a substantial coronal mass ejection. A large cloud of plasma mushroomed up, and while some parts fell back into the Sun, most rushed off into space. The first two segments of this video are seen through the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly aboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The AIA was developed by Smithsonian scientists.

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The post How do we know if dinosaurs cared for their young? Smithsonian curator Matthew Carrano reveals the fossil evidence. appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post The Space Shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a 747 jet, is delivered to the Smithsonian on April 17, 2012 appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Clip from silent edited film "Bryson Jones Travelogue: Lure of the West" (ca. 1927) shows Mount Rushmore National Memorial under construction, including blasting off cliff face, scaffolding, men working, and the completed monument.

The post Construction of Mount Rushmore National Memorial from the Smithsonian’s Human Studies Film Archives appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post What will invasive round goby fish do to Great Lakes streams? Join SERC post doc Matt Kornis and find out. appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post Replicating whale fossils found in Chile appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Using an innovative new camera on board a sounding rocket, an international team of scientists have captured the sharpest images yet of the Sun’s outer […]

The post Camera captures sun’s atmospheric sparkles appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A robotic male frog attracts a female tungara frog in a sound chamber at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Gamboa, Panama, in the summer 2013. […]

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Ted Schultz, research entomologist at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, describes how ants use their incredible sense of smell along with their ability to […]

The post Ant Communication: Do Ants Use Smell to Talk? appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Identifying and understanding the migratory connectivity of birds throughout an entire annual cycle (not just the times of year they are in your back yard), […]

The post Video: Protecting songbirds by Better Understanding their Migratory connectivity appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Jessica Lunt, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Fla., shows how her oyster sampling fieldwork looks at what lives on these […]

The post Florida Oyster Reef Communities appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Food is an important element of Basque life. In the Ostatua Kitchen tent at the Smithsonian’s 2016 Folklife Festival, chefs from two Basque culinary schools […]

The post Basque Country & Cheese appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Gwen Ifill sat down with Lonnie Bunch, the director of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, which is due to open this […]

The post PBS Newshour interview with Lonnie Bunch, African American Museum director appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Judy Garland’s iconic ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” are one of the most popular attractions at the National Museum of American History. But […]

The post Crowdfunding campaign to restore Ruby Slippers surpasses mark appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

National Air and Space Museum Curator John Anderson describes major flight innovations made possible by the Full Scale Tunnel, built in 1931 at the National […]

The post Giant wind tunnel sped aircraft innovation appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Steven Young Lee blends Eastern and Western traditions with anachronistic, often playful imagery and striking pattern in his porcelain works. His process allows the clay […]

The post Steven Young Lee-Visions and Revisions: Renwick Invitational 2016 appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Moon and its surface provide insight into the early history of the solar system in this video from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space […]

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Ollie the bobcat, who escaped from her enclosure at the Smithsonian National Zoo, was found two days after her disappearance roaming near the zoo’s bird […]

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“Dunkirk” director, Christopher Nolan, talks to National Air and Space Museu curator, Jeremy Kinney, about one of the movie’s stars, the Spitfire. The movie is based […]

The post “Dunkirk” director talks about the Spitfire appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post Afghan Refugee inspires in solo flight around world appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

When you look at fast growing private companies in the U.S., you need look no further than a small city next to Los Angeles International Airport.

Steve Julian: Business analyst Mark Lacter, tell us about the company that's based in El Segundo.

Mark Lacter: It's called Fuhu, Steve - that might ring a bell with some parents because Fuhu is the maker of the Nabi.  The Nabi is an Android tablet for kids, and it's a very cool device that mimics a lot of the capabilities of regular tablet, including the ability to play games and get onto the Web (with controls that parents are able to set up).  Last year, they sold 1.2 million Nabis, and that helped push the El Segundo company to the very top of Inc. magazine's list of fastest-growing businesses.  That's number one on a list of 5,000 companies, with a three-year growth rate of 42,148 percent.  Or, to put it another way, company revenue was $279,000 in 2009; it was almost $118 million in 2012.  Now, by the standards of an Apple or a Samsung, those are still not huge numbers -

Julian: - and maybe that explains why there's been relatively little media coverage of this company.

