Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer from Burkina Faso, has become a pioneer in the fight against desertification – succeeding where many international agencies have failed

We asked visitors to the National Mall what they thought should be in the Smithsonian collections in 2050. The consensus? Lady Gaga and much more...

http://j.mp/196BLpQ From her salon in Maryland, Camille Reed sees more black women embracing natural hair

Have you ever wondered if the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a catastrophe waiting to happen? In this one-minute video, Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze explains how architects and engineers spent the last eight hundred years or so making things go from bad to worse, bringing the gravity-defying tower to the brink of disaster

Vice president of engineering and chief evangelist at Google on the connected world in 2050. Read more at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/vinton-cerf-on-where-the-internet-will-take-us-1128826/

After arriving at the zoo obese, Nikki the Bear was put on a strict diet by the zoo nutritionists with great results (Video by: Ryan R. Reed). Read more at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/nikki-the-bear-lost-110-pounds-on-the-national-zoo-diet-46145236/

Jeff Bezos | Smithsonian Magazine’s 2016 American Ingenuity Award Winner for Technology The Princeton-educated Amazon founder, Washington Post owner and new-economy pioneer also helms an innovative spaceflight company, Blue Origin, which he founded in 2000. This year it became the first aerospace manufacturer to launch, land and relaunch a rocket into space—an essential leap toward our extraterrestrial future. Bezos aims to revolutionize travel and work in space by making spaceflight so inexpensive that entrepreneurs will rush to create new businesses that have not even been imagined yet. Blue Origin’s achievement has been described as comparable to the shift from the sail to the steam engine. Read more about Bezos’ work: http://smithmag.co/GICDO2 | #IngenuityAwards And more about the American Ingenuity Awards: http://smithmag.co/77xPqy

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.

Researchers from South Korea have discovered a unconventional way to produce gasoline.

DC chef Erik Bruner-Yang interviews Jill-of-all-trades Kaitlyn Hova about her plan to infuse STEM education with open source, 3D printable instruments.

The city famous for blues and barbecue is a little “ragged around the edges” according to tour guide Tad Pierson, who drives tourists around in his pink 1955 Cadillac by Lucian Perkins

After a dog digs up a rabbit's nest and leaves a litter exposed, the team at the Toronto Wildlife Center must rehabilitate the malnourished babies before they can be released back into the wild.

Ever the media gadfly himself, the pop artist was fascinated by newspapers, especially the tabloids, as explored in a new exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Bringing-Andy-Warhols-Shadows-to-the-Hirshhorn.html

Watch as researchers study the paradise tree snake that is capable of launching itself as far as 330 feet

In Vietnam's capital city, pho restaurants dot the streets and fill them with the aromas of the flavorful soup. Read more at http://Smithsonian.com/pho

Are you the kind of person who needs to know what keeps satellites from plummeting to the Earth in a big, fiery ball? Then you need to watch this one-minute video, where Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze gives us the lowdown on what-in-the-name-of-science makes those satellites stay up.

The naked stone is on exhibit at the Natural History museum through next spring

Venture into Virunga National Park with Smithsonian writer Paul Raffaele as he examines the threats facing mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Can quicksand really swallow you up, or does that just happen in the movies? Host Eric Schulze dives in to separate science fact from science fiction."

Primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa studies chimps in hopes of uncovering how they learn and communicate

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

In a workshop at the University of Michigan, composer Laura Karpman oversees a rehearsal of Ask Your Mama, a musical rendition of the Langston Hughes epic poem, with George Manahan conducting

Student Tiffany Riesenberg measures the velocity of a stream's flow

More on The Music Box: http://j.mp/KX15yK The artists behind the most eccentric place in New Orleans present their wacky homemade instruments

A step-by-step tour of the renovation of the National Museum of American History (Narration by Beth Py-Lieberman / Edited by Ryan Reed and Brian Wolly)

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

Credit: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum

Selected by Bruce Weber for our special issue, this up-and-coming photographer discusses his work

The cheetah cubs will be named after the fastest male and female American Olympic athletes in the 100-meter dash at the London Olympics.

The classic American tale of a woman who grew up poor, became queen of the stage and even owned the Hope Diamond

In the Virunga National Forest, the mountain gorilla population sits in the middle of a war zone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as forest rangers track and keep a watchful eye on the threatened primates Music: Kevin MacLeod

The Chesapeake Bay watershed is the winter home for a broad variety of birds, and avid bird watchers flock to the region to find the rarest species (Meredith Bragg)

Selected by Albert Watson for our special issue, this up-and-coming photographer discusses his work

The Director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum predicts what the museum's collections will hold in the next 40 years Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Arts-Bold-New-Direction.html

Over the course of 50 years, John Marshall filmed the African tribe, tracking how their nomadic culture slowly died out

Prepare to be amazed.

Thomas Edison's 1902 trick film, "Hindoo Fakir," depicts an Indian fakir-yogi performing a magic act.

In between trips to archaeology digs around the world, scientist Bruno Frohlich uses 3-D imaging to uncover what makes a great stringed instrument. Read more at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/scanning-a-stradivarius-13807009/

How do spiders make such intricate webs? Don’t get too tangled up about it. In this one-minute video, our Ask Smithsonian host, Eric Schulze, weaves his way to the answer.

In this one-minute video, our Ask Smithsonian Host, Eric Schulze, weighs in on whether or not elephants can jump.

An oral history of the March on Washington: http://j.mp/1feuQK3 John Lewis, Eleanor Holmes Norton and others relive the pivotal moment of the Civil Rights Movement.

Bull elephant Kevin, crazed with testosterone, challenges Greg, the most powerful elephant in the group

Christopher Nolan's epic new film "Oppenheimer" is no mere biopic… nor is it the first attempt to capture the father of the atomic bomb in fiction. We look at prior dramatizations of this very complicated man—including one wherein J. Robert Oppenheimer played himself!—and examine why they worked or didn't. In this episode: Physicist-turned-photographer Minesh Bacrania shares his experience photographing inside the top-secret labs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where J. Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists created the first nuclear weapon. Next, with Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer exceeding commercial expectations, Smithsonian magazine writer Andy Kifer discusses the complexities of Oppenheimer's genius and how prior attempts to depict him in film and television and on stage have fared. Read Andy Kifer’s “The Real Story Behind Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer” here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-real-history-behind-christopher-nolans-oppenheimer-180982529/) . See Minesh Bacrania’s photographs of Los Alamos and read Smithsonian senior editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz’s text here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/exclusive-behind-scenes-look-los-alamos-lab-where-robert-oppenheimer-created-atomic-bomb-180982336/) or in the July/August 2023 issue of Smithsonian. Original release date: July 27, 2023 There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rozas Rivera, Terence Bernardo, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Music by APM Music.

From tumultuous love affairs to violent betrayals, the six wives of Henry VIII all left marks on the Tudor dynasty – and shaped the course of history. READ MORE about these women here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-true-history-behind-six-the-musical-about-henry-viiis-wives-180978781/ --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer & Scriptwriter: Michelle Mehrtens Video Editor: Sierra Theobald

Learn about the history of wild rice and the Ojibwa

A museum in Portland, Oregon highlights the multi-layered path of 3D imagery, from stereoscopes of the American West to blockbuster movies