Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i National Geographic Magazine - UK

FOR SEVERAL YEARS, “fly on the wall” was Esther Ruth Mbabazi’s approach to photography. Be invisible. Don’t influence the scene. Then, in 2019, the 28-year-old Ugandan had an opportunity to do just the opposite. That’s when Mbabazi learned of the Gulu Women With Disabilities Union, a vocational and social center in a small city in Uganda’s north. Over one year, she made four trips to Gulu and photographed women she met, including a land mine survivor missing a leg, a deaf mother of four, and a blind musician. They posed in custom dresses, created by a Kampala-based designer, against backdrops of art and handiwork they had made. When Mbabazi asked the women how they wanted to be seen, they told her: as capable, equal, intelligent. In other words, accorded the…

AFTER THE FRENETIC REVIVAL of travel last summer—you might recall a few delays and a few million mishandled bags—many are asking how to enjoy the rush of exploration without the crush of crowds. Tourism’s expected return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023 could translate to more prosperity and increased stability for places that rely on visitors. But a lasting recovery depends on channeling the revenues of tourism into conservation models that support communities, ecosystems, and environmentally responsible infrastructure. This is more likely to happen when travelers thoughtfully choose when, where, and how to go. To help with that, National Geographic’s global editors have picked 25 awe-inspiring destinations for the year ahead. Framed by five categories (adventure, culture, nature, family, and community), these are places of wonder that are…

The pandemic closed the borders of many tourism-dependent countries like Laos. But the Southeast Asian nation hopes the December 2021 inauguration of a Chinese-constructed-bullet train will boost domestic travel. Its 260-mile route within Laos starts at the border town of Boten, traverses more than 70 tunnels and 160 bridges, runs through Louang-phabang (right, New Year celebrations at the ancient city’s Wat Xieng-thong), and terminates in the capital, Vientiane. Although the train’s promise is to expand tourism among the Lao themselves, the cost of tickets and the country’s increasing indebtedness to China are sources of controversy.…

HOW FAR CAN SCIENTISTS STRETCH OUR LIFE SPAN? AND HOW FAR SHOULD THEY GO? OUR BIOLOGY, IT SEEMS, CAN BE OPTIMIZED FOR GREATER LONGEVITY. UNIMAGINABLE RICHES AWAIT WHOEVER CRACKS THE CODE. SCIENTISTS ARE GREAT AT MAKING MICE LIVE LONGER. Rapamycin, widely prescribed to prevent organ rejection after a transplant, increases the life expectancy of middle-age mice by as much as 60 percent. Drugs called senolytics help geriatric mice stay sprightly long after their peers have died. The diabetes drugs metformin and acarbose, extreme calorie restriction, and, by one biotech investor’s count, about 90 other interventions keep mice skittering around lab cages well past their usual expiration date. The newest scheme is to hack the aging process itself by reprogramming old cells to a younger state. “If you’re a mouse, you’re…

Miranda Orr, who researches brain aging at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and her team discovered senescent cells, or zombie cells, in regions crucial for memory, such as the hippocampus. These cells don’t die naturally, and they release toxic substances. Orr and her colleagues are studying whether drugs can kill these deadly cells and restore memory. The close-up image below shows the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Yellow shows tau tangles, the snarls of tau proteins that are a hallmark of degenerative brain diseases. Blue marks molecules that indicate stress, magenta is a sign of damage beyond repair, and green shows inflammation, a result of senescence. When blue, magenta, and green all appear in a cell, especially a large cell, that’s evidence it’s a zombie. SOURCES: MIRANDA ORR AND…

SOURCES: MARTINE DE WIT, FLORIDA FISH AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION COMMISSION; ST. JOHNS RIVER WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT; AARINCONRAD ALLEN AND OTHERS, ESTUARINE, COASTAL AND SHELF SCIENCE, 2022…

WHO A National Geographic Explorer drawn to human cultures and experiences WHERE Baluchistan Desert, Pakistan WHAT Fujifilm GFX 50 with a 35mm lens Paley is fascinated by pilgrimages and particularly how these strenuous journeys can affect the mind and body. During the spring, in Muslim-majority Pakistan, he joined Hindu devotees on a multiday trek to Hinglaj temple. The walk was joyful, Paley recalls, with chanting and loud music. When they reached this volcano summit, a key stop, many pilgrims applied mud to their faces, and one man reached out to an image of the god Shiva. National Geographic is the most popular brand on Instagram, with more than 320 million followers. This page showcases images from our accounts: @natgeo, @natgeotravel, @natgeointhefield, @natgeoadventure, @natgeoyourshot. Subscriptions For subscriptions or changes of address,…

IN 1929, A TEAM carrying a sun compass and a National Geographic Society flag soared above the Antarctic wilderness in an extraordinary scientific feat. Explorer Richard E. Byrd led the perilous first flight over the South Pole, and photographed at least 150,000 square miles of Antarctica along the way. Nearly a century later, glaciologist and National Geographic Explorer Alison Criscitiello embarked on her own arduous journey, harnessing technology in grueling conditions to unlock secrets of the Earth’s past and insights about today’s climate challenges. She and her team ascended Canada’s highest peak and excavated an ice core containing perhaps 30,000 years of data, as part of the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Mount Logan Expedition. The feat broke barriers for women and science: “No deep ice core … has…

