There they go…

These are a few moments from a great new animation published by our friends in NPR’s Global Health department (http://nprglobalhealth.tumblr.com/). It’s Part 1 of their new series on pandemics.

Watch the entire video here.

Which inspirational voices in Black history inspire you? #MyBlackHistory

Jelly culture is our bread and butter! Aquarists MacKenzie and Tommy take you behind the scenes of the Jelly Lab, where home-made jelly preserves are spread across our exhibits—like so many slices of marine marmalade. Whoa, who’s hungry?

Smile! You’re on camera. 

The home of Frederick Douglass (c1818-1895), now a National Historic Site, is only a few blocks from the Anacostia Community Museum, one of the Smithsonian’s most unique museums. The Anacostia Museum also holds one of our branches, too: the Anacostia Community Museum Library.

That library holds the book Frederick Douglass the orator by James Monroe Gregory (Willey, 1893), from which these images of Douglass and his home are taken. (Though to be fair, the one digitized is a copy in our American Art / Portrait Gallery Branch, but I digress…).

If you wish to read Douglass’s own words, and find out why he was so renowned for his oration, you can read Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered on the occasion of the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln (Gibson Brothers, Printers, 1876). 

The Smithsonian Collections Search is a great place to find Douglass-related objects and material from across the Smithsonian’s many museums and research centers, like a Frederick Douglass hand puppet, a stamp, and portraits from the National Portrait Gallery.

Everything is connected! 

CITY IN THE SKY - Series Premiere

Did you know that Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is one of the largest airports in the world?

CITY IN THE SKY premieres Weds, Feb 8 at 10/9c on PBS. Learn more

FYI: You’ll be able to watch HAMILTON’S AMERICA on both your local PBS station and online on PBS.org! Both premiere October 21 at 9/8c

WATCH: A Macro Timelapse Highlights the Micro Movements of Spectacularly Colored Coral [video]

The latest American Masters podcast features a never-before-heard interview with folk icon, Joan Baez. Listen now!  http://to.pbs.org/2doI3Gt 

The Great Hall during the exhibition “Polish Painting of the 21st Century,” Leon Tarasewicz, 2006, photo: Sebastian Madejski. 

via We Are Museums

“If God didn‘t want me to sing it, he wouldn‘t have given me the talent to do it“ - Stevie Wonder in 2005

Today is the 40th anniversary of the debut of Songs in the Key of Life.

I’m trying desperately to tie this to the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.

Space Ships? Transporters? Is that good enough?

Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, no. 181 (1962), aka Isleta Paintings, is a collection of paintings depicting life of the Pueblo of Isleta, originally organized by Elsie Clews Parsons, though posthumously published 2 decades later by Esther Schiff Goldfrank. Parsons was the first woman elected to president of the American Anthropological Association, and was also one of the founders of The New School.

If you did want more Star Trek-related content from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums and 9 research centers, the Collections Search is there to help.

NOVA Next: The Oldest Book Written in the Americas Is a Mayan Guide to Astronomy

Scientists once disregarded it as fake. But now all signs point to its legitimacy.

Read more

Winners of the 2016 British Wildlife Photography Awards