Composer, musician and philanthropist Paul Simon is the first artist and sixth honoree to receive the “Great Americans” medal from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The medal will be presented Sept. 18 and is the museum’s signature honor.
South American rivers are home to at least three different species of electric eels, including a newly identified species capable of generating a greater electrical discharge than any other known animal, according to a new analysis published in the Sept. 10 issue of the journal Nature Communications. The third species, Electrophorus varii (shown above), named after the late Smithsonian ichthyologist Richard Vari, swims through murky, slow-flowing lowland waters.
Detail, Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Gwaneum bosal). Korea, Goryeo period, ca. 1220–1285. Gilt wood and gilt copper and iron with crystal inlays. National Museum of Korea, Seoul
“Shonke Mon thi^, (Shunkamolah), Osage.” Bust made April – Dec. 1904 by Frank Lemon. Photograph by Ken Gonzales-Day. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
