Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2017 i National Geographic Magazine

About one million American women become widowed each year. For many of us who have been there, it was a singular, searing experience. But we are the lucky ones: In many parts of the world, losing one’s husband is about much more than coping with grief, loneliness, or financial upheaval. A husband’s death may plunge a woman into a state of widowhood—enforced by cultural, social, or legal bonds—she cannot leave. Widows are cast out. Their possessions, their land, and even their children can be taken from them. Photographer Amy Toensing, with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, has publicized widows’ plight since she first shot the story in India in 2005. For this article we sent Toensing and writer Cynthia Gorney back to India, as well as…

Social media is an endless feed of food— drawings in cappuccino foam, artfully staged overstuffed hamburgers. This #foodporn craze has surprisingly refined origins—even the old masters partook in the artistic tradition. In a 2016 study called “Food Art Does Not Reflect Reality,” researchers from Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab analyzed American and European paintings of family meals between the years 1500 and 2000. The study compared how frequently a food item was depicted in art with how commonly it was consumed. Shellfish, for instance, appeared in a fifth of German paintings, despite the country’s minuscule coastline. Rare delicacies—lobster, artichokes, hazelnuts, and lemons—were particularly popular. This art, they discovered, was used more to flaunt wealth or talent than to display the food actually eaten. Foodscapes faded in the 20th century…

Of all the substances on Earth, very few can make the rich, soulful red you see on this page. It’s the red of lipstick and cheek blush, berry-flavored yogurt, juices, imitation crab, and, until the ingredient was dropped in 2012, Starbucks’ strawberry smoothies. The compound that makes this red helps explain why the chain’s customers recoiled: It’s pulverized insects. For the National Geographic web series Ingredients, chemist George Zaidan studies what’s inside the food we eat and the items we commonly use. The powder above, extract of cochineal, tends to come up a lot. The cochineal bugs—a species of scale insect—are a centuries-old colorant. In the 19th century, chemists figured out how to make a synthetic alternative. But 21st-century consumers insist on ingredients that are “natural”—which means the bugs are…

1. RETURNING TO LIFE Vrindavan, India Long before sunrise the widows of Vrindavan hurried along dark, unpaved alleys, trying to sidestep mud puddles and fresh cow dung. There’s a certain broken sidewalk on which volunteers set out a big propane burner every morning and brew a bathtub-size vat of tea. The widows know they must arrive very early, taking their place on rag mats, lifting their sari hems from the dirt, resting elbows on their knees as they wait. If they come too late, the tea might be gone. Or the puffed rice might be running out at the next charity’s spot, many alleys away. “I can’t rush in the morning—I’m not well,” a widow complained. “But we have to rush. You don’t know what you will miss.” It was…

Food for thought: How does one ingredient become linked to one place? That’s one question artists Henry Hargreaves and Caitlin Levin had in mind when they hatched their “food map” series—a collection of country and continent maps made using ingredients synonymous with those regions. Think India rendered in spices, New Zealand in kiwifruit, South America in citrus. In some of these cases and in many others around the globe, the foods most commonly associated with a place aren’t actually native to that spot. Tomatoes, for example, come from South America, yet today they’re an integral part of Italian cuisine. That association began before 1548, says Peter Raven, president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, when “the first written account of a tomato outside of the Americas was documented—in Tuscany.” For…

CORTES BANK 110 MILES WEST OF SAN DIEGO | PACIFIC OCEAN One hundred miles northeast of Boston Harbor, a half dozen endangered sei whales lunge and roll, sleek white bellies flashing in the gray North Atlantic. At the top of each lunge, they throw open tremendous, beaklike maws to strain masses of tiny copepods from the water, which gushes down the sides of their pleated throats. Off the port side of the Plan b, an expedition ship operated by philanthropist Ted Waitt, a school of herring chases the same crustaceans, roiling the surface. Meanwhile, on a rocky ledge 50 feet below, scientists from the ship watch pollacks, cod, and cunners feed among long ribbons of golden kelp. Cashes Ledge is the highest undersea mountain in the Gulf of Maine—and a…

‘She’s very close,” Germán Garrote whispers, pointing to a handheld receiver picking up Helena’s signal. Somewhere in this olive grove beside a busy highway in southern Spain, the Iberian lynx and her two cubs are probably watching us. If it weren’t for her radio collar, we’d never know that one of the world’s rarest cats is crouching among the neat rows of trees. At five years old Helena has learned to meld invisibly into the human landscape, even hiding with her newborns in a vacant house during a raucous Holy Week fiesta. “Ten years ago we couldn’t imagine the lynx would be breeding in a habitat like this,” says Garrote, a biologist with the Life+Iberlince project, a government-led group of more than 20 organizations working to bring the spotted predator…

Order prints of select National Geographic photos online at NationalGeographicArt.com. CHALLENGE: #YOURPLATE We want to see your memorable food experiences. The photos will continue to be featured in National Geographic’s ongoing food initiative. Brenda Snape Aurora, Ontario After receiving her weekly box of local farm produce, Snape saw a photo opportunity in the vivid colors. She sliced the cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, and leafy vegetables, then arranged them on her light table. She took 38 shots before she prepared the items for their next role: dinner.…

Citrus, in many ways, stands alone. So many cultivated species have come from just three primary ancestors: citrons, pomelos, and mandarins, all native to South and East Asia. These three, plus a few other minor parents, have the rare genetic combination of being sexually compatible and highly prone to mutation. Such traits allow their genes to mix—both on their own and at the hands of humans. The product of so much natural crossing in the wild and selective breeding at research farms and in fields is every orange, lemon, lime, and grapefruit you’ve ever eaten. No other fruit genus can boast such an intricate pedigree, and new research is bringing clarity to its origin. Grapefruits are a human discovery, less than 300 years old. But citrus itself is ancient. Fossilized…

The man who has protected more of the sea than anyone in history is entirely at ease in it. You see that right away. In September, just months before he was set to leave the White House, President Barack Obama slipped into the middle of the Pacific Ocean wearing only fins, trunks, a mask, and a snorkel. The sun shimmered on Midway Islands, a remote speck of reef halfway between California and China. A rainbow of colors from shallow mounds of coral rippled in the clear water. The sea’s usual constituents were there— algae-munching surgeonfish, spectacled parrotfish, jacks, urchins. That morning Obama had arrived on Midway’s Sand Island to show off Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which his administration had just transformed into the world’s largest protected area at the time,…

Noble savages, lost cities, pristine wilderness— Amazonia has always conjured romantic myths and stereotypes. But what is the jungle really like in the 21st century? In 2011 I set out to find the answer. My interest actually began in 2008, when I was working with an indigenous community to reforest a patch of northeastern Brazil. The youngsters in the village liked to talk about the purity of tribal life, but it was a borrowed nostalgia. Like most kids their age, they danced, drank, and played soccer. One evening they refused to take me to a party; I wasn’t dressed well enough. At that moment I realized how much our perceptions and projections can differ from reality. After that I started to read books about Amazonia. One of them was an…