Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2021 i National Geographic Magazine - UK

ART SUPPLIES, models, tools, works in progress: This photo gives one glimpse into the studio of Senior Artist Fernando Baptista, at National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. I’m writing about Fernando’s work now because there’s so much of it in this month’s issue: The cover art for “Gladiators: Ancient Rome’s Fight Club.” Eight pages of infographics showing how these warriors fought and lived. And, for our story on southern Africa’s Kalahari, an explainer about animals’ adaptations to heat. A native of Spain, Fernando was the director of graphics at El Correo in Bilbao—a newspaper renowned for its visual journalism—when National Geographic called. “They offered me a job, and I thought, Why not?” says Fernando, who moved to the United States and joined us in 2007. His art has won every…

Going, going, gone? Corals and oceanic sharks have moved toward extinction quickly in recent decades. Birds and mammals, in comparison, have more steady population trends because of decades of conservation efforts. UNDER PRESSURE Slow growth and low reproductive output make it hard for shark and ray populations to withstand rising demand. Ocean shark catch rates have tripled since 1970—and that’s only reported catches.…

ARTIST YAYOI KUSAMA’S fantastical Mount Fuji scenes are printed on it, designer Yumi Katsura makes bridal gowns from it, and film director David Lynch creates lithographs with it. Called washi, Japanese handcrafted paper can be found in everything from umbrellas and jewelry to coronavirus-blocking face masks. But its history goes back at least 1,300 years. Traditionally used for scrolls, books, and screens, washi received UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status in 2014, based on the papermaking customs of these three places: Hamada in Shimane Prefecture, Mino in Gifu Prefecture, and Ogawa/Higashi-chichibu in Saitama Prefecture. “The designation wasn’t about washi or the people who make it—it was given to the techniques,” says Takeshi Kano, one of eight artisans qualified to create Honminoshi, Mino’s highest grade of washi. This must be “made entirely…

CHAPTER I ARLES, FRANCE THE TUNNEL UNDER THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATER in Arles, France, is dark and cool. The shade is a welcome relief from the blazing Mediterranean sun beating down on the amphitheater’s sandstrewn arena and stone bleachers. The gladiator helmet I’ve just put on, though, is stifling. A replica of the head protection worn by a Roman gladiator almost 2,000 years ago, the dented, scratched helmet weighs more than 13 pounds—three times as heavy as a football helmet, and far less comfortable. It has a tangy metallic smell, as though I’ve put my head inside a sweaty penny. Through the bronze grate covering my eyes, I can make out a pair of men in loincloths warming up for a fight. Metal armguards jingle as one bounces on the balls…

On a moonless summer night in Ecuador’s Andean foothills, a tiny bachelor glass frog sits on a leaf overhanging a stream. HE HAS CHOSEN the best real estate to try to impress a female, advertising his presence with a high-pitched call. The problem is that location alone isn’t going to cut it. The yellowish green amphibian has been watching what mated male frogs do, so when he spots an abandoned clutch of eggs, he stays next to it for hours, pretending to guard it. Then a remarkable thing happens: He begins to attract female voyeurs, who apparently are tricked into thinking he’s an experienced father. “It is the first time we report such behavior for frogs and toads,” says Anyelet Valencia-Aguilar, a behavioral ecologist at Switzerland’s University of Bern. She…

Twin silhouettes are motionless in the night. Above, a silver-veiled moon hints of a sky. Below, Earth is a darkened disk. SOUND GIVES THE NIGHT DEPTH: Common barking geckos rattle like castanets in receding waves into the shadows. The two women have been seated on a shallow dune for hours in hushed anticipation. One unfolds her legs, stretches, crosses them at the ankles. The other rocks, as if uttering a prayer mantra, limbering her muscles. Their radio-tracking gear drew them at sunset to this spot in the southern part of the Kalahari, which has long been called a desert but has characteristics of a dry savanna ecosystem. Somewhere below them in a warren of burrows is a ground pangolin they’ve been monitoring for two months. She’s late to rouse—it’s 10…

