Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2012 i National Geographic Magazine

It’s practically a given among photographers that bad weather makes a better picture. it adds mood, nuance, and sometimes, mystery. in the case of the 3,200-year-old, 247-foot-tall sequoia known as the president—the centerpiece of our cover story on giant sequoias—it also added challenges and a few headaches. The stakes were raised. Nick planned to shoot in a blizzard. The image of the snow-covered sequoia is a cousin of the photo of a 300-foot-high redwood tree on the foldout poster we ran in our october 2009 issue. it’s a testimony to the passion of Michael (nick) nichols, who made both images, that no sooner had he finished photographing the redwood than he started wondering, What next? We wanted a different look this time, and the sequoia provided the platform. the stakes…

This page features two photographs: one chosen by our editors and one chosen by our readers via online voting. For more information, go to ngm.com/yourshot. EDITORS’ CHOICE Li Xin Beijing, China One summer evening Li was snapping shots of clouds from his Beijing rooftop when lightning (at center left) lit up this towering thunderhead. The effect, says the 31-year-old photojournalist, reminded him of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion. READERS’ CHOICE Lisa Franceski Glen Cove, New York Ever mindful not to disturb baby birds, Franceski crawled through goose poop to photograph this flapping gosling at a pond on Long Island, New York. “I couldn’t stop laughing,” says the registered nurse, 48. “It looked like a football referee calling, Touchdown!” National Geographic Photography Contest Winning Photos More than 20,000 images…

The face of plastic surgery is changing. Once a purely surgical specialty, the field’s morphed with the advent of neurotoxins, tissue fillers, and laser treatments over the past 20 years. Patients—mostly women—are now turning more to nonsurgical options for nips and tucks. By one estimate, these make up 82 percent of cosmetic procedures in the U.S. The quest for beauty is universal, but tastes can vary. Brazilians favor buttock enhancements; Americans tend to seek bigger breast increases than Brazilians, says Renato Saltz, vice president of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Cultural preferences lead surgery innovations too: facial work in the U.S., rhinoplasty techniques in parts of the Middle East. The U.S. and Brazil top the world in plastic surgeons and procedures, says Saltz, with Asia’s numbers expected to…

FLUID PARKING RATES A popular place, like Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, can involve parking headaches. To make spots available at peak times, the city is testing variable parking rates. Prime spots and busier periods mean higher prices. The hunt for street parking in busy cities is enough to drive motorists around the bend. Nonstop circling isn’t just a drag for drivers—it’s a drag on cities. Donald Shoup, a UCLA professor hailed as the “prophet of parking,” estimates that a third of traffic on congested downtown streets involves drivers seeking spots. San Francisco is taking aim with a pilot program that prices parking based on demand. Sensors in 7,000 of the city’s parking spaces provide data for mobile apps that alert drivers when spaces are open. Meanwhile, prices around local…

This past summer capped the hottest 12-month period on the books in the mainland United States. According to the National Climatic Data Center, it was also part of an unprecedented 15-month stretch (as of August) of above-average temperatures that began in June 2011, surpassing even the scorching Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. Last year’s abnormally mild winter was one reason for the spate of records. Another was a brutal July 2012, which set a new mark as the hottest month (77.6oF average) since recordkeeping began in 1895. Don’t bet on the trend ending anytime soon: NOAA scientists predict the northern U.S. will remain warmer than usual into 2013.…

A slender, 250-mile-long corridor on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada is the giant sequoia’s only natural habitat. No tree surpasses it in volume of wood. Fortunately, logging proved impractical, and in 1890 many of the titans gained protection with the creation of Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. NORTHERN LIMIT Only six giant sequoias form this isolated old-growth grove. SEQUOIA SWEET SPOT Conditions that suit the tree’s growth and reproduction exist in a narrow elevation range. The Sierra’s eastern slope is too dry for sequoias, which need rain and the deep moisture of heavy snowmelt. GROVE DISTRIBUTION All but 8 of the 67 identified sequoia groves lie south of the Kings River. These southern groves usually hold more—and larger—trees. CATHEDRAL OF TREES The Giant Forest, a grove in Sequoia…

