Smithsonian articles from May 2008

Smithsonian archives from May 2008

The fog lifts: as it always does, given enough time.(FROM THE EDITOR)(Editorial)
May 1, 2008... ONE OF THE THINGS that has long drawn Jonathan Kandell to Maine in general and to the area known as Acadia in particular, he says, is the ebb and flow of the waters. 'At low tide, looking down at this incredible Atlantic Ocean from many...

Model arrangement: in Milton Greene, Marilyn Monroe found a friend as well as the photographer who caught the fullest range of her vibrant personality.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
May 1, 2008... WRITERS AS DIVERSE AS Norman Mailer and Gloria Steinem have waxed lyrical about Marilyn Monroe's enduring appeal, but they have rarely doted on her movie performances. Instead, they consider her image in photographs: the playful, precociously...

A monkey's uncle.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... In Mississippi, newly analyzed fossils have revealed North America's oldest primate, Teilhardina magnoliana, a tree dweller that weighed barely an ounce and lived here 55.8 million years ago. The finding suggests that primates crossed the...

Fawn patrol.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Some pronghorn antelope that live to adulthood have wolves to thank, Wildlife Conservation Society researchers say. They monitored more than 100 fawns in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park over three years. Oddly, the survival rate of those...

Gasping for breath.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(discovery of oxygen-depleted zones in the ocean)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... An ocean "dead zone" has been discovered off the Pacific Northwest. The water has so little oxygen that it "kills any marine animals that cannot swim or scuttle away," says Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University. She and her colleagues...

Survival in the city.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT )(weeds adapt to life in the city)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Plants adapt quickly to life on the streets, according to a new study in Montpellier, France. Crepis sancta, a weed related to the dandelion, produces some seeds that are wind-borne and others that stay put. Compared with rural C. sancta,...

Observed.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(study on alligators' movement)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... NAME: American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) ON THE SURFACE: The gator uses its lungs to breathe. UNDER THE SURFACE: The gator uses its lungs to maneuver, a new study shows. IN THE LAB: Researchers at the University of...

May anniversaries: momentous or merely memorable.(THIS MONTH IN HISTORY)
May 1, 2008... 70 YEARS AGO TICK, TICK, TICK Oklahoma lawyer and newspaper publisher Carl Magee patents the parking meter on May 24, 1938. First deployed three years earlier in Oklahoma City to deter people from parking all day in front of shops,...

Where dinosaurs roamed: footprints at one of the nation's oldest--and most fought over--fossil beds offer new clues to how the behemoths lived.(PHENOMENA)
May 1, 2008... OTHNIEL CHARLES MARSH and Edward Drinker Cope were the two most prominent dinosaur specialists of the 1800s--and bitter enemies. They burned through money, funding expeditions to Western badlands, hiring bone collectors away from each other...

You got a problem with that? Why do New Yorkers seem rude? A noted critic and essayist has a few ideas.(MY KIND OF TOWN)
May 1, 2008... IN MY EXPERIENCE, many people believe that New Yorkers are smarter than other Americans, and this may actually be true. The majority of people who live in New York City were not born here. Indeed, more than a third were not born in the United...

Not so dead.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(Death Valley, California)(Geographic overview)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA -- In a land deemed dead, there's no greater adventure than searching for life. Bumping along in a four-wheel-drive and covering about 400 miles of the 5,300-square-mile desert, I found surprising biodiversity in this...

Sub hunter.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(USS Slater)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... ALBANY, NEW YORK -- The United States built 563 destroyer escorts, small maneuverable ships that sank nearly 100 enemy submarines while protecting Allied supply convoys in World War II. Only one, the USS Slater, remains afloat in the United...

Playing for keepsies.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(Bruce Breslow of Moon Marble Company)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... BONNER SPRINGS, KANSAS -- Time was, kids would squat on the ground and attempt to shoot each other's agates outside a circle drawn in dirt or chalked on pavement. Although video-game shootouts seem to have replaced marble games, Bruce Breslow...

Shear brilliance.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(Pearl Fryar's free, open-to-the-public garden)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... BISHOPVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA -- No road signs direct visitors to Pearl Fryar's topiary garden, but local residents can point the way. Near the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, not far from the pine woods and cotton fields of this dusty town in the...

GNP or GNH?(FROM THE CASTLE)
May 1, 2008... IS GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT REALLY the best measure of a nation's performance? Perhaps Bhutan, a tiny country in the heart of the Himalayas that elected its first parliament this past March, has a better answer--"gross national happiness."...

Curves ahead: at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Rococo experiences a revival.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
May 1, 2008... AMONG HIS COLLECTIONS OF BIRDS' NESTS, seashells and gnarled sticks in artist Ted Muehling's Manhattan studio is a white porcelain sea horse crafted from an 18th-century mold. With its curling tail and grinning teeth, the creature is sensuous...

