Description: Perfect fodder for animated gifs; zootropes. [via Unfunk]Send SFMOMA a text and it will respond with art! [via SFMOMA]Eerie plaster casts of people and animals in their final moments before being buried in Pompeii. [via Atlas Obscura]Weighing newborn babies wasn't "a thing" until the 20th century. [via O Say Can You See, National Museum of American History]Archives Unleashed
Description: While we at the Photography Initiative like to argue that photography changes everything, it’s not always the case. On June 2nd, in a controversial ninth inning call, baseball umpire Jim Joyce denied Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Armando Galarraga a shot at making history for pitching a “perfect” game. Joyce—from his point of view behind first base—saw a batter hit a ball, make it
Description: Breathing new life into medieval manuscripts at Bodelain Library. [via Adam Koszary/Medium]Over 600 new rights-free videos and other media showing embryos, robots, and bouncing water droplets! [via Wikimedia Open Access Report]The Smithsonian is gathering thought leaders in environmental and species conservation on Earth Day for their 1st Earth Optimism Summit, and our own Pam
Description: At the 1996 Festival of American Folklife, Smithsonian staff and volunteers conducted oral history interviews with colleagues about their memories of working for the Smithsonian. To celebrate the Smithsonian’s 175th anniversary, we’re sharing clips from three of those interviews.
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="179" caption="Portrait photograph of Harrison Gray Dyar (1866-1929), entomologist at the United States National Museum at the Smithsonian from 1897 until his death in 1929, c. 1920s, by Unidentified photographer, Photographic print, Negative Number: SIA2009-0002."][/caption] It turns out that a series of mysterious tunnels discovered in
Description: The story of the damage context and advanced treatment of a Stivenson Magloire painting broken into fragments by the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Description: The Theodore Roosevelt Papers are now digitized and available online through the Library of Congress Digital Collections. Don't try browsing all at once—there are over 450,000 images! [via Library of Congress][edan-image:id=siris_sic_9575,size=300,center]With the help of ground-penetrating radar, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Research has discovered a thousand-year-old