BURN NATURAL GAS AND IT WARMS YOUR HOUSE. BUT LET IT LEAK, FROM FRACKED WELLS OR THE MELTING ARCTIC, AND IT WARMS THE WHOLE PLANET. Out on the lake Katey Walter Anthony stares at the black ice beneath her feet and at the white bubbles trapped inside it. Large and small, in layer upon layer, they spread out in every direction, like stars in the night sky. Walter Anthony, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, grabs a heavy ice pick and wraps the rope handle around her wrist. A graduate student holds a lighted match above a large bubble; Walter Anthony plunges the pick into it. Gas rushing from the hole ignites with a whoomp that staggers her. “My job’s the worst, because usually you catch on fire,”…

Every month this page features our staff picks of National Geographic Society products and events. For more go to nglive.org. Big Cat Week is back this month on Nat Geo WILD. Witness what life is like for the world’s fastest land mammal: the cheetah. A young mother and her cubs (left) take the spotlight as they struggle to survive among enemies. Watch her nurture and protect her brood while simulta neously transforming them from roly-poly kittens into menacing hunters. EXHIBIT INDIANA JONES Uncover the science behind modern archaeology and peruse artifacts and movie props—including the golden idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark (left)—in this interactive exhibit. Catch Indy at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, California, through April 21. Go to discoverycube.org for ticket information. LECTURE BIRDS OF…

The Oglala used to thrive in that country because it gave them the richness of the prairie. They lived where the buffalo lived, and the buffalo gave them food, robes, a fierce and exciting occupation, and a spiritual connection to the land. Others killed off almost all the buffalo and with their guns squeezed the people into a small corner of the buffalo range. The land was amputated and the heart torn out. Now the people live on the body of a corpse. How can we restore the spirit of the buffalo? Perhaps we should restore the buffalo. CHRIS TOLKING Sherborn, Massachusetts Alexandra Fuller’s article contains several quotes from Native Americans but omits what is probably the most evocative of all said in relation to their relationship with the whites.…

Toby Smith Dozens of power stations dot the English countryside. Like many people who live here, I find them oddly beautiful: architecturally alluring icons of our past that burn fossil fuels, polluting the present. Since 2008 I’ve explored that double layer of symbolism by photographing them at night, using large format and long exposures to show the ceaseless production occurring on the fringes of our landscape—and consciousness. Before this series I was fishing for a timely topic that would clarify things for me as an artist. I’ve found it here, as well as a personal confluence. For instance, I used to do recon work in an infantry regiment; while I never trespass to get a shot, I did draw on that experience to scout locations. And I used to study…

The average life expectancy of a child born in Japan is almost double that of one born in Afghanistan. Big cats need room to roam. In the case of jaguars that’s a stretch from Mexico to Argentina, and human development is getting in their way. Conservationists can usher them across highways with underpasses, but the jaguars balk at crossing the cultivated fields that have replaced their natural cover—especially soy, corn, and oil palm crops in Colombia’s Magdalena River Valley. The farms are massive, with no way around besides the prohibitively high Andes. The first camera-trap photos of a mother and cubs (above) in one sprawling oil palm plantation indicate hope for range preservation for the next generation. Females signal not just quick passage but a stay for reproduction, says Panthera’s…

In Nara, Japan, a 122-foot-tall wooden pagoda has stood for more than 1,300 years. Very few modern structures like it exist, largely due to fire-safety concerns and building codes that limit the height of timber struc tures. Canadian architect Michael Green aims to change that with a proposed wooden skyscraper up to 30 stories high in Vancouver. He explains that giant panels of laminated wood known as mass timber are more fire-resistant than typical two-by-fours, just as logs are harder to ignite than kindling. The bigger advantage? The produc tion of concrete and steel emits high levels of carbon dioxide, whereas wooden buildings store carbon that would otherwise be released when trees decay or burn. London already has a nine-story mass-timber apartment building, and a 16-story wooden skyscraper is slated…