WHO A Ukrainian-born, Swiss-based photographer who specializes in animals, portraits, and architecture WHERE Kowloon Peak, a popular hiking area in Hong Kong WHAT A Canon 5D Mark 3 with a 70-200mm lens To capture a silhouette against Hong Kong’s skyline at night, Wimmerlin took a friend to Kowloon Peak, a subtropical mountain forest that overlooks the city—but they couldn’t find a suitable vantage point. The next day Wimmerlin went back alone and found a steep drop-off that provided a luminous backdrop for a model—which she became. For more than two hours she shuttled between the camera and the slope, posing perfectly still for each long exposure. She later returned looking for the exact spot but never found it. This page showcases images from National Geographic’s Instagram accounts—the most popular brand…

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC LOOKING AT THE EARTH FROM EVERY POSSIBLE ANGLE VOL. 240 NO. 2…

DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINES OF SCIENCE AND INNOVATION HUNDREDS OF DRUGS designed to fight glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain cancer, have failed in clinical trials, often because they’re stopped by specialized blood vessels known as the blood-brain barrier. So Joelle Straehla, a postdoctoral fellow in the Hammond Lab at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, is developing nanoparticles that could someday ferry drugs past the barrier and directly to tumors. To test the system, Straehla injects empty nanoparticles and a fluorescent dye into a mouse’s bloodstream as images of the brain are recorded. The dye illuminates the branchlike blood vessels (nine images above). The particles glow in a contrasting hue; if they reach the brain (shown as black), algorithms can detect each glow. In these photos, specks represent…

For more stories about how to help the planet, go to natgeo.com/planet 1 VOLUNTEER Pick Up Some Good, Clean Beach Vibes Coastlines catch all kinds of trash: food wrappers, bottles—and lately, face masks. For International Coastal Cleanup Month, in September, environmental groups and local authorities are organizing virtual and in-person activities. In 2019 Ocean Conservancy volunteers worldwide collected more than 20 million pounds of beach trash. Search online for a beach plus “cleanup” to find events—or start your own pick-up posse. 2 COOK OUT TO GRILL WITHOUT SINGEING THE PLANET, AVOID LIGHTER FLUID AND EASY-LIGHT CHARCOAL, WHICH EMIT CHEMICALS. ORTRY A GRILL RUN ON PELLETS OF COMPRESSED WOODS CRAPS, WASTE THAT BURNS WITH LITTLE POLLUTION. 3 BUY RECYCLED Patio Decor From Plastic Sprucing up the backyard? You’ll find many eco-friendly…

EVERY SUMMER, LOU GAGNON spends a week at the beach building sandcastles—big ones. An artist and former architect, Gagnon picked up the seaside pastime more than 20 years ago as a way to entertain his young daughter. His creations have since advanced from simple structures to elaborately sculpted tableaux with spires reaching as high as five feet. Gagnon’s sandcastles are intentionally impressionistic and built near the tide line, where water and wind can reshape them. “There’s an eternal quality to the form,” he says, “but an ephemeral quality to the object.”…

GLADIATORIAL PROGRAM The most lavish spectacles were in the Colosseum. MORNING Pompa A procession of participants as well as political and religious figures Venationes Animals were hunted or pitted against other beasts or fighters. AFTERNOON Meridiani The midday executions of criminals in the arena Munera Combat between gladiators selected to heighten drama…

It’s early for most people. 5:30 a.m. But not for Bessie Brooks, who’s heading out her door to help get food to people who need it in Lowndes County, Alabama. To hear her tell it, though, that’s not early at all. “When I was working, I’d be at my patient’s house by 5 a.m.,” Mrs. Brooks says. Journalistic standards suggest I call her by her last name, Brooks. My manners suggest otherwise. I respect her by adding Mrs., as I was raised to do by my mother, who spent part of her growing-up years in Lowndes County. Mrs. Brooks is 87, after all. She worked 30 years as a home health worker for the county. The job required her to give personal care: Get them up, bathed, brush their teeth,…

