Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2019 i National Geographic Magazine - UK

NAT GEO TV Scientists Confront a Lethal Foe in The Hot Zone Richard Preston’s best-selling book The Hot Zone tells the story of the origins of the deadly Ebola virus in the central African rainforest and its arrival on U.S. soil in 1989. Now the book is a television miniseries in which Nancy Jaax, the heroic U.S. Army scientist who helped prevent the virus’s spread, is played by Julianna Margulies (above, at right). The six-part series will air two episodes a night starting at 9/8c, on May 27, 28, and 29 on National Geographic. TELEVISION This Is Not Your High School’s Science Fair Each year 1,700 teen scientists are invited to compete in the International Science and Engineering Fair, where more than four million dollars in scholarships and awards are…

SCIENCE IS getting a boost in China. Research funding is second only to that of the United States, and the largesse is bearing fruit: The number of papers that Chinese scientists published in major journals rose 17 percent from 2016 to 2018. REVERSING THE BRAIN DRAIN In 2013 nine out of 10 Chinese students were still in the U.S. five years after earning Ph.D.’s. In 2017 more than 480,000 scholars in advanced studies abroad returned to China. The world’s largest research institution is backed by the Chinese government. The Chinese Academy of Sciences consists of 60,000 scientists in 114 institutions and maintains most of the country’s big science facilities. * FRENCH NATIONAL CENTER FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH † HELMHOLTZ ASSOCIATION OF GERMAN RESEARCH CENTERS ‡ SWISS FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ZURICH…

WASHINGTON’S MOUNT RAINIER boasts the largest collection of glaciers on a single peak in the contiguous United States. But those glaciers have lost approximately 18 percent of their volume since 1970. The most substantial thinning is occurring on south-facing glaciers and at elevations below 6,562 feet (2,000 meters). During extreme weather this could set the stage for massive floods and debris flows in the park and surrounding areas. Climate Change Sensitive to temperature and precipitation, mountain glaciers conspicuously reflect the effects of climate change. Their retreat is a sign that the Earth’s climate is warming. Thinning Ice By examining changes in elevation over time, scientists can determine ice loss or gains. Heavy snowfall on Rainier continues to feed the glaciers, but across the mountain, glaciers are declining. Shrinking Cascades Glaciers…

PLANET OR PLASTIC? Not long ago I went snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean, a half mile off the southwest coast of Oahu. The flanks of the Hawaiian island are steep there, and the bottom quickly disappeared beneath us as we motored out to the site. Looking back, I could see the green slopes of the Waianae Range rising to 4,000 feet behind the beach. Normally the mountains shield the water here from the trade winds. But on that day a breeze created a light chop that nearly obscured what I had come to see: a thin, oily slick of surface water, rich in organic particles, in which newborn fish were feeding and struggling to survive their first precarious weeks. Plunging my face into the sheen, I found myself looking inside…

THERE’S THE PLASTIC waste we can see—bottles, bags, discarded fishing nets, and all manner of other objects littering shorelines and bobbing in oceans. And then there’s the plastic waste we can’t see: microplastics, whittled by sun, wind, and waves into bits so small that some are visible only under a microscope. Scientists are just beginning to understand the impact these particles are having on fish, the food chain, and ultimately, us. For this month’s story about microplastics—part of National Geographic’s #PlanetOrPlastic initiative to reduce plastic waste—photographer David Liittschwager documented the ubiquity of plastics in ocean water samples. Writer Laura Parker’s reporting took her to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab in Honolulu, where oceanographer Jamison Gove and fish biologist Jonathan Whitney study microplastics in the slicks where larval fish…

