Two scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have been honored with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for their innovative research and scientific leadership. It is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

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Our studies of the genetic relationships between these bees tells us that they originated in the Amazon about 22 million years ago and that they moved north into Central America before 3 million years ago.

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In a new study researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics used DNA from coyote scat (feces) to trace the route that led some of the animals to colonize in Northern Virginia.

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Smithsonian Anthropologist Bruce Smith shares the origins of some favorite Thanksgiving foods.

The post Smithsonian Anthropologist Bruce Smith talks turkey…squash, potatoes and corn appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Astronomers are confident the Cygnus X-1 system contains a black hole, and with these latest studies they have remarkably precise values of its mass, spin, and distance from Earth.

The post New details on birth of black hole Cygnus X-1 revealed by Chandra X-ray Observatory appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Suzan Murray, chief veterinary medical officer at the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, recently returned from Hanoi, where she led a team of scientists training pathologists from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to better sample, recognize and detect wildlife diseases in hopes of preventing emerging pandemic disease.

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New research on tiny spiders has revealed that their brains are so large that they fill their body cavities and overflow into their legs, say a team of scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

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In 2011, scholars from three institutions—National Museum of American History Curators Carlene Stephens and Shari Stout, Library of Congress Digital Conversion Specialist Peter Alyea and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell—came together in a newly designed preservation laboratory at the Library of Congress to recover sound from those recordings made more than 100 years ago.

The post Digital technology allows Alexander Graham Bell’s 1880s disc recordings to be played again appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Today, Marra is helping launch an Animal Mortality Monitoring Program in Africa intended to serve as an early warning system for emerging infectious diseases that can pass from animal populations into the human population.

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The fastest wind ever discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole has been observed by a team of astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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A new study provides a possible explanation for the mysterious flares. The suggestion is that there is a cloud around Sgr A* containing hundreds of trillions of asteroids and comets, which have been stripped from their parent stars.

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Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and University of Costa Rica studying why spiders do not stick to their own sticky webs have discovered that a spider's legs are protected by a covering of branching hairs and by a non-stick chemical coating. Their results are published online in the journal, Naturwissenschaften.

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A newly described species of toothed whale that lived some 3-4 million years ago during the Pliocene, is causing scientists to reconsider what is known about its living cold-water relatives: narwhals and belugas.

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This composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies, and hot […]

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The same device used to detect early warning signs of heart disease in humans will now benefit two male sub-adult gorillas at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo.

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The crustaceans are much more effective when they fight together than when they fight alone, a process McKeon calls the Multiple Defender Effect. “It is a clear example of synergy, and one that underscores the importance of biodiversity in the ocean.”

The post Preventing home invasions means fighting side-by-side for coral-dwelling crabs and shrimp appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

16,000 square kilometers of giant panda habitat will likely be lost by the year 2080

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Smithsonian astronomers have joined their colleagues from other observatories in a daring new venture: to photograph the giant black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.

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Two new species of blind snakes found living on small, low-lying atolls in the Caroline Islands, are an unexpected discovery that is quite difficult to explain,

The post Not on a plane, but how did blind snakes ever get to the Pacific’s Caroline Islands? appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The only explanation for such symmetry across these vast distances, explains Smithsonian anthropologist Dennis Stanford, is that the method of creating the points was handed down from person to person.

The post 3-D imaging adds remarkable new understanding of North America’s mysterious Clovis people appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Recently, after examining hundreds of photos taken by camera traps set-up to monitor clouded leopards in the park, three Smithsonian researchers say Khao Yai also is quite popular with a different kind of visitor: poachers.

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Scientists from the Smithsonian and University of British Columbia have discovered a sensory organ in the chin of rorqual whales that communicates to the brain. It orchestrates the dramatic adjustments needed in jaw position and throat-pouch expansion to make lunge feeding successful

The post Scientists discover sensory organ in baleen whales that choreographs movement of their massive jaws and throat-pouch appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A new video to help aviators identify the cause of bird strikes has been posted on YouTube by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services Airport Wildlife Hazard Program and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

The post Aircraft bird-strike reports can save lives. New video shows how to report, collect and ship evidence appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The most peculiar feature of this new turtle is its extremely circular shell, about the size and shape of a big car tire.

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Mei Xiang (may-SHONG), the National Zoo’s female giant panda, gave birth to a cub Sunday, Sept. 16, at 10:46 p.m.

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The Smithsonian’s National Zoo community mourns the loss of the giant panda cub born Sunday, Sept. 16.

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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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Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists and collaborators have found that the island scrub-jay’s population on Santa Cruz Island—its only habitat—is significantly smaller than previously believed […]

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Two Andean bear cubs born at the National Zoo in the early morning of Dec. 13 to 6-year-old Billie Jean.

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Frontispiece illustration of “flies” from the 1882 book American game fishes, their habits, habitat, and peculiarities; how, when, and where to angle for them, featuring […]

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Clearly visible connecting the dark-purple cephalopods was the white “terminal organ” or penis of the male, extending out through the male’s funnel.

The post First detailed sex video of deep-sea squid resolves long-standing mysteries as to how these animals mate appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This image of a wild giant panda was taken by a trail camera in a remote forest in central China. As few as 1,600 giant […]

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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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Forget the deep forest, “today the highest densities of deer in the state of Virginia are in suburbia,” says William McShea, ecologist and research scientist at the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

The post Browsing suburbia: Virginia’s parceled-up farms and forests are ideal refuge for white-tailed deer appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This image shows farmer Roy Bardole seated at the controls of his combine in a cornfield on a farm in Iowa. A GPS guidance system […]

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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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The inventions of Alexander Graham Bell—most famously the telephone but also methods of recording sound—have allowed people to hear each other’s voices for more than […]

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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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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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Fond of a range of marine and freshwater vegetation such as turtle grass and eelgrass, the Florida manatee spends most of its waking hours grazing […]

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As economic expansion and development fragments the forest landscape of central India, the species that rely on that habitat—including endangered tigers and leopards—face dwindling populations […]

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For the first time since exoplanets, or planets around stars other than the sun, were discovered almost 20 years ago, X-ray observations have detected 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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Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics have confirmed that the giant panda cub born at the National Zoo […]

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Astronomers are constantly on the hunt for ever-colder star-like bodies, and two years ago a new class of objects was discovered by researchers using NASA’s […]

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The giant panda cub born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo Aug. 23 received her first veterinary exam late yesterday afternoon and was given a clean […]

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The Mortlock Islands flying fox, a large, breadfruit-eating bat native to a few remote and tiny Pacific islands, has long been regarded as one of […]

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It is one of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom but what its owner seeks is no pungent bed of roses, in fact […]

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“He is a gay Lothario and will covet and steal his neighbor’s wives and daughters; and if his neighbors protest he will fight to the […]

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