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Smithsonian magazines coverage of 2024 reflected the eclectic interests of our audience, as well as their search for diversion in a year of news dominated by political polarization, presential assassination attempts, and unrest in the Middle East and Europe, among other crises.Our editors tracked major milestones in space exploration and climate science, and they chronicled intriguing finds like the wreck of a World War II submarine and a colossal stone monument built 1,000 years before Stonehenge. Drawing on the rich archive of images submitted to the magazines annual Photo Contest, our photography editors transported readers to Cuba, captured the beauty of birds, and celebrated events like Pride Month and Mothers Day. The first season of our podcast, Theres More to That, asked our journalists and editors about Pablo Escobars hippos, the crime of the century and the enduring appeal of eclipses. Our writers also paid tribute to towering figures who died in 2024, including actor James Earl Jones, painter Faith Ringgold and record producer Quincy Jones.From a curious, century-old contraption to the history of the United States accents and dialects, these were some of Smithsonians most-read stories of 2024.A Man Noticed a Strange Shape on the Ground on Google Earth. It Turned Out to Be the Mark of an Undetected Tornado A man spotted the scar while looking at Google Earth satellite imagery earlier this year. Screenshot via Google EarthOur top story of the year centered on Google Earth satellite imagery of the Nullarbor Plain, a flat, dry and treeless expanse in southern Australia. While searching for caves with the interactive tool, a man spotted a strange, V-shaped line on the ground. Upon investigating, researchers determined that the 6.8-mile-long scar likely reflected the trail of a previously undetected tornado that struck the region in mid-November 2022.As study author Matej Lipar wrote in the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science, Tornado paths leave behind a scarred landscape, which can indicate tornado intensity. The storms are capable of stripping away topsoil, uprooting vegetation and scouring the ground, leaving strikingly looped cycloidal marks on the earths surface. Based on the appearance of the Nullarbor Plain scar, the researchers suspect that the 2022 tornado measured an F2 or F3 on the Fujita Scale of intensity, spinning clockwise at speeds of more than 124 miles per hour over a period of 7 to 13 minutes.According to Smithsonian correspondent Sarah Kuta, Not everyone is convinced that the scar alone can reveal all that information. Since the tornado didnt damage any buildings and had no witnesses, its difficult to estimate its intensity. Still, the paper offers an intriguing case study for using satellite imagery to track natural phenomena in remote, uninhabited areas.Historians Say Theyve Solved the Mystery of a Curious 100-Year-Old Contraption Discovered in Storage The machine features a ceramic countertop and two parallel rollersone that's covered with small nubs. Dorchester County Historical SocietyIn October, the Maryland-based Dorchester County Historical Society shared photographs of a century-old contraption on its Facebook page. Can you identify this machine? the society wrote in its post. It has a new motor but everything else is around 100 years old. What local industry would have used it?Facebook users flooded the comments with suggestions, from a paper press to a clothing wringer to a leather tanning tool. The answer, however, turned out to be a more obscure artifact: a mechanical beaten biscuit maker used to craft a treat that was once popular in the American South. Sturdier than traditional Southern biscuits, beaten biscuits derive their name from the strenuous process of removing air from the dough by beating it with an ax, rolling pin or hammer. Experts believe that a Maryland man created the newly identified machine to make this work easier for his aunt, who ran a local beaten biscuit business.Maryland has a deep history of making beaten biscuits, Zo Phillips, the historical societys executive director, told Smithsonian in November. There is the Maryland Beaten Biscuit brand, but here in Cambridge, there was also a bakery called the Camper Sisters Bakery that made beaten biscuits as well. Some of their family members still sell them.These Fossil Teeth From an 11-Year-Old Reveal Clues to Why Humans Developed an Unusually Long ChildhoodDmanisi tooth developmentWatch on Compared with most mammals, humans stick with their parents for an extended period of time, relying on caregivers to raise and provide for them over multiple years. Chimpanzees, for example, reach adulthood twice as fast as humans. Scientists have offered a range of potential explanations for this lengthy childhood, with many pointing to the evolutionary need for youths to develop bigger brains before maturing to adulthood.A study published in NatureSmithsonian correspondent Alexa Robles-Gil reported in November, the fossil teeth of an 11-year-old hominid who lived in what is now Dmanisi, Georgia, some 1.77 million years ago show he experienced delayed development like those of modern human children during the first several years of life. Later, the youth switched to more great-ape-like growth.The findings complicate the idea that early humans evolved to have long childhoods because their brains needed more time to develop. The researchers point out that the brains of the Dmanisi hominid and his peers were only slightly larger than chimpanzees, meaning the change predated a major increase in humans brain size. Members of the Homo genus may have developed long childhoods to spend more time learning social behavior, before brain development intensified, Robles-Gil wrote. Its also possible, however, that the prehistoric childs slow dental development