THE DISCOVERIES OF TODAY THAT WILL DEFINE THE WORLD OF TOMORROW NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 234 NO. 5 THROUGHOUT HISTORY, PEOPLE have devised elaborate ways to memorialize the dead: the pyramids of Egypt, Europe’s Gothic mausoleums, the Taj Mahal in India. What some mourners consider meaningful, others would call macabre. In 19th-century Europe and America, “death photography” produced portraits of the departed in lifelike poses; in the Tibetan Buddhist rite known as sky burial or bya gtor (alms for the birds), earthly remains are set out to feed vultures. Notions about honoring the dead are shaped by many factors—culture, tradition, geography, religion. But the notion is one thing, and the execution is another. In every era, it’s the available technology that determines our range of memorial options. The intersections of death…

IN THE 25 YEARS since my book The Hot Zone traced the emergence of extremely lethal viruses, one of them has proved to be the most destructive: Ebola. At this writing, Ebola has killed hundreds in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the second largest outbreak since the virus was identified in 1976. The largest—from 2014 to 2016 in three West African nations—resulted in almost 30,000 cases, nearly half of them fatal. Fierce international efforts helped quell Ebola that time, but there are no assurances that the virus (below) has ended its assaults on the human species. Ebola is hard to arrest for many complicated reasons (right). But scientists keep trying—and what they learn will equip us to face this virus, and possibly worse, in the future. Why is…

WHO Bell, a market research director in Washington, D.C. WHERE The annual Montgomery County Agricultural Fair in Gaithersburg, Maryland WHAT A Fujifilm X100F camera Bell and her husband wanted to introduce their young daughter to the magic of a county fair. The toddler loved the games, the lights, and the food, including her first taste of a deep-fried Snickers, at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair near Washington, D.C. Throughout the day, Bell returned to the same spot to photograph the rides and signs in different light. Before leaving the fair, she pointed her camera one last time at the silhouettes of people on swings—and captured this scene as one rider stretched out his arms. Join National Geographic’s Your Shot community and share your photos at YourShot.ngm.com.…

Memorial diamonds are just one of many contemporary options for processing cremation ashes. Long live rock! A British company will press your loved one’s ashes into a custom-made vinyl record. Puns provided at no extra cost: The company’s name is And Vinyly (say it aloud). Under the sea: Ocean lovers may want to make their afterlife plans with a Florida company that incorporates cremains into artificial reefs and marine habitats. Space oddity: A Houston-based business has partnered with commercial spaceflight companies to send ashes into orbit, to the moon, or even into deep space. Heads up, though: The prices are, yes, astronomical.…

THIS IS EXILIEN CENAT. He is a bayakou, the Haitian term for laborers who empty latrines. I took his photo while he was cleaning out a pit toilet that served several families in Port-au-Prince. Despite the unpleasantness of his job, Exilien represents a solution—a crude one—to the deadly problem of poor sanitation. I’d been assigned to photograph a National Geographic story on open defecation, a subject that didn’t disturb me too much. I’ve covered wars and conflicts in places where sanitation is not a priority. The difficulty, I thought, would lie in making visually interesting images out of such a banal subject—something so universal that everybody does it. But following people to the bathroom, or wherever they go, is surprisingly tough. People can’t even talk about this most basic of…

TOTAL PAINTINGS 24 In a few cases, legal disputes and popular demand may have led Leonardo to create multiple versions of the same work. 5 With assistance 2 Contribution to work by Andrea del Verrocchio Unfinished Extent of Leonardo’s contributions disputed Lost ca 1473 Tobias and the Angel ca 1473-74 Annunciation ca 1475-76 Madonna and Child With a Carnation ca 1476 The Baptism of Christ ca 1476-78 Ginevra de' Benci ca 1479-1480 Madonna and Child (Benois Madonna) ca 1480-82 Saint Jerome in the Wilderness ca 1479-1481 Adoration of the Magi ca 1483-1490 Virgin of the Rocks ca 1485 Portrait of a Musician ca 1490 Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (Lady With an Ermine) ca 1495-98 The Last Supper ca 1495-1508 Virgin of the Rocks ca 1496-97 Portrait of a Lady From…