Smithsonian articles from January 2006

Smithsonian archives from January 2006

Time traveler: Smithsonian gets a new publisher.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
January 1, 2006... IT'S A NEW YEAR, and we have a new publisher and president, Thomas Ott, who comes to us with a quarter-century of magazine publishing experience. Most recently he was with the Reader's Digest Association, where he served as general manager and...

Dressed-down democracy: Franklin's 300th birthday this month reminds us of common ideals and artifacts that reflect them--from a simple suit to an iconic lunch counter.(From the SECRETARY)(Benjamin Franklin)
January 1, 2006... BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was a man on a mission. In October 1776, he sailed for Paris, where he joined two other Americans. All were there to persuade the French government of King Louis XVI to form a political alliance with their fledgling country...

Vive LA difference.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... Readers respond to the November issue: THE SPECIAL 35TH anniversary issue about people who have made a difference, chosen from those covered in past issues, is one of the finest that I have ever seen. It is a keeper! Thanks for the depth of...

Happy new year: to photographer Slim Aarons, the biggest stars were auld acquaintances.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
January 1, 2006... OF THE MANY HOLIDAYS Americans celebrate, none is half so glamorous--I may be going back a few years here--as New Year's Eve, when we break out the best of our wardrobes as if to show the arriving future that we haven't lost a step during the...

You're thinking about home theater. Imagine a home theater that thinks about you.(Bose Lifestyle 48 DVD home entertainment system)(Advertisement)
January 1, 2006... To experience the full, emotional impact movies and music are meant to deliver, you need a home theater system that understands you. Your home. Your tastes. Your family. This is the Bose[R] Lifestyle[R] 48 DVD home entertainment system. It...

High-tech butterflies.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(swallowtail butterflies)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) found in the latest electronics use specialized crystals and reflectors to shine. Swallowtail butterflies in Africa, scientists in the U.K. recently discovered, have fluorescent patches on their wings that use the...

Zebra of a different color.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... THE QUAGGA, WHICH LOOKED LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN A HORSE AND A ZEBRA, WAS HUNTED TO EXTINCTION 100 YEARS AGO, BUT SCIENTISTS AREN'T DONE WITH IT YET. A DNA ANALYSIS OF 13 MUSEUM SPECIMENS, CONDUCTED BY SMITHSONIAN SCIENTISTS AND OTHERS, SHOWS THAT...

There goes the 'Hood.(behavior of ants)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Ants have a reputation for gargantuan strength and an unflagging work ethic. A new study led by Megan Frederickson of Stanford University shows they're also skilled in forestry. Tiny lemon ants of the Peruvian Amazon live in the hollow stems of...

A memorable feast.(memories of jays is sharper)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Western scrub jays are smart, hiding food in trees or underground and retrieving it later. It now seems their memories are even keener than previously believed. In lab tests by Nicky Clayton of the University of Cambridge, jays remembered where...

Observed.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... NAME: Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) RAP SHEET: Invasive gut-sucking fish native to the Atlantic Coast; has devastated Great Lakes trout and whitefish. NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: At mating time, the immature fish guide the adults. ...

American idol: once upon a time, Miss America reigned supreme.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
January 1, 2006... BEFORE "Survivor," "The Apprentice" and "Fear Factor," only two elimination contests mattered to America. One gave us a president, and the other gave us Miss America. At the culmination of the first, the winner stood on the steps of the...

Last race on earth: in a quest for the ultimate challenge, marathoners go the distance in Antarctica.(POINTS OF INTEREST)
January 1, 2006... AT THE TOP OF THE GLACIER, I turned to look out over Maxwell Bay. Slivers of sunlight pierced the morning fog, revealing in the blue-green waters below the two ships that had taken us from the tip of South America, across the Drake Passage and...

The making of a prehistoric giant: a scientist cracks open a forgotten dinosaur egg, fueling an argument over the evolution of the massive sauropods.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Hans Sues)
January 1, 2006... SAUROPODS, the enormous dinosaurs that were the largest animals ever to walk the earth, may have been nothing more than overgrown toddlers. So says Hans Sues, a Smithsonian paleontologist who has analyzed 190-million-year-old dinosaur eggs--the...

Down on his knees.(FROM THE ATTIC)(Charles Lang Freer)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... DOWN ON HIS KNEES Detroit railroad car manufacturer Charles Lang Freer, 100 years ago this month, sold the Smithsonian Institution his art collection--2,250 items, more than half of them by the expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler--for $1....

Royal revival: while visiting China's Forbidden City, a Smithsonian conservator saw the writing on the wall.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Marion Mecklenburg)
January 1, 2006... IN THE SUMMER OF 2005, two conservation experts were crawling in the upper levels of a building in the Forbidden City in Beijing when they came across something unusual: a wooden column covered in writing. Liu Chang, a Chinese conservation...