Lacter: It might also explain why local tech companies in general get short shrift.  Many of them are quite successful, but they're often on the small side, and they're also privately held as opposed to publicly-traded on a stock exchange.  That's one big difference from Silicon Valley, which has so many huge public corporations: Apple, Intel, HP.  L.A. County has only six Fortune 500 companies, and not a single one devoted solely to technology.  In Silicon Valley, there are 22 in the Fortune 500.

Julian: And yet, the L.A. economy has more than held its own without those large corporations.

Lacter: Matter of fact, the accounting firm PriceWaterhouse studied more than two dozen cities around the world to determine where it was easiest to do business (that's based on factors like access to labor), and what they found - somewhat surprisingly - was that L.A. ranked ahead of both San Francisco and Tokyo.  And, you can see evidence of that with the increase in venture capital money coming into all parts of L.A.  Now, it's important to keep an eye on all these up-and-coming companies because these businesses are helping generate higher-wage jobs.  And, for an area with a still-high unemployment rate - still over 10 percent in some places -- that's a big deal.

Julian: Speaking of companies, does anyone want to buy the L.A. Times?

Lacter: The answer is yes - most recently, the controlling owner of the Dodgers, Mark Walter, said he was interested in both the Times and the Chicago Tribune (though there's no way to know whether there are actual discussions taking place).  You also have several local groups, including one that involves billionaire Eli Broad, that have been interested to one degree or another.  But what was thought would be a fairly straightforward auction process has turned enormously complicated.  It's now to the point where the Tribune board has decided spin off the papers into a separate business, and that process will take until next year to complete and could preclude any sales for quite some time after that.

Julian: So, it's Limbo-land for the Times for who knows how long.

Lacter: Steve, it's not that Tribune really wants to keep the newspapers.  But, selling them off presents huge tax implications.  Also, there are assets that the potential buyers thought would be part of the package - assets that include real estate - that Tribune wants to hold onto.  So, what's left to sell are just the newspapers themselves, and frankly, they're among the least valuable properties.

Julian: Now, last week came word that the billionaire Koch brothers, who were believed to be interested in the Tribune properties, decided not to pursue a deal...

Lacter: ...that's right, they don't consider the Times or the other dailies to be economically viable.  You might recall a bit of an outcry over the prospect of having the Kochs, who are staunch conservatives, becoming the owners of these papers.  So, they're out of the picture.  But for the L.A. Times, it's really the worst of all worlds: no new owner and no vision for recasting the paper, at least in the near term.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Now, for the first time ever, researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute are able to track the routes of these creatures by gluing tiny transmitters to the backs of individual bees.

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Yellow lady’s slippers, watercolor by Kathleen Garness, from the National Museum of Natural History exhibit “Losing Paradise? Endangered Plants Here and Around the World,” opening […]

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The Center for Tropical Forest Science, which manages a global network of temperate and tropical forest research plots, will utilize the funds to conduct workshops in the Americas and Asia to investigate how taxonomic, functional, and genetic dimensions of diversity affect tree communities and their resilience to global change.

The post Center for Tropical Forest Science receives grant to study diversity of tree communities appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

For the first time researchers from the Smithsonian, South Dakota State University and the University of Nebraska described the immature stages of the switchgrass moth, first collected in Denver in 1910.

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The discovery of starch granules in the calculus on Neandertal teeth provides direct evidence that they made sophisticated, thoughtful food choices and ate more nutrient-rich plants, for example date palms, legumes and grains such as barley.

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The post Community ecologist Sunshine Van Bael explains her work in Panama with leafcutting ants appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post Introducing Leafsnap, an electronic field guide to North America trees run on a mobile phone app appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Fulcaldea stuessyi is a newly discovered member of the Barnadesioideae, a subfamily of the Compositae, or sunflower family of flowering plants. It was found in northeastern […]

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Older forests with just the right fungi may be secret to saving these vulnerable plants.

The post Fungi-filled forests are critical if endangered orchids are to thrive appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A new genetic analysis has revealed that many Amazon tree species are likely to survive human-caused climate warming in the coming century, contrary to previous findings that temperature increases would cause them to die out.

The post Warming climate unlikely to cause near-term extinction of ancient Amazon trees, study says appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Non-native plant species pose a significant threat to the natural ecosystems of the United States. Many of these invasive plants are escapees from gardens and […]

The post Escape of the invasives: Top six invasive plant species in the United States appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.