Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2018 i National Geographic Magazine - UK

‘IF YOU STRIP AWAY YOUR PRECONCEPTIONS, IT’S A FAR MORE HONEST WAY OF CONVEYING WHAT PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY LIKE.’ One of the most challenging aspects of storytelling at National Geographic is introducing our readers to people and cultures they’ve never seen before. It’s a beautiful part of our 130-year history but also an ethical minefield: What’s our responsibility in telling the stories of those who, at least outwardly, seem so different from us? How do we cover cultures sensitively, without “exoticizing” or romanticizing what’s natural for them? This month’s cover story, on grave threats to the indigenous people who live in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, brings this subject into high relief. Our photographer, Charlie Hamilton James, spent a month with indigenous groups such as the Awá and Guajajara people;…

BRAINS ARE in short supply. Neuroscientists need brain tissue of all types to study the diseases that affect more than 15 percent of people in the world. Enter Tish Hevel. In 2015, after Hevel’s father died from Lewy body dementia, her family wanted to offer his brain for research—but knew that it would take much more than an organ donor card. The experience inspired Hevel to create the Brain Donor Project “to raise awareness of the critical need” and make enrolling easier for would-be donors. Nearly two years in, more than 2,000 people have signed up. MEDICINE Busting Myths About Donating Your Brain The organization that Tish Hevel created—online at braindonorproject.org—aims to simplify “the process of donating postmortem human brains for research,” she says, and dispel misconceptions about it. Here’s…

Moon jellies, which are found in shallow bays around the world, look like small, not entirely friendly ghosts. They have translucent bells fringed with pale tentacles, and as they pulse along, it almost seems as if the water itself has come alive. At the National Aquarium in Baltimore, when visitors are invited to touch moon jellies, their first reaction is usually fear. Assured the jellies won’t hurt them, the visitors roll up their sleeves and hesitantly reach into the tank. “They’re squishy!” I hear one boy squeal. “They’re cool!” a girl exclaims. “I think they’re just mesmerizing,” Jennie Janssen, the assistant curator who oversees the care of the aquarium’s jellyfish, tells me. “They don’t have a brain, and yet they’re able to survive— to thrive—generation after generation.” Scary, squishy, cool,…

‘IF WE IGNORE THESE ISSUES, THEY WON’T GO AWAY. THEY’RE REAL, AND THEY’RE HAPPENING AROUND US RIGHT NOW.’ Less than two hours after I set out to photograph the wild ponies of the Welsh Carneddau mountains for this issue’s “Proof,” the farmer acting as my guide received a phone call that could change his way of life forever. His family have monitored, managed, and protected these ponies for centuries, but the news he received about agricultural funding cuts proposed by the Welsh government could have a catastrophic impact on his profession and on the ponies that roam these remote peaks. Vital income subsidies may be replaced by rewards for meeting land-management targets, such as the production of food or timber. With the wild and rugged nature of the area’s terrain,…

YOU WOULD ALMOST have to be nuts to be filled with hope in a world so rife with hunger, hatred, climate change, pollution, and pestilence, let alone the self-destructive or severely annoying behavior of certain people, both famous and just down the hall, none of whom we will name by name. Yet I have boundless hope, most of the time. Hope is a sometimes cranky optimism, trust, and confidence that those I love will be OK—that they will come through, whatever life holds in store. Hope is the belief that no matter how dire things look or how long rescue or healing takes, modern science in tandem with people’s goodness and caring will boggle our minds, in the best way. Hope is (for me) not usually the religious-looking fingers of…

AIR POLLUTION KILLS seven million people a year. Two of the chief contributors are lax vehicle emissions standards and traditional cooking methods, according to the findings of a recent World Health Organization analysis of air quality data from more than 4,300 cities in 108 countries. More than 90 percent of the deaths occur in low- and moderate-income countries where families are more likely to cook with charcoal and kerosene. These materials release pollutants into the air that can cause heart disease, lung cancer, and other health issues. Urban population growth compounds the problem: Air quality in many of the world’s megacities is five times worse than what WHO recommends. But the organization sees signs of hope in some nations, such as India and Mexico, that are initiating clean energy efforts…

Mexican Americans have long been one of the largest ethnic groups in the city, which is now nearly half Hispanic. The community is concentrated in two areas divided by a strip of non-Hispanic white neighborhoods. Coastal areas from Pacific Palisades to Palos Verdes Estates are mostly non-Hispanic white and affluent. Historically black south-central L.A. has become more mixed, shared with the growing Hispanic population. The thriving Koreatown, Little Tokyo, and Chinatown also illustrate L.A.’s multiculturalism.…

