Word: smithsonian
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Twenty years ago, it was simple enough to define an architectural landmark. American beauties like Monticello, the Smithsonian Institution "Castle" and Grand Central Terminal came to mind. These days, however, the definitions are becoming a little trickier -- and a little tackier. Supermarkets, drive-ins, car washes, neon signs and other exuberant examples of Pop architecture, mostly from the 1950s, are being touted for preservation, and some have already been set aside as historic landmarks by local and state agencies. "Many of the things that were taken for granted in the 19th century -- factories, mills, neighborhoods -- people now want to save...
...astronomy's ignorance is rapidly being dispelled, thanks in large part to two researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Since 1985, Margaret Geller and John Huchra have been meticulously crafting a three-dimensional map that charts the positions of thousands of galaxies. Last week, in the journal Science, they presented their latest map of one small chunk of the visible universe, and the findings are startling...
Huchra, who made the telescopic observations for the Harvard-Smithsonian team, used an instrument called a spectrograph to break down each galaxy's light into its constituent colors. Within the spectrum he could see lines representing various elements in and around the galaxy's stars. These lines appear to be shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, depending on how fast the galaxy is moving and thus how far away from earth it is. By carefully measuring the degree of red shift, Huchra and Geller calculated the relative positions of the galaxies...
...astronomers at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics--Professor of Astronomy Margaret Geller and Professor of Astronomy John Huchra--recently announced their discovery of a "Great Wall" of galaxies numbering about...
...Smithsonian article touched on a perpetual bane for its students: Harvard loneliness...