was the result of environmental factors like available foods rather than social interactions and brain size.Workers Uncover an Underground Chamber Sealed for More Than a Century Near the National Mall The opening to the cistern was discovered beneath Jefferson Drive, which runs alongside the Smithsonian Castle and other museums. National Park ServiceContrary to popular myth, the Smithsonian Institution does not boast an underground storage facility below the National Mall in Washington, D.C. And though the National Park Service (NPS) discovered a secret chamber near the Smithsonian Castle this September, the 30-by-9-foot space turned out to be a simple cistern built to collect rainwater in 1847. When workers opened the sealed chamber, they found it completely empty.Sadly, no national treasures or secret symbols were recovered, the NPS wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. But the cistern offers a neat glimpse into the museums and the National Malls past.In her article on the cistern, Smithsonian correspondent Sonja Anderson detailed this rich history, outlining the Castles origins and evolution from a museum building and residence into an administrative office and visitor center.Adorable but Deadly Fluff Balls, Better Known as Pygmy Slow Lorises, Born at the Smithsonians National Zoo Pygmy slow loris babies Zuko (left) and Azula (right) hang out on the branches in their habitat at the Small Mammal House. National Zoo and Conservation Biology InstituteIn late March, staff at the Smithsonians National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) discovered a pair of baby pygmy slow lorises clinging to their mother in an enclosure at the Small Mammal House. They were probably born right before we came in, animal keeper Kara Ingraham told Smithsonian. Members of an endangered species native to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the siblings were the first pygmy slow lorises to be born at NZCBI.The babies quickly won over the public with their teddy bear-like features, including oversized eyes, cherubic faces and rounded ears. Unfortunately, these same attributes have made pygmy slow lorises a big target for wildlife trafficking and the pet trade, Ingraham said. Buyers enchanted by the animals appearance fail to realize that they make horrible household pets: In addition to requiring a steady diet of tree sap, pygmy slow lorises are the only primates known to produce venom, which is strong enough to cause anaphylactic shock in adult humans.Their social, medical and nutritional needs are really difficult to meet for pet owners, and the pressure that the illegal pet trade puts on their wild populations has driven the decline in their population, Ingraham said. We hope that guests understand what animals do and do not make good pets, and when they see videos of exotic animals in pet homes, that they remember the loris and dont engage with or support that content.A Massive Crane Helping With the Baltimore Bridge Cleanup Was Built to Recover a Sunken Soviet Submarine The Chesapeake 1000 can lift up to 1,000 tons. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Hannah MohrThe shocking collapse of Baltimores Francis Scott Key Bridge this spring sparked an ambitious cleanup operation involving floating cranes, explosives and a fleet of tugboats. One of these tools, a crane called the Chesapeake 1000, boasted a surprising past: The machine, originally named the Sun 800, played a role in Project Azorian, a top-secret CIA effort to recover a Soviet submarine that disappeared in the Pacific Ocean in 1968.Named for the number of tons it could lift, wrote Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian, the crane was used to hoist a 630-ton gimbal during construction of the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a ship with a powerful hydraulic system and a claw that could lift the [submarines] wreckage from the depths. Though the CIA managed to recover one-third of the Soviet vessel in 1974, the mission failed to yield any useful intelligenceor so the spy agency claimed.Kutas April article wasnt Smithsonians only coverage of the accident, which unfolded in the early morning hours of March 26, when a cargo ship struck one of the Baltimore bridges support pillars, sending the structure plunging into the Patapsco River and killing six people. We also examined how increasingly large cargo ships are placing decades-old infrastructure at risk and explored the circumstances behind seven of the worst bridge disasters in history.Divers in Mexicos Underwater Caves Get a Glimpse of Rarely Seen Artifacts, Fossils and Human Remains Looking up from the depths of the Blue Abyss highlights this in-cave sinkhole's distinctive shape and azure tones. Martin BroenIn this excerpt of Martin Broens Light in the Underworld: Diving the Mexican Cenotes, the photographer and diver chronicled the rich history of the Yucatn Peninsulas underwater caves. Formed over millions of years, thousands of natural sinkholes known as cenotes connect the surface of the earth to the longest underground river systems in the world, Broen wrote. Here, water doesnt accumulate on the surface as rivers, but instead gets absorbed through the porous limestone to flow within underground tunnels.Cenotes were sacred to the Maya civilization, whose members viewed them as a place for worship and rituals related to rain, life, death and rebirth, according to Broen. Today, the caverns hold evidence of both the Maya and the people who inhabited the region before them, as well as the fossils of prehistoric megafauna. As Broen wrote, The fossils concealed within the caves constitute genuine treasures, allowing for teams of specialized scientists to explore these wonders, aiming to unravel scientific enigmas, construct hypotheses and shed light on the mysteries that shroud our planets history.Meet Vivian Maier, the Reclusive Nanny