December 21st, 2020, 6:00AM / BY Abigail Eisenstadt
The original photos from late 1800s by famous snowflake photographer Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, are stored in the Smithsonian Archives. His pictures were instrumental in helping scientists examine snow’s crystalline properties. (Erin Malsbury, Smithsonian Open Access, Wilson A. Bentley)
Winter officially begins today, and cold weather fanatics are hoping for snow. But snowfall brings more than wintry fun. This beautiful weather event gives scientists the chance to examine a fascinating substance with unique properties.
“Snowflakes are single crystals of ice and ice is basically a mineral that melts at a lower temperature than other minerals do,” said Dr. Jeffrey Post, Curator-in-Charge of Gems and Minerals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
December 17th, 2020, 6:00AM / BY Erin Malsbury
Tens of millions of years of bird evolution guided some of the most important elements of human-powered flight. (Pixabay)
On December 17 in 1903, the Wright brothers achieved what humans had dreamed about since the earliest days of our species: soaring through the air. For millennia, visionaries watched birds take wing and wondered how they might do the same. Notes and inspiration from bird flight were integral in helping people finally achieve the goal, but our version of flying as well as how we got there contrasts starkly with that of birds.
While human flight came about through intense focus on a singular goal, flight in birds evolved incrementally over millions of years without direction. The path to modern birds was full of forks, twists and dead-ends.
December 14th, 2020, 3:00PM / BY Erin Malsbury
Sequencing entire genomes from ancient tissues helps researchers reveal the evolutionary and domestication histories of species. (Thomas Harper, The Pennsylvania State University)
In the early 2000s, archeologists began excavating a rock shelter in the highlands of southwestern Honduras that stored thousands of maize cobs and other plant remains from up to 11,000 years ago. Scientists use these dried plants to learn about the diets, land-use and trading patterns of ancient communities.
After years of excavations, radiocarbon dating and more traditional archaeological studies, researchers are now turning to ancient DNA to provide more detail to their insights than has ever before been possible.