Turns out the sandman may visit arachnids too. When ecologist Daniela Roessler at the University of Konstanz, Germany, observed jumping spiders at night, they mostly were immobile, suspended upside down on a silk thread with their eight legs curled inward. But periodically their spinnerets—the silk-producing organs on their rumps—would wiggle, or a leg would jerk. It reminded Roessler of how a dozing puppy’s foot may twitch. Could the spiders be dreaming? Investigating that is made easier by jumping spider anatomy: For the first 10 days of life, the babies’ heads are see-through, so Roessler could look straight in. Using magnifying glasses duct-taped to night-vision goggles, she watched the spiderlets’ retinas flickering back and forth during bouts of movement. It suggested they were experiencing visual dreams—the first time REM-like sleep has…

I WASN’T EXPECTING to invite a stranger into my great-grandmother’s house that afternoon. I’d hoped to interview National Geographic Explorer Buddy Powell on the water in Crystal River, a small town in Florida north of Tampa, where the manatee’s modern-day story begins. But our boat broke down, and it was too hot to hang around the pier to talk. So there we were, sitting across from each other on matching orange sofas in Hazel Gaines’s 1970s-themed living room. My great-grandmother moved to Crystal River more than 60 years ago; she died in 1993. We’ve kept those sofas because they remind us of her and of our childhood spent exploring the river outside. Buddy Powell is slightly older than the sofas but in far better shape, with youthful posture and alert…

ONCE OFF-LIMITS TO OUTSIDERS, THE HIMALAYAN KINGDOM OF MUSTANG IS NOW OPENING TO THE WORLD… BUT WILL ITS UNIQUE CULTURE, AND PRICELESS TROVE OF TIBETAN ANTIQUITIES, SURVIVE WHAT’S COMING? DRESSED IN WELL-WORN JEANS and a green fleece jacket, the king stood in the center of a low-ceilinged room in his centuries-old palace. He was reciting a Buddhist chant and methodically fingering a string of prayer beads. Around him, the walls and wooden pillars holding up the sagging roof were decorated with intricate paintings of Buddhist deities. Some wore gold robes and reclined blissfully. Others, bearing swords and surrounded by flames, howled with rage. It was mid-October, and tucked away in this barren range of foothills on the northern edge of the Himalaya, the cold, earthen walls of the drafty palace…

SOURCES: BENAYERS; SIENNA R. CRAIG, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE; LUIGI FIENI; JOHN HARRISON, LIVERPOOL SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE; CHRISTIAN LUCZANITS, SOAS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON; TIM WILLIAMS, UCL INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY…

LOOKING AT THE EARTH FROM EVERY POSSIBLE ANGLE…

Botswana continues to confront a series of threats, such as poaching, to its expansive, wildlife-rich national parks and game reserves. But new anti-poaching efforts, voluntourism, and community-based outreach may help alleviate some of the pressure. In the Tuli Block, a wilderness on the country’s eastern border that holds leopards, brown and spotted hyenas, and a large elephant population (below), rangers are installing advanced technology in the 270-square-mile Central Tuli Game Reserve. Dutch organization Smart Parks has developed low-power sensors that transmit radio data back to a central station, alerting rangers to poachers and their vehicles, or even tracking the movements of animals themselves. Botswana is also responding to a new generation of visitors. “Since COVID, our millennial travelers have become more interested in meaningful human connection,” says National Geographic Explorer…

Chris Hemsworth plunged into Arctic waters, dangled high above a canyon while climbing a rope, fasted for four days, and prepared for his own eventual death—all in the pursuit of living longer. In Limitless With Chris Hemsworth, a six-part National Geographic documentary streaming on Disney+, the actor doesn’t just rely on a physique honed during a decade of playing Thor in movies. He challenges mind as well as body in a quest to develop habits that might extend life. His, and ours. Experts guide him. Some of their tips sound familiar—eat less, exercise more—but others, not so much: Accept reality. Harness stress. Before this project, Hemsworth had “always trained specifically for a movie,” where the goal might have been “to have abs this summer or whatever. And it was more…

Causes of adult manatee deaths in Florida Undetermined Disease, starvation, natural accidents, and catastrophes such as algal blooms Cold stress Watercraft collisions, injuries in canal locks, and other human-related problems Manatee gathering locations Power plant, warm discharge waters Natural springs, heated to about 73°F Thermal basin, heat retained as surrounding waters cool…

RILEY D. CHAMPINE, PATRICIA HEALY, EVE CONANT, NGM STAFF. TERRAIN RENDERING: STEPHEN TYSON SOURCES: GALEN MURTON, JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY; TIM WILLIAMS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LONDON INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY; GOVERNMENT OF NEPAL; PLANET LABS PBC; MERIT DEM; OPENSTREETMAP.ORG SOME LABELS ON THIS MAP USE TIBETAN TRANSLITERATIONS, WHICH DIFFER FROM OFFICIAL NEPALI NAMES.…

COLORFUL POLLERAS ARE SYMBOLS OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN BOLIVIA’S COUNTRYSIDE. The history of the voluminous, traditional skirts worn by Indigenous Aymara and Quechua women is complex: Dating to the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, polleras were imposed by colonial rulers to reflect a style worn in Spain. The skirts eventually were adopted as part of Andean attire, most commonly associated with cholitas—Indigenous women from the highlands. Polleras inspire cultural pride, but they’re also a reminder of rural oppression. Now a group of women athletes in Bolivia has brought pollera fashion to the city, donning the skirts during skateboarding exhibitions to celebrate the heritage of cholitas and put a modern face on the ancestral garments. “The pollera is associated with the countryside, with ignorant people without resources,” says Daniela Santiváñez,…