Smithsonian articles from July 2011

Smithsonian archives from July 2011

Battlefields: casualties mounting on two fronts.(FROM THE EDITOR)(American civil war and American bats)(Editorial)
July 1, 2011... ALTHOUGH ERNEST B. FURGURSON grew up on a street named after Robert E. Lee in Danville, Virginia--the last capital of the Confederacy--in a home filled with reminders of great-grandfathers who fought in the Civil War, it was not until he studied...

Sweet fix.(WILD THINGS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... Hummingbirds captured on high-speed video surprised University of Connecticut scientists with the way they drink: a bird dips its tongue in nectar, widens the forked tip and unfurls a fringe of hairlike structures. When the tongue leaves the...

Hold on tight.(WILD THINGS)(tarantulas)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... All spiders secrete silk from their abdomens, but it now appears that tarantulas can also shoot silk from their feet. Researchers in Britain turned tarantula glass tanks sideways, shook them and found nearly invisible silk threads that slipping...

When bears attack.(WILD THINGS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... Mother bears have a fierce reputation, but they're not the ones to worry about. Researchers led by the University of Calgary analyzed 59 fatal black bear attacks in the United States and Canada between 1900 and 2009. Most incidents could be...

Jellyfish look up in the sky.(WILD THINGS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... Researchers studying the box jellyfish Tripedalia cystophora in Puerto Rico observed that four of the species' 24 eyes always point up.The translucent eyes, inside the jellyfish'sbody, seem specialized for peering beyond the water surface to...

Observed.(WILD THINGS)(Paranthropus boisei)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... NAME: Paranthropus boisei, a human relative that lived in East Africa from about 2.3 million to 1.2 million years ago. DENTITION: Its massive jaw and flat molars gave rise to the belief that its diet consisted of nuts, which other nearby...

Big wheels: William Eggleston's 1970 portrait of a tricycle got a movement going.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
July 1, 2011... ALTHOUGH a photograph always shows the same things, that doesn't mean those things are always seen the same. This William Eggleston picture is variously known as Untitled, Tricycle and Memphis, 1970. It has been variously seen, too. Now...

Five volcanoes to watch.(NOW ON OUR WEBSITE)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... COUNTRY VOLCANO Ecuador Tungurahua One of Ecuador's most active. Erupting this year. United States ...

13.5 million Americans.(NOW ON OUR WEBSITE)(food and nutrition)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... 13.5 million Americans are estimated by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to live in "food deserts" without ready access to fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grains and other healthful items. One factor: when major supermarket chains neglect...

Charles Dickens, reporter.(NOW ON OUR WEBSITE)(Covent Garden, London, UK)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... What was Covent Garden like in I837 when it was London's vegetable market? At dawn the pavement is "strewed with decayed cabbageleaves," and "men are shouting, carts backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen...

Egyptian mummies scanned.(NOW ON OUR WEBSITE)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... The mummies with signs of atherosclerosis tended to be those that had lived the longest. One with coronary heart disease was the princess Ahmose-Meryet-Amon, who lived in Thebes around 1580 to 1550 B.C. and died in her 40s. If she had lived...

Farmers of the constitution.(INTERVIEW)
July 1, 2011... Why was gardening so important to the founding fathers? The most obvious answer is that good crops were incredibly important to the economy and to America's self-sufficiency. On an ideological level, the founders believed America should be an...

Town and country: the prolific author trades wilderness for city life, Montana style.(MY KIND OF TOWN MISSOULA, MONTANA)
July 1, 2011... MANY TOWNS IN THE WEST consider themselves "outdoor" towns--suggesting a citizenry eager to bike, run, ski, paddle, hunt, fish, hike, backpack, float and camp. Missoula, Montana, is one of these towns, but it possesses some indefinable spirit...

A Better Space
July 1, 2011... THREE MUSEUMS are by far and away in a league of their own for "world's most-visited museum." Beijing's Palace Museum hosts almost 12 million visitors annually; the Louvre more than eight million; our own National Air and Space Museum, including...

Seeking the origins of amber: amber is frequently faked; the real thing may have unexpected value.(BEHIND THE SCENES)
July 1, 2011... ON A may morning in the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.Jorge Santiago-Blay ducks under the branches of a Norway spruce to admire a thick white scab of resin that has oozed from where a branch was lopped off Then, using a metal dental...

Wernher von Braun's launch: although the Nazi "vengence weapon" was a wartime failure, it ushered in the space age.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
July 1, 2011... IN 1960, COLUMBIA PICTURES RELEASED a movie about NASA rocket scientist Wernher von Braun called I Aim at the Stars. Comedian Mort Sahl suggested a subtitle: But Sometimes I Hit London. Von Braun, born in Wirsitz, Germany, in 1912, had been...

Q&A.(CONVERSATION)(Judith Martin)(Interview)
July 1, 2011... Through September 5, the National Portrait Gallery is displaying 60 paintings on loan from private collections in Washington, D.C. Among the portraits is that of Judith Martin, better known as advice columnist "Miss Manners." The first lady of...