Hurry in.(african art exhibition)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Rarely seen works from the world's largest private collection of contemporary African art, belonging to Swiss entrepreneur Jean Pigozzi, are on view at the National Museum of African Art. "A feast for the eyes," one critic says. The show closes...

This month in history: January anniversaries--momentous or merely memorable.
January 1, 2006... 25 YEARS AGO: HOME AT LAST Fifty-two hostages are set free by Iran on January 20, 1981, 444 days after their capture at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by an armed mob demanding that the United States return the ousted shah to Iran. David...

The flu hunter: for years, Robert Webster has been warning of a global influenza outbreak. Now governments worldwide are finally listening to him.
January 1, 2006... Robert Webster was in the backyard of his home in Memphis doing some landscaping. This was in the early winter of 1997, a Saturday. He was mixing compost, a chore he finds enchanting. He grew up on a farm in New Zealand, where his family raised...

8 out of 10 Americans don't get enough sleep*. The other 2 probably have a Tempur-Pedic.
January 1, 2006... Finally, a comfortable night's sleep You know how it goes: toss, turn, flip the pillow, toss, turn, toss. You could spend half the night just trying to fall asleep. Not so with Tempur-Pedic's Weightless Sleep[TM] mattress. Spend the night...

World's most valuable timepiece disappears.(Advertisement)
January 1, 2006... Back in 1933, the single most important watch ever built was engineered for a quiet millionaire collector named Henry Graves. It took over three years and the most advanced horological technique to create the multifunction masterpiece. This...

Venezuela steers a new course: as oil profits fund a socialist revolution, President Hugo Chavez picks a fight with his country's biggest customer--the United States.
January 1, 2006... LUNCH WAS ON the patio, overlooking a green valley an hour's drive west of Caracas. The hostess, wearing a small fortune in St. John knits, snapped at one of the uniformed waiters for failing to top off my glass of guava juice. Over dessert,...

Hippo Haven: an idealistic married couple defy poachers and police in strife-torn Zimbabwe to protect a threatened herd of deceptively placid pachyderms.(Save Valley Conservancy, Karen Paolillo, Jean-Roger Paolillo)
January 1, 2006... WE HEAR THE HIPPOS BEFORE WE SEE THEM, grunting, wheezing, honking and emitting a characteristic laugh-like sound, a booming humph humph humph that shakes the leaves. Turning a corner we see the pod, 23 strong, almost submerged in the muddy...

Cezanne: the man who changed the landscape of art.(Paul Cezanne)
January 1, 2006... IN THE FALL OF 1894, the American painter Mary Cassatt attended a dinner in the countryside outside Paris with a group of artists, among them the notoriously bohemian Paul Cezanne. "His manners at first startled me," she wrote to a friend. "He...

Full speed ahead: a railroad, finally, crosses Australia's vast interior--linking not only the continent's south with its north, but also its past to its future.
January 1, 2006... EARLY ON A WARM January morning, I boarded a freight train emblazoned with aboriginal designs in Adelaide on Australia's south-central coast, bound for Darwin, 1,800 miles away. Ours would be the first train ever to cross the length of the...

Love to travel? Love to learn? Take the Smithsonian on your next trip.(Calendar)
January 1, 2006... U.S. JOURNEYS OPERA 101: LEARNING AND LOVING OPERA April 21-24, 2006 Enjoy Orchestra Prime seating at Puccini's dramatic Tosca and La Boheme and Donizetti's comedy Don Pasquale. Attend a back-stage tour and lectures geared for the...

Swinging 60s? The first baby boomer looks back--and forward--on the eve of a milestone.(PRESENCE OF MIND)(Kathleen Casey)(Biography)
January 1, 2006... IN THE FIRST MOMENTS of January 1, 1946, a seven-pound five-ounce girl was born at St. Agnes Hospital in Philadelphia. The doctors recorded her name as Kathleen Casey and said she had arrived just one second after midnight. That made Kathleen,...

Celebrate France's fabled art and landscapes: see the glorious French countryside that inspired painters and gave birth to impressionism.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Smithsonian Journeys MEMBERS' CHOICE TOURS In honor of its most celebrated son, Aix-en-Provence has declared 2006 the "Year of Cezanne." With a yearlong festival of exhibitions and performances, the town plans to pay tribute to...

Royal @: in a web-based monarchy, there are no bans on fox-hunting.(THE LAST PAGE)
January 1, 2006... HAD TEA WITH HER MAJESTY the other day. Elizabeth II loves it when company comes calling. She's just a nice down-palace type person who didn't mind a bit that I was dressed in my bathrobe and flip-flops. Before the editors of the Brit...