Blacks arriving from the South in the early 20th century’s great migration found affordable housing in neighborhoods such as the South Side, once home to immigrants from European countries like Ireland, Italy, and Poland. What became historically black neighborhoods after the great migration remain black today, despite a 19 percent drop in Chicago’s black population since 2000, largely from gentrification. Hispanic and white populations are increasing, but the Chinese population is growing the fastest, especially in Chicago’s vibrant Chinatown, where nearly 65 percent of residents are foreign-born.…

Mary McCartney: Tell us about your support of the Ahimsa Dairy Foundation and how it aligns with your values. Chrissie Hynde: The word ahimsa comes from Indian Vedic culture, and that’s where this whole cow protection thing comes from. There are four principles: never kill cows, milk cows by hand, give oxen meaningful work, and cows must suckle from their mothers. These are all followed by the Ahimsa Dairy Foundation, based in Rutland. Industrial farming is the reason that I—and the vegan and animal-rights communities—have rejected animal products. Big business and corporations have pushed small farmers off their land, and now there’s no alternative to industrial farming. How do you reach a larger audience to let them know that alternatives such as ahimsa milk exist? People want ahimsa milk, but…

On any day, in any place, we can find opportunities to work for good and create hope. National Public Lands Day, September 22, enlists help restoring parks and other sites. Last year, volunteers made $18 million in improvements at 2,600 sites. neefusa.org/npld Food Rescue US helps businesses that have too much food give to people who have too little, via food delivery volunteers. foodrescue.us The EarthEcho Water Challenge equips people to protect local water sources by doing basic monitoring. worldwatermonitoringday.org Be The Match helps patients with blood cancers like leukemia find a marrow donor and receive a transplant; find dates for its Walk+Run fund-raisers at bethematch.org.…

Her mission: preserve an endangered ecosystem in rural Panama. The key: community outreach. Ruth Metzel may have figured out a way to save a critically endangered ecosystem: build relationships with the people who live there. For a decade the ecologist has studied tropical dry forests in Panama’s rural Los Santos Province. There, intensive cattle farming reflects the threat to the forests countrywide. Many farmers, proud of their traditions yet aware that land-use techniques need to change, are eager to do something about it. Metzel co-founded Azuero Earth Project as a way to guide those who lean most heavily on the forest ecosystem toward living more harmoniously with it. “The key,” she says, “is to reach people where they’re at.” Azuero works with cattle ranchers to identify exactly which trees—native and…

FLEXING MUSCLES Muscles behind the iris squeeze and stretch the lens to focus light from the center of the eye’s gaze onto a pit in the retina called the fovea. RETINA STIMULATION Focused light stimulates the retina’s photoreceptors, called cones and rods, sending signals to the optic nerve and into the brain, creating an image. OPTICAL OVERLAP If two pixels are close to the eye, the retina sends two signals for the brain to interpret. Farther away, two pixels prompt one signal. SHORT FOR “PICTURE ELEMENT,” a pixel is one of many tiny, illuminated squares on a digital display. A smartphone screen contains thousands of pixels, so densely packed that they seem to disappear inside a smooth, vivid image. But packing pixels is necessary only for up-close viewing. A digital…

No ethnic or racial group constitutes a majority in Houston, making it the most diverse of the largest U.S. metropolises. Its metamorphosis into a major urban center happened quickly. It has nearly doubled in population since 1990, and 93 percent of newcomers are nonwhite or Hispanic. Loose zoning laws have kept rising land values in check, but a legacy of segregation still haunts Houston. Patterns of failing schools, environmental hazards, and substandard infrastructure remain in many of its historically nonwhite neighborhoods.…

The four major racial and ethnic groups each make up at least 10 percent of the populace but are mainly segregated in the city’s five boroughs. Black communities in eastern Brooklyn and Queens continue to shrink as they migrate toward the South to look for more affordable housing. Non-Hispanic whites make up the largest share of the population in Manhattan and Staten Island. The Hispanic population has boomed, especially in the Bronx, where that ethnicity represents 52 percent of the populace. The city is also now home to more than a million Asians of varied heritage; they’re one of every eight New Yorkers.…

WHO Bui Quoc Ky Kynhong, 41, an artist and photographer in Vietnam WHERE Vietnam’s Moc Chau tea-growing region WHAT A Phantom 4 Pro drone with focal length 8.8mm In the famous tea-growing region of northwestern Vietnam, workers harvest green tea in the spring and summer. Bui, who was visiting the area, flew a drone overhead to capture the pickers at work. The leaves they gathered would be shipped to markets around the world. He arrived early each morning in search of the best compositions. But he often had to wait until afternoon—and work around the pickers’ rest breaks—to catch the light just as he wanted it. Join National Geographic’s Your Shot community and share your photos at YourShot.ngm.com.…