More than meets the eye.(What's Up)
July 1, 2011... Scientists rely on innovative methods to observe the natural world. Certain chemicals, for instance, can render a fish's muscles transparent (right: Selene vomer, by David Johnson, 2008). Beginning July 23, at Natural History, see more examples...

Hail to the chief.(What's Up)(Ronald Reagan)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... Ronald Reagan joked he didn't care about his legacy, since he wouldn't be around to read about it. But visitors to the Portrait Gallery through May 28, 2012 can join in a celebration of the 40th president's 100th birthday (below: oil on paper,...

Space travails.(What's Up)(Al Worden)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... In 1971, Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden became the first man to walk in deep space. Nine months later, he was suddenly fired. In Falling to Earth (Smithsonian Books, July 2011), Worden reveals for the first time the full story of the dramatic...

Something for everyone.(What's Up)(photography)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... In the 19th century, photography and improvements in the graphic arts produced a cornucopia of media imagery that crossed language and class barriers (below: advertising trade card). "Pictures for Everyone" will be on display through January...

Family album.(What's Up)(imperial family)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... At the Sackler Gallery, 16 paintings of emperors, empresses, princes and princesses represent three generations of the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1911 (above: Beauty Holding an Orchid, anonymous, mid-18th to 19th century)....

This month in history: July August anniversaries momentous or merely memorable.
July 1, 2011... 30 YEARS AGO SEASONED JUDGMENT Calling her a "person for all seasons," President Ronald Reagan nominates Arizona appeals court judge Sandra Day O'Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court, August 19,1981. The first female nominee to the high court,...

Dig, drink and be merry: the driving force behind civilization? It's the quest for intoxication, says archaeologist Patrick McGovern, who analyzes ancient bits of pottery to recreate the earliest known brews.
July 1, 2011... It's just after dawn at the Dogfish Head brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where the ambition for the morning is to resurrect an Egyptian ale whose recipe dates back several hundred centuries. But will the za'atar--a. potent Middle Eastern...

Dazzling displays: out of the more than 50,000 photographs submitted, editors--and readers--picked seven showstoppers.(THE WINNERS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2011... WHEN A TROUPE OF INDONESIAN DANCERS came to Bhopal, India, to perform a balletic adaptation of the Ramayana--the ancient Hindu epic detailing the worldly exploits of the hero Rama, freelance photojournalist Prakash Hatvalne, 54, was ready. "I...

The end of illusions: confederates thought they would quickly capture Washington, D.C. President Lincoln wanted the confrontation to be a "short, and a decisive one." The Battle of Bull Run would bury all such expectations.(The Civil War 150 Years Ago)
July 1, 2011... CANNON BOOMED, BRASS BANDS SERENADED and ladies tossed bouquets as Jefferson Davis arrived in Richmond on May 29,1861, to make it the capital of the Confederate States of America. He had set out from the original capital at Montgomery, Alabama,...

Crisis in the caves: can scientists stop a new disease that is killing bats in catastrophic numbers?
July 1, 2011... Inside the gaping mouth Of Mammoth Cave, hibernating bats sleep in permanent twilight, each huddled in its own limestone crevice. Every fall, these big brown bats (Epteskus fuscus) squeeze their furry bodies into nooks in the cave walls, where...

Cultivating art: to protect the fruits of their labor and thwart "plant thieves," early American growers enlisted artists.
July 1, 2011... IN 1847, CHARLES M. HOVEY, A STALWART of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and the proprietor of Hovey & Co., a 40-acre nursery in Cambridge, began publishing a series of handsome-of handsomely illustrated prints of American fruits....

A whale to watch: the true story of a lonely orca leaps from printed page to silver screen, with a boost from new technology.
July 1, 2011... WHAT IF YOU FOUND A STORY right in front of you, and it had the best real-life hero you'd ever met and a story line you could never have imagined on your own? What if it filled you with amazement and joy and sadness and hope? What if you could...

Orca culture: researchers have found a variety of complex, learned behaviors that differ from pod to pod.(killer whales)
July 1, 2011... Orcas have evolved complex culture: a suite of behaviors animals learn from one another. They communicate with distinctive calls and whistles. They can live 60 years or more, and they stay in tightknit matrilineal groups led by older females...

Leaks and the law: the prosecution of Thomas Drake highlights the tension between government secrecy and the public's right to know.(PRESENCE OF MIND)
July 1, 2011... THOMAS A. DRAKE WAS A SENIOR EXECUTIVE AT THE National Security Agency for seven years. When his efforts to alert his superiors and Congress to what he saw as illegal activities, waste and mismanagement at the NSA led nowhere, he decided to take...

On the money: advertisers discover the value of a dollar.(THE LAST PAGE)
July 1, 2011... January 1, 2015 FROM: Secretary of the Treasury TO: Director, U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing RE: Advertising on U.S. Currency Mr. Director: As you know, in an effort to reduce our seemingly intractable national debt,...