Muralist Ouizi Brings Her Luminous Floral Wonderland to the Smithsonian

Source

Astronomers Capture First-Ever Image of a Supermassive Black Hole
The Event Horizon Telescope reveals the silhouette of a black hole at the center of a galaxy 55 million light-years away
Source

Why These Four Banjo Playing Women Resurrected the Songs of the Enslaved
The new Folkways album Songs of "Our Native Daughters" draws spiritually from slave narratives and other pre-19th century sources
Source

This Former Noma Chef Is Revamping the School Cafeteria
Dan Giusti used to serve $500 lunches. Now he's working to deliver meals on a kid's budget.
Source

Why There Is More to Gold Than Meets the Eye
The Smithsonian’s Gus Casely-Hayford says the precious metal was both a foundation for massive West African empires and a cultural touchstone
Source

Ten of the South’s Most Mouth-Watering Food Festivals
From Vidalia onions to beer cheese, the American South has culinary celebrations covered
Source

Conspiracy Theories Abounded in 19th-Century American Politics
Rumors of secret alliances, bank deals, and double-crossings were rampant in early American elections
Source

NASA's Study of Astronaut Twins Creates a Portrait of What a Year in Space Does to the Human Body
Wide-ranging research compares astronaut Scott Kelly to his earthbound twin brother, Mark
Source

The First Group of Female Cosmonauts Were Trained to Conquer the Final Frontier
Two decades before the first American woman flew to space, a group of female cosmonauts trained in Star City of the Soviet Union 
Source

Why Is This Smithsonian Paleontologist Dressed as Santa?
Cat-loving paleontologist answers your questions in the National Museum of Natural History's YouTube series, "The Doctor Is In."
Source

How Scientists Are Using Real-Time Data to Help Fishermen Avoid Bycatch
Using a strategy called dynamic ocean management, researchers are creating tools to forecast where fish will be—and where endangered species won't be
Source

How Broadway Legends Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon Made Headlines Long Before ‘Fosse/Verdon’
She was a megawatt performer, one of the best Broadway dancers of the last century, but it’s his influence that is remembered today
Source

Inside Professor Nanayakkara’s Futuristic Augmented Human Lab
An engineer at the University of Auckland asks an important question: What can seamless human-computer interfaces do for humanity?
Source

When California Went to War Over Eggs
As the Gold Rush brought more settlers to San Francisco, battles erupted over another substance of a similar hue: the egg yolks of a remote seabird colony
Source

What the Obsolete Art of Mapping the Skies on Glass Plates Can Still Teach Us
The first pictures of the sky were taken on glass photographic plates, and these treasured artifacts can still help scientists make discoveries today
Source

What Do We Really Know About Neanderthals?
Revolutionary discoveries in archaeology show that the species long maligned as knuckle-dragging brutes deserve a new place in the human story
Source

New Scholarship Is Revealing the Private Lives of China’s Empresses
Lavish paintings, sumptuous court robes, objets d’art tell the stories of Empress Cixi and four other of the most powerful Qing dynasty women
Source

Last Night, I Watched Notre-Dame Burn
Our own travel writer, in Paris yesterday, recounts her experience witnessing the devastating fire at the cathedral
Source

The Last of the Great American Hobos
Hop a train to Iowa, where proud vagabonds gather every summer to crown the new king and queen of the rails
Source

The History of the Spelling Bee
Even in the age of autofill, America is still in love with the centuries-old tradition
Source