WHEN SHE WAS A KID, Zsófia Pályi spent summers with her family at Lake Balaton in western Hungary. Many Hungarians then couldn’t afford travel to other countries, she says, so the lake was an exotic getaway. For others, it was a respite: From the 1960s to ’80s, German families separated by the Berlin Wall reunited on its shores for vacation. People called it the Hungarian Sea. Today, Hungarians still vacation at the lake, and photographer Pályi returns to capture one particular aspect: its shallowness. Balaton is only a few feet deep at the lake’s south end. That makes it a good place for families and kids, says Pályi, and also for the camera shy: The depth lets people decide how much of their bodies to show off and how much…

THE PHYSICS BEHIND the iridescent beauty of the northern and southern lights are more or less understood, yet they can still befuddle scientists. Case in point: When the solar wind is weak, a fuzzy patch of auroral lights has sometimes appeared over the north magnetic pole like an ephemeral, glowing spaceship. Early this year researchers were finally able to explain this phenomenon by analyzing data recorded by U.S. Cold War–era satellites on August 20, 2014. They reported that the patch spun in a vortex-like manner; had a calm center with strong “winds” of electrically excited gas, or plasma, zipping around it; and was a gigantic funnel up to 1,700 miles across and more than 31,000 miles high. The scientists dubbed it a “space hurricane” and adapted a 3D model of…

I GREW UP TRAVELING. My dad was from inner-city London but had a dream of heading out to the countryside and living in a horse-drawn wagon. I was born on the road in 1981 and spent my first few years of life traveling in southern England with my parents and our horses. Eventually, my parents bought a field in Devon where we lived in caravans [trailers]. Until I was 13 years old, we had no running water or electricity—so, obviously, no TV. But my dad was a great storyteller; I grew up engrossed in tales about his hippie-trail travels throughout Europe, America, and Asia. And my mom read children’s novels and poetry aloud to me every night at bedtime. Early on, I thought I might like to be a war…

A GLADIATOR’S CAREER ASSIGNMENT AND TRAINING A new arrival, or novicus, was assigned a specialty and trained with double-weight wooden swords and shields against wooden posts. CARE AND COMFORT Gladiators were kept healthy with regular medical care and a diet barley and beans. Some married and had families. COMBAT Protecting their investments, owners limited gladiators to a few fights each year. Fighting style and skill level determined arena pairings. INJURY AND DEATH Injuries were common, but most weren’t lethal. Even so, many gladiators died young. Only skilled or especially lucky fighters had long careers.…

Unequal access Communities of color were at a disproportionately higher risk of food insecurity well before COVID-19, and the pandemic has exacerbated long-standing inequities linked to factors including discrimination and systemic racism. Of the 25 counties with the highest projected food-insecurity rates for 2020, 68 percent had majority Black, Latino, or Native American populations—even though only 12 percent of U.S. counties have a majority nonwhite population. People in food-insecure households, 2019 Drivers of insecurity Unemployment and poverty have a substantial effect on the risk of household hunger. One job loss or one health-care bill can drive a family with low income into poverty and make groceries unaffordable. At the start of the pandemic, four in 10 people visiting food banks were there for the first time. Food insecurity is expected…

PROTECTIVE SPACE Camel thorn trees provide relief from the sun. Underground tunnels teem with mammals, reptiles, and insects evading the heat of the day and chill of the night. Sociable weaver Philetairus socius Older or breeding birds commandeer the most interior, insulated chambers of these temperature-controlling nests. African pygmy falcon Polihierax semitorquatus These birds occupy the weaver nests’ shallower, outer chambers, where they also prey on weaver chicks and lizards. SURVIVING THE STRESSORS Some animals seek refuge to insulate themselves against temperature swings. Others endure through physical adaptations such as improved fluid retention. Meerkat Suricata suricatta Borrowing ground squirrel burrows to beat the heat, meerkats emerge to get food in the morning and late afternoon. Ostrich Struthio camelus Ostriches can maintain a stable internal body temperature of 102°F for hours,…