Science | October 2025

With bulbous eyes, two long sharp tusks, a long mustache and one ton of blubber, the walrus is far from majestic. But for Kirk Johnson, scientist and Sant Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the walrus has been a creature close to his heart for 30 years. Johnson will follow his passion and trek across the Arctic to uncover the hidden lives of these lumbering giants, their cultural significance to the native peoples of the North, and the threats they face as climate change shrinks the sea ice. Johnson will explore the walrus' evolutionary past and reveal the creature's ability to adapt, survive and thrive through the ages. With global climate change, perhaps this colossal creature will be forced to adapt once more.
A unique, non-invasive, mountain lion study uses a giant network of trail cameras scattered throughout Montana's Sapphire Mountains over a decade to piece together the life story of a female mountain lion. This film weaves clips of mountain lions and their complex interactions with each other and the rest of the forest world into a story about life and death that contains never-before-captured events and behaviors at every turn.
Archaeologists investigate dozens of strange Stone Age megastructures in the Arabian desert. They're so big that their true form is visible only from the air, yet these giant structures were built by a mysterious people 9000 years ago.
In September 2024, Hurricane Helene dumped 14 inches of rain on North Carolina, triggering flash floods and killing more than 100 people. Why are these floods on the rise around the world-even in places thousands of feet above sea level?
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