In One School Community, Three Deaths From COVID-19
A Tallahassee, Fla., K-8 school is mourning two staff members and a former employee. All of them recently died from the virus.
A Tallahassee, Fla., K-8 school is mourning two staff members and a former employee. All of them recently died from the virus.
Legislators in New Hampshire turned down $46 million in federal charter school grants, concerned about continued costs once the money ran out.
Gov. Erik Greitens has resigned and the board doesn't have enough governor-appointed members to form a quorum. Important tasks have been piling up.
Former Missouri education Commissioner Margie Vandeven, who was fired by by the state's board of education, has been rehired.
The Winnipeg Jets claimed Kaapo Kahkonen off waivers from the Avalanche on Tuesday afternoon
The Pittsburgh Penguins traded Lars Eller to the Washington Capitals for two draft picks after a blowout loss dropped them to 6-9-2 on the season.
In Kodiak, Alaska, a school district with deep ties to the U.S. Coast Guard has been walloped by the government shutdown with hundreds of families going without paychecks. And news of a deal to temporarily reopen the government was doing little to allay the community's anxieties.
Enrollment snags, head-count problems, and more home schooling could end up costing districts millions in funding based on the annual tally of how many students actually show up.
While Tuesday is exciting because college hoops fans get to take in the Champions Classic, the College Football Playoff results after this past week were released after the first of two basketball games on ESPN. Ohio State football, as expected, stay
A union lobbyist who worked just one day as a substitute teacher is entitled to a pension worth potentially tens of thousands of dollars annually, the Illinois supreme court has ruled.
Harmonics are an integral part of music, speech, and vocalizations of animals. Since the rest of the auditory environment is primarily made up of nonharmonic sounds, the auditory system needs to perceptually separate the above two kinds of sounds. In mice, harmonics, generally with two-tone components (two-tone harmonic complexes, TTHCs), form an important component of vocal communication. Communication by pups during isolation from the mother and by adult males during courtship elicits typical behaviors in female mice—dams and adult courting females, respectively. Our study shows that the processing of TTHC is specialized in mice providing neural basis for perceptual differences between tones and TTHCs and also nonharmonic sounds. Investigation of responses in the primary auditory cortex (Au1) from in vivo extracellular recordings and two-photon Ca2+ imaging of excitatory and inhibitory neurons to TTHCs exhibit enhancement, suppression, or no-effect with respect to tones. Irrespective of neuron type, harmonic enhancement is maximized, and suppression is minimized when the fundamental frequencies (F0) match the neuron's best fundamental frequency (BF0). Sex-specific processing of TTHC is evident from differences in the distributions of neurons’ best frequency (BF) and best fundamental frequency (BF0) in single units, differences in harmonic suppressed cases re-BF0, independent of neuron types, and from pairwise noise correlations among excitatory and parvalbumin inhibitory interneurons. Furthermore, TTHCs elicit a higher response compared with two-tone nonharmonics in females, but not in males. Thus, our study shows specialized neural processing of TTHCs over tones and nonharmonics, highlighting local network specialization among different neuronal types.
The early polygraph machine was considered the most scientific way to detect deception—but that was a myth
The Smithsonian Design Triennial presents 25 commissions that explore the physical and conceptual ideas of shelter and refuge
A Smithsonian curator reflects back on the artistic legend, a "Renaissance man" with 28 Grammys to his name, who died Sunday at 91 years old
Although we have made progress towards building a better world, too many people have been left behind. People who are unable to benefit from human development, innovation or economic growth.
In [...]
FAO has recently released Fish: Know it, cook it, eat it, a genre-defying cookbook that infuses international recipes with insights into the global fish trade; blends scientific facts and cultural history; melds nutritional information [...]
Ruth Glacier’s Great Gorge is quite simply one of the continent’s most awe-inspiring sights. At 2,000 feet and over ten miles long, it’s one of the deepest canyons in the world.
A crow named Icarus uses a short tool to extract a long tool, which he then uses to fish out a piece of meat.
So what exactly factors into how we end up being right or left-handed? In this one-minute video, Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze breaks down the science of being a southpaw.
A mata mata turtle can go 15 minutes between breaths--it's another one of the Smithsonian's National Zoo's many unique animals. Join the Zoo's experts for an inside look at some of its 2,000 rare and extraordinary creatures.
Historically feared by humans, brown bears were once aggressively hunted in the contiguous U.S. Because of this, 95% of these majestic creatures live in Alaska.
Fifteen-year-old Esteban, a clarinetist from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, uses music to survive his chaotic environment Reporting by Dominic Bracco II / Prime and Susana Seijas
Aziz Ansari | Smithsonian Magazine’s 2016 American Ingenuity Award Winner for Performing Arts The actor, comedian and author is being honored for his starring role as Dev Shah in “Master of None,” the Netflix series that he created with Alan Yang. Like the character he plays, Ansari is the son of Indian immigrant parents, and his smart, surprising take on life, love, technology and cultural identity in the United States has helped make the show “the year’s best comedy straight out of the gate,” as the New York Times put it. Among Ansari’s other accomplishments are his unforgettable portrayal of the loopy Tom Haverford on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” his best-selling book about dating in the internet age, Modern Romance (co-authored with Eric Klinenberg), and his blockbuster stand-up act that sold out Madison Square Garden. Read more about Ansari’s work: http://smithmag.co/jvdAaL | #IngenuityAwards And more about the American Ingenuity Awards: http://smithmag.co/77xPqy
Smithsonian magazine commissioned Drew Gardner for a project that connects Black Americans today to their lost ancestry. Read about Gardner’s project and process, as well as more details about the subjects of this incredible series here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/descendants-black-civil-war-heroes-wear-heritage-pride-180983397/ Video produced by Sierra Theobald. Special thanks to Drew Gardner Additional credits: Emma MacBeath, WikiTree US Black Heritage project; Ottawa Goodman, research and coordinator; Sam Dole, Penumbra Foundation; Elizabeth Zuck, set design; Calvin Osbourne, props and costume; Angela Huff, hair and make up; Diego Huerta, Lexia Krebs, behind-the-scenes filming; background prints by Fujifilm USA
National Portrait Gallery historian David C. Ward discusses images of Abraham Lincoln that document his life in the White House (Anika Gupta, Beth Py-Lieberman, Jesse Rhodes and Ryan Reed). Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/life-of-lincoln.html
This unmanned aerial vehicle can be launched from, and land on, a moving ship thanks to new technology Narrated by T.A. Frail Script by Brendan McCabe Video courtesy of Insitu
Have you ever wondered why these birds strike this peculiar pose? Find out in this one-minute video, where Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze walks us through the reasons behind the majestic bird’s one-legged stance.
Have you ever wondered why Yellowstone is full of hot springs, bubbling mudpots and geysers like Old Faithful? In this one-minute video, Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze explains the supervolcano that lies beneath this national park and answers the life-or-death question: Will it erupt in a fiery inferno anytime soon?
Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys blend bluegrass and klezmer during a performance in New York City
Two British artists travel to Pittsburgh for their second installment of their "Mysterious Letters" art project.
The Orkneys, an archipelago of islands off the northern coast of Scotland, are home to some of the greatest neolithic treasures in western Europe: from the settlement of Skara Brae to the Ness of Brodgar.
Using archived ethnographic research, Linda Yamane is bringing back the language of the Ohlone, a Northern California tribe. Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/american-indian-heritage.html
Cardiac MRI of an animal that has undergone photosynthetic therapy. CREDIT: Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Lonnie Bunch, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, discusses the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, one of America's greatest monuments.
The vertical sign stretched across three stories of the Manhattan hotel, which once welcomed the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin