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.

“The Age of Plastic: Ingenuity + Responsibility” a public Smithsonian Symposium that will take an uncommon look at the most common of materials. On Thursday, June […]

The post The Age of Plastic: Symposium June 7 & 8, 2012 appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The newly reported reconstruction of Amazonian prehistory by a Smithsonian scientist, Dolores R. Piperno, and her colleagues suggests that large areas of western Amazonia were sparsely inhabited.

The post Report paints a new picture of early human impact on the Amazon River Basin appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Imagine a gas giant planet spanning three times more sky than the Moon looming over the molten landscape of a lava world. This alien vista exists in the newly discovered two-planet system of Kepler-36.

The post Close encounters between planetary systems of Kepler-36 stun astrophysicists appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Accumulations of drifting snow are the most plausible explanation for the presence of a number of puzzling alluvial fan deposits found inside large impact craters on Mars

The post Melting snow likely created fan deposits inside Martian craters, geologists say 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.

The post Prehistoric turtle was size and shape of a big car tire appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The scientists made the spiders exercise by irritating them with a small paint brush and causing them to move around until they became exhausted. Spiders from the group with palps removed were able to travel 300 percent further than spiders with their palps intact.

The post Weight of genitals reduces physical endurance in male orb web spiders, researchers find appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Scientists determine there is more to the shape and length of bird bills than just how they “get the worm.”

The post New study determines bill size in birds varies according to climate appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

JoVonn Hill, a research associate with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station at Mississippi State University, recently borrowed 32,000 grasshoppers from the Smithsonian’s National […]

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One such parasite lurks in Chesapeake Bay: an invasive barnacle that hijacks a mud crab’s reproductive system and impregnates it with parasite larvae—even if the crab is male.

The post Undersea parasite turns male mud crabs female appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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.

The post Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and George Mason University dedicate new academic facilities in Front Royal, Va. appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The goal of the project—the Smithsonian’s Tennenbaum Marine Observatories—is to monitor the ocean’s coastal ecosystems over a long period of time.

The post Smithsonian launches Global Marine Biodiversity Project with $10 million donation appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has been awarded a NASA project to build the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument. TEMPO will measure North American air pollution, from Mexico City to the Canadian tar/oil sands, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, hourly and at high spatial resolution.

The post NASA funds Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory instrument to track North American air pollution appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This past summer, Laura Walker became the first scientist to collect slime molds from soils at the Barro Colorado Nature Monument in Panama, a reserve administered by the Smithsonain since 1946.

The post Panama’s slime molds get attention from Arkansas University grad student appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This artist’s illustration represents the variety of planets being detected by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. A new analysis has determined the frequencies of planets of all […]

The post One in six stars has an Earth-sized planet appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Using echolocation alone the bats found, identified and captured insects perched motionless and silent on the leaves of plants.

The post Common tropical bat uses echolocation with precision previously considered impossible, new experiments reveal 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 […]

The post A wild giant panda from the Website Smithsonian Wild appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Marc Fries, a research associate in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, answers some basic questions about meteorites.

The post Russian Meteor Q&A with Smithsonian Expert Marc Fries appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Astronomers using NASA's Kepler mission have detected two Earth-sized planets orbiting a distant star.

The post First earth-sized planets found appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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.

Imagine a sphere more than 2 million miles across – eight times the distance from Earth to the Moon – spinning so fast that its […]

The post Supermassive black hole spins super fast appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

March is Women’s History Month and to honor it Smithsonianscience.com presents six images of women scientists selected from the Smithsonian Institution Archvies’s Flicker photoset Women […]

The post Six pioneering female scientists you’ve probably never heard of… appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Spiral galaxies are some of the most beautiful and photogenic residents of the universe. Our own Milky Way is a spiral. Our solar system and […]

The post Powerful computer simulations show how spiral galaxies get their arms appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Cheeseburgers. Ice cream. French fries. These are a few of the culprits, doctors warn us, responsible for atherosclerosis, a disease commonly known as hardening of […]

The post Ancient mummies reveal atherosclerosis is very likely just a part of aging appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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 […]

The post Biologist Andrew Sellers turns lionfish invasion into research opportunity appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Douglas Owsley, the division head for physical anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, presented today a forensic analysis of 17th-century human remains […]