Where does all that partially used hotel soap and shampoo go after guests leave? Traditionally it went in the trash, but now millions of bars and bottles go to Clean the World, a nonprofit that recycles and redistributes the products globally. The goal: to fend off pneumonia and diarrheal diseases. The leftover bars are melted and sterilized, then pressed into new, fresh cakes. More than 1,600 North American hotels participate in the program, which includes delivery to poor communities—with a side of education. Kids are taught to sing songs, including a Spanish one with the refrain “Wash your hands, healthy children. Wash your hands.”…

FOR AS LONG AS THEY WORKED IN THE SMUGGLING TUNNELS BENEATH THE GAZA STRIP, SAMIR AND HIS BROTHER YUSSEF SUSPECTED THEY MIGHT ONE DAY DIE IN THEM. When Yussef did die, on a cold night in 2011, his end came much as they’d imagined it might, under a crushing hail of earth. It was about 9 p.m., and the brothers were on a night shift doing maintenance on the tunnel, which, like many of its kind—and there are hundreds stretching between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula—was lethally shoddy in its construction. Nearly a hundred feet below Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, Samir was working close to the entrance, while Yussef and two co-workers, Kareem and Khamis, were near the middle of the tunnel. They were trying to wedge a piece of…

Nergui stood in the center of the room, swaying from side to side, chanting, “Great sky, please come here.” His eyes were closed, and he gripped a cluster of multicolored cloth strips. His voice was rough and the melody repetitive, like an ancient ballad: “Oh, great blue sky, which is my blanket, come to me.” Nergui is a boo, as Mongolians call male shamans. He believes himself to be an intermediary between the visible world and the hidden world of spirits and gods. Mystical figures like him are reviving old traditions throughout Mongolia, Central Asia, and Siberia and finding a receptive audience for their charismatic rituals. After meditation and chants Nergui moved into a trance, the moment when the spirit from the invisible realm would be free to enter his…

Ground observers marvel at the courtship dance of the Wahnes’s parotia, a bird of paradise. For some 30 seconds, the male shakes his head and pushes his feathers out to form a “tutu” in the New Guinea rain forest. Photographer Tim Laman and ornithologist Edwin Scholes, out to document all 39 species, won dered, What does the female see from her overhanging branch? To find out, Laman rigged a tree with a laptop-controlled camera to re cord video as he and Scholes watched, hidden in a blind. See the Wahnes’s parotia dance on the iPad/Kindle Fire BEHIND THE LENS How does this dance look to the lady bird? TL: It’s incredible how different it looks from above. You just see a black oval instead of a ballerina with a tutu…

Afghanistan Overnight snowfall slows the pace of a Monday-morning commute in residential Kabul. The street is lined with flags heralding the opening of the Afghan parliament. Russia Rosy from the bitter cold, the children of reindeer herders pause during play on the windswept tundra of Russia’s Yamal Peninsula. Their coats, called malitsas, are sewn from reindeer hide, with the fur facing inward. United Kingdom A merlin turns momentarily from the snipe in its grip after an attack on moorland near Whitby, in northern England. The raptor eats small birds, along with occasional mammals and insects.…

SKYCAST Overhead this month in parts of the world December 13-14 Geminid meteor shower December 21-22 Ursid meteor shower Before they even had pots to cook it in, ancient Peruvians knew the joys of eating popcorn. So says a team of scientists who have found fossilized cobs, husks, stalks, and tassels dating back 6,700 years —ahead of the arrival of ceramics—along the northern coast of Peru. The remains, the oldest ever identified in South America, help put the now ubiquitous crop’s chronology in order. According to study co-author Tom Dillehay, the findings place maize in the area 2,000 years earlier than previous discoveries had indicated. So how did these people pop kernels without cookware? Burned cobs suggest they used heated stones (which were also found with scorch marks). As to…