Who Secretly Became One of the Best Street Photographers of the 20th Century A self-portrait taken in New York by Vivian Maierin 1954 Estate of Vivian Maier / Maloof Collection / Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYVivian Maier, a photographer who captured more than 150,000 evocative images of life in New York and Chicago in the mid-20th century, was overlooked for much of her career. A nanny by trade, Maier often left her negatives undeveloped, and in her later years, she stored much of her oeuvre in storage units whose contents eventually landed on the auction block. Thats how 30,000 of Maiers negatives ended up in the possession of amateur historian John Maloof, who spent several years tracking down additional examples of her work. In 2009, Maloof started sharing the photos online, where Maier quickly became a sensation, wrote Smithsonians Ellen Wexler in July. Everyone wanted to know about the recluse who had so adeptly captured 20th-century America.Published to mark the opening of the first major American retrospective dedicated to Maier, Wexlers article outlined the artists mysterious backstory: Though many of the families Maier worked for knew of her interest in photography, most never saw her prints, and one former employer even said, I never remotely thought that what she was doing would have some special artistic value. Today, Maier has been elevated to her rightful place as one of the 20th centurys pre-eminent street photographers, renowned for capturing images of everyday life framed with a stark humor and intuitive understanding of human emotion, according to Wexler.A Brief History of the United States Accents and Dialects Accents center on the pronunciation of words, while dialects encompass pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Here, the subjects of Grant Wood'sAmerican Gothic channel speaking styles popular in California and New York. Illustration by Meilan Solly / Background image via Art Institute of Chicago under public domainAcross the country, Americans speak English in dozens of different ways, each influenced by geography, settlement history and class differences. Historically, its about migration and who went where at a given time, linguist Jessi Grieser told Smithsonian contributor Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton. Speaking styles shape how people perceive each other, and theyre often divided into two categories: accents, which revolve around the pronunciation of words, and dialects, which cover pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Both tend to vary by region.In her article, Boyanton provided an overview of the accents and dialects heard in California, Texas, New Orleans, the American West and Appalachia. On the U.S.s East Coast, early 17th-century English settlers founded separate colonies that each had their own distinct manner of speaking. Because long-distance travel was difficult at the time, these styles evolved in isolation, resulting in greater linguistic variation in the region.As the country expanded west in the 19th century, white settlers from the East Coast moved inland, bringing their regional dialects with them. By then, travel was far easier, so dialects mixed more freely, producing a somewhat homogenized Western speaking style, wrote Boyanton. Changes are continuing to happen all the time, linguist Karen Adams said, but a simple truth remains: Everyone speaks a dialect, and everyone has an accent.Missed the Auroras in May? Heres How to See Them Next Time The northern lights appear near Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada, on May 11, 2024. Gunjan Sinha via AurorasaurusOn May 10 and 11, an unusually strong geomagnetic storm allowed people around the world to view the northern lights at latitudes where theyre rarely seen, from Florida to Spain. To help individuals who missed the stunning show improve their chances of future skywatching success, Smithsonians Carlyn Kranking posed some of the biggest northern lights questions to aurora chasers and scientists.Among these experts top tips: Schedule a trip to the Arctic Circle between September and March, the peak season for aurora-chasing, and venture out during the darkest hours of the day, typically just after midnight local time. If an international adventure isnt in the cards for you, keep an eye out for local forecasts of coronal mass ejections, which are responsible for producing the dazzling displays. Experts track these predictions and will start spreading the news on social media, so following aurora chasers and scientists could also bring you early alerts, Kranking wrote.Earth is currently experiencing a solar maximum, a period of heightened solar activity that will likely generate more auroras, though it remains to be seen whether any of these will rival the May show. As much as I would love a repeat of what happened on May 10, those are exceedingly rare events, aurora chaser Prisco Blanco told Smithsonian. A lot had to go right for that to happen. Even if the northern lights fail to return on a grand scale in 2025, stargazers will have plenty of options for nighttime viewing, including a total lunar eclipse in March and the annual Geminid, Perseid and Lyrid meteor showers.Photo credit for top image: Illustration by Meilan Solly / Clockwise from top left: Navy Petty Officer Second Class Hannah Mohr; Dorchester County Historical Society; Vincent Ledvina; ESRF / Paul Tafforeau, Vincent Beyrand; Martin Broen; Don Sniegowski via Flickr under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED; Estate of Vivian Maier / Maloof Collection / Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY; National Park Service; Kara Ingraham / Smithsonians National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute; Google EarthGet the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.
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