Jukebox.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra played a Duke Ellington song, "Take the 'A' Train")(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... HOT HORNS The boisterous sound of American jazz echoed among the ancient pyramids at Giza this past February. With the Sphinx at their shoulders, members of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra--in Egypt as part of a cultural exchange...

Ivory merchant: composer Irving Berlin wrote scores of hits on his custom-built instrument.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)(Biography)
May 1, 2008... AMONG THE MORE THAN 3,000 songs that Irving Berlin wrote was a tune called "I Love a Piano." A lyric from it goes: "I know a fine way to treat a Steinway I love to run my fingers o'er the keys, the ivories..." Of course...

Turning a page: Smithsonian regents tap engineer, educator G. Wayne Clough as the Institution's next Secretary.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
May 1, 2008... G. WAYNE CLOUGH, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, was selected this past March to serve as the 12th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He'll assume the post July 1....

What's up.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Brief article)(Calendar)
May 1, 2008... CLASSIC CELEBS Edward Steichen photographed icons of the early 20th century--like Chinese-American starlet Anna May Wong (1930)--for Conde Nast Publications. The exhibit at the Portrait Gallery runs until September 1. SOUND AND...

Acadia country: anchored by the spectacular national park, the rugged, island-dotted coastal region of Maine distills the down east experience.(DESTINATION AMERICA)(Acadia National Park, Maine)(Travel narrative)
May 1, 2008... AT ONLY 1,530 FEET, Mount Desert Island's Cadillac Mountain, in Maine's Acadia National Park, lays a singular claim to fame: it is the highest point on the eastern coastline of the Americas, from Canada all the way south to Rio de Janeiro in...

Ancient citadel: at least 1,200 years old, New Mexico's Acoma pueblo--the longest continuously inhabited settlement in North America--remains a touchstone for a resilient indigenous culture.(DESTINATION AMERICA)
May 1, 2008... PEERING UP FROM THE BASE of a sandstone mesa rising from the plains of central New Mexico, it's possible to make out clusters of tawny adobe dwellings perched at the top. The 365-foot-high outcropping, about 60 miles west of Albuquerque, is...

The life aquatic with Bruce Mozert: when the photographer gazed into the crystalline waters of Silver Springs, Florida, in 1938, he saw nothing but possibilities.(DESTINATION AMERICA)(Biography)
May 1, 2008... CENTRAL FLORIDA has many clear springs, but in the 19th century, Silver Springs also had location, location, location: connected to the outside world by the Silver, Ocklawaha and St. Johns rivers. After the Civil War, steamship-borne tourists...

Back to the frontier: want to fork hay, play vintage baseball or try your hand at tanning deer hide? At Conner Prairie, Indiana, Living History is the main event.(DESTINATION AMERICA)(Travel narrative)
May 1, 2008... INSIDE A LOG CABIN on the Indiana frontier, a rugged-looking man in a rumpled linen tunic, trousers of rough homespun and heavy black boots sat at a crude table piled high with pelts. He looked up as I stepped inside. "Welcome," he said....

Who's laughing now? Long maligned as nasty scavengers, hyenas turn out to be protective parents and accomplished hunters. And new research is revealing that their social status may even be determined in the womb.
May 1, 2008... Our headlights pick up the gleaming eyes of nine spotted hyenas stalking single file across the savanna. "Zebra hunt," says Kay Holekamp, killing the Land Cruiser's engine. We're about 100 miles west of Nairobi in Kenya's Masai Mara National...

Hidden depths: Winslow Homer took watercolors to new levels. A Chicago exhibition charts the elusive New Englander's mastery.(Biography)
May 1, 2008... THE STORM POUNDED IN from the North Sea on October 20, 1881, picked up the Iron Crown like a toy and drove the 1,000-ton bark onto the shoals near Tynemouth, on the Northumbrian coast of England. Hundreds of villagers rushed to the Life...

Goodbye, Columbus: a new survey upends the conventional wisdom about who counts in American history.(PRESENCE OF MIND)
May 1, 2008... LET'S BEGIN with a brief exercise. Who are the most famous Americans in history excluding presidents and first ladies? Go ahead--list your top ten. I can wait. A colleague and I recently put this question to 2,000 11th and 12th graders...

The morning after: my transition from senior to citizen.(THE LAST PAGE)(employment after graduation)
May 1, 2008... AT YALE'S COMMENCEMENT, graduates traditionally smoke clay pipes and then trample them to suggest that the pleasures of college life are ended. I participated in this tradition not long ago, but the symbolism didn't hit me with full force...