Botanists say it’s a fruit; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it a vegetable. One thing’s certain: The tomato has about 7,000 more genes than a person. Surprising? Not to the USDA’s Jim Giovannoni, who helped lead the newly completed sequencing of the tomato genome. Big genomes allow immobile plants to tolerate genetic changes that can spur new ways of coping with adversity, he explains. Decoding the tomato makes breeding easier—and it revealed a 92 percent genomic match with the potato.…

Explorers-in-residence Enric Sala and Mike Fay are tag teaming in the name of the unprotected oceans. Sala dives and documents, while naturalist Fay walks islands and atolls to assess connections between locals on land and the surrounding seas. the combined data help the duo propose sanctuaries sustainable for people and ocean life under the pristine Seas project. In 2012, pristine Seas and partner pew Environment Group started a process of protecting the 200 miles around the pitcairn islands. at up to 320,000 square miles, it would be one of the world’s largest marine reserves, include at least eight new species of fish, and maybe change the way oceans are understood. “Most studies focus on wrecked seas,” Sala says. “places like the pitcairns show us how oceans can be.” Middle-size predators…

On a gentle slope above a trail junction in Sequoia National Park, about 7,000 feet above sea level in the southern Sierra Nevada, looms a very big tree. Its trunk is rusty red, thickened with deep layers of furrowed bark, and 27 feet in diameter at the base. Its footprint would cover your dining room. Trying to glimpse its tippy top, or craning to see the shape of its crown, could give you a sore neck. That is, this tree is so big you can scarcely look at it all. It has a name, the President, bestowed about 90 years ago by admiring humans. It’s a giant sequoia, a member of Sequoiadendron giganteum, one of several surviving species of redwoods. It’s not quite the largest tree on Earth. It’s the…

In New Guinea kangaroos climb trees, and butterflies the size of Frisbees dart through rain forests where egg-laying mammals scuttle across the muck. Frogs sport noses like Cyrano’s, and the rivers are full of rainbow fish. Yet none of New Guinea’s wild wonders have fascinated scientists as deeply as the creatures that 19th-century naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace called “the most extraordinary and the most beautiful of the feathered inhabitants of the earth”: the birds of paradise. The 39 species are found only in New Guinea and a few nearby areas, and despite decades of exploration and research, no one had ever succeeded in seeing them all—until now. In 2003 Cornell ornithologist Edwin Scholes and Tim Laman, a biologist and photographer, began planning a quest to document every species of the…

when signs of a lost world at the bottom of the North Sea first began to appear, no one wanted to believe them. The evidence started to surface a century and a half ago, when fishermen along the Dutch coast widely adopt ed a technique called beam trawling. They dragged weighted nets across the seafloor and hoisted them up full of sole, plaice, and other bottom fish. But sometimes an enormous tusk would spill out and clatter onto the deck, or the remains of an aurochs, woolly rhino, or other extinct beast. The fishermen were disturbed by these hints that things were not always as they are. What they could not explain, they threw back into the sea. Generations later a resourceful amateur paleontologist named Dick Mol persuaded the fishermen…

“In the scenic heart of the Sequoia National Park,” noted the January 1917 National Geographic, “the only section of the magnificent 160,000-acre playground … accessible to motor-driven and horse-drawn vehicles, stands a group of trees, the [Sequoiadendron giganteum], known as the Giant Forest.” Acquired by the magazine eight months later, this photo captured a camping party taking full advantage of that access, using a toppled giant as both picnic spot and parking space. The park was just 26 years old at the time, and some sections weren’t totally worked out. The U.S. Department of the Interior had secured a six-month option on the sequoias still in private hands in 1916 and allocated $50,000 for the purchase, but hadn’t included the price of adjacent property needed to complete the transaction. The…