50 Shades of Gray Whales

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has spent a lifetime thinking about how history gets told. Before becoming the head of the Smithsonian, he was a curator, someone whose job is deciding which stories, people, and objects help us make sense of ourselves. So as America appr ...  Show more

A screw. A stuffed possum. A shoe-sizing device. What could any of these objects possibly tell us about the history of the United States?When we think of historic artifacts, we tend to picture the extraordinary: Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch, the original Kermit the Frog, Martin ...  Show more

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in 1819, Owen Chase is standing on a slowly sinking ship. It's just been headbutted by an 85 foot whale. It's taking in water. And now the creature is coming back for another go. This is a whaling ship, and Chase is convinced that he observes " ...  Show more

How do whales use their blowholes to breathe, and what keeps them from filling up with water? There’s no better way to find out than getting up close and personal with whales! That’s what marine mammal biologist Justine Hudson did when she collected whale snot from belugas. Snot ...  Show more

Killer whales — orcas — eat all sorts of animals, including humpback calves. But one day, biologists saw a group of humpback whales trying to stop some killer whales from eating… a seal. And then it happened again. And again. It turns out, all across the oceans, humpback whale ...

Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher the lyrics.

But sperm whales don’t produce the eerie melodies sung by humpback whales,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/26/archives/whales-sing-siren-song-for-scie ...