The post Forensic analysis of 17th-century human remains at Jamestown, Va., reveals evidence of survival cannibalism appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A fiery explosion on the surface of the Moon, visible to the naked eye, recently surprised NASA astronomers monitoring the Moon for meteorite strikes. Occurring […]

The post A meteorite explodes on the Moon: Q&A with geophysicist Bruce Campbell appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Plato, the Greek philosopher and mathematician, described music and astronomy as “sister sciences” that both encompass harmonious motions, whether of instrument strings or celestial objects. […]

The post Music of the Spheres: Star Songs appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

All stars begin their lives in groups. Most stars, including our Sun, are born in small, benign groups that quickly fall apart. Others form in […]

The post First transiting planets in a star cluster discovered appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, has posed an enduring mystery. Why is it so hot? The Sun’s visible surface is only 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, […]

The post Sun’s loops are displaying an optical illusion appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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 […]

The post NASA’s Chandra sees eclipsing planet in X-rays for first time appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Sometime during the Middle Eocene a prehistoric mosquito slurped down a final blood meal then died and sank to the bottom of a pond in […]

The post Blood molecules preserved for millions of years in abdomen of fossil mosquito appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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 […]

The post Study shows turkey vulture is doubly blessed with acute vision and sense of smell appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Found worldwide in tropical and subtropical seas and oceans, Dolabrifera dolabrifera is a species of sea hare, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Aplysiidae. […]

The post Sea hare chemical fights leishmaniasis appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

After years of sleuthing for clues about where and when pantherine felids (“big cats”) originated, a Smithsonian scientist and an international team of researchers are […]

The post Smithsonian scientist confirms missing link in big cat evolution appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute rung in 2014 with the hatching of the most endangered species in its collection—a Micronesian kingfisher—Jan. 1. The chick, whose […]

The post Micronesian kingfisher chick hatches at the National Zoo’s Conservation Biology Institute appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Out in Montana’s Big Sky Country Dale Greenwalt spends his summers seeking the incredibly tiny and fragile. Armed with a putty knife honed razor-sharp on […]

The post Quality of insect fossils from Montana’s Flathead River astounds scientists appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Our solar system seems like a neat and orderly place, with small, rocky worlds near the Sun and big, gaseous worlds farther out, all eight […]

The post Asteroid diversity = “snow globe” Solar System appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

It has all the hallmarks of a paleontological crime scene: a massive graveyard along a remote desert highway containing the fossil bones of at least […]

The post Algae assassin found responsible for whale mass grave in Chile appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A new species of mite discovered recently in Ohio is so tiny that it lives in the space between particles in sandy, impoverished soils. Despite […]

The post New dragon-like mite found in Ohio is gentle, reclusive appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The largest fully preserved great ape collection in the world is about to make its online debut.

The post Unlocking secrets–technology allows scientists to peer inside great apes appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Chip a tooth and expose a nerve and the result can be a searing sensitivity to hot and cold. The hard outer layer of a […]

The post Scientists map pathway from narwhals’ sensitive tusk to brain appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Parents normally feel the need to provide well for their kids. For humans, that number of offspring is usually in the single digits, but a […]

The post The secret formula to feeding 900 babies: Scientists uncover milk composition of naked mole-rat queens appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

National Museum of Natural History scientist Torsten Dikow discovered and named a new species of assassin fly, Burmapogon bruckschi, after studying the first two specimens […]

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Save the Rhinos! Save the Elephants! Save the humans?! It seems strange to be connecting our own fate to that of wildlife but new research […]

The post Losing large mammals increases human risk from rodent-borne diseases appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The newly opened […]

The post Global warming will open Arctic to invasive species, Smithsonian scientists say appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A research team from the Smithsonian and Arizona State University have developed a new, non-destructive method using spectroscopic analysis to help unravel the complex chemistry […]

The post Feathers yield mysteries of pigment chemistry to spectroscopic analysis appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A mysterious X-ray signal has been found in a detailed study of galaxy clusters using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton. One intriguing possibility […]

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Tasty and easy to find, the heath hen was a favorite dish of America’s colonial settlers. This beautiful little bird, however, was no match for […]

The post Urban landscapes becoming increasingly bird-unfriendly appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Astronomers have discovered a transiting exoplanet with the longest known year. Kepler-421b circles its star once every 704 days. In comparison, Mars orbits our Sun […]

The post Transiting exoplanet with longest known year appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.