Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep-15 i National Geographic Magazine

It was one of those audacious ideas that had a touch of the crazy: Hunt the elephant hunters. First build a fake tusk, one that looked so good it could fool the experts—in this case, poachers. Then hide a GPS device inside it. Finally track that signal by satellite, and map the trail of the bad guys. Best-case results: Expose the workings of the illegal ivory trade, which from 2009 to 2012 led to the slaughter of 100,000 African elephants. This barbarous racket also exacts a devastating human toll, from looted villages and kidnapped children to raped women and dead park rangers. That’s what inspired the National Geographic investigation reported in this issue, the first in a series we’ll feature in the magazine and at nationalgeographic.com. The stories come from…

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The wind slams into me, and I desperately grip my ice axes to keep from being ripped off the mountain face. I push my head against the snow, calm myself, and look down. Beneath my crampons is a 5,000-foot drop. It’s like looking down from the open door of an airplane. I am roped to my two companions, with nothing attaching us to the mountain. A fall here would send all three of us plummeting to our death. When the wind subsides, I pound an aluminum stake into the snow and clip the rope to it. It wouldn’t hold if I were to fall but gives me enough psychological comfort to continue. I concentrate, methodically swinging my ice tools and kicking my crampons. At a rock rampart I place an…

Chameleons can quickly change their appearance in response to temperature, environment, and mood. Scientists recently identified a key factor in their ability to do this: The lizards can “tune” the distances between nanoscale crystals in their skin that reflect light, creating a spectrum of colors. Under Its Skin SUBMISSIVE A chameleon turns darker when it needs to demonstrate that it’s not a threat—such as after losing a fight—by dispersing melanin, a dark pigment, into its upper skin layers. NEUTRAL At rest, it’s typically green or brown to match its environment. Blue and green wavelengths reflect off tightly packed crystals; red and yellow pass through. EXCITED Vibrant colors can signal aggression or a desire to mate. Crystals move wider apart, reflecting yellow, orange, and red wavelengths. Crystal Power The transparent nanocrystals,…

When Joshua White was growing up in southeastern Indiana, he would lie in his backyard for hours observing ants and june bugs. He encountered the little creatures with a sense of wonder and struggled to understand the mysteries of the natural world. He captured his entomological discoveries in pickle jars, Styrofoam cups, or his hands. White grew up to become an artist. He recently moved to North Carolina, where he still spends considerable time much as he did in childhood: walking near his house and carefully looking at his surroundings. What has changed is that he now captures his tiny subjects with a smartphone camera that allows him to interpret them artistically and share them with viewers beyond his backyard. His lifelong fascination with the natural world is embodied in…

Order prints of select National Geographic photos online at NationalGeographicArt.com.…

When the American Museum of Natural History wanted to update the hall of North American mammals, taxidermist George Dante got the call. When the tortoise Lonesome George, emblem of the Galápagos Islands, died, it was Dante who was tasked with restoring him. But Dante, who is one of the world’s most respected taxidermists, has never done what I’m asking him to do. No one has. I want Dante to design an artificial elephant tusk that has the look and feel of confiscated tusks loaned to me by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Inside the fake tusk, I want him to embed a custom-made GPS and satellite-based tracking system. If he can do this, I’ll ask him to make several more tusks. In the criminal world, ivory operates as currency,…

The largely unexplored Dandalika Range, which traverses the borders of China, Myanmar, and India, has long been overshadowed in mountaineering circles by the loftier peaks of the Himalaya. Yet it contains a tantalizing mystery. Rising from the remote jungles of northern Myanmar, Hkakabo Razi—thought to be the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia—remains unmeasured using a GPS. Last fall a National Geographic expedition embarked on a quest to climb the mountain and put the question of its height to rest. THE JUNGLE TREK TO BASE CAMP After their motorcycle approach, the team spent two arduous weeks hiking through rain forest riven by deep gorges, nine days climbing on Hkakabo Razi, and two weeks hiking out.…

About an hour’s drive along the Gardez highway south of Kabul, beyond the bustling shops, the trucks spewing diesel exhaust, and the clatter of donkey carts, there is a sharp left turn onto an unpaved road. In a district of Logar Province friendly to the Taliban, the vicinity has been shaken by roadside bombs, intermittent rocket attacks, kidnappings, and murders. The road continues along a dry riverbed, past small villages, paramilitary roadblocks, sentry towers, and an empty, blue-roofed compound cordoned off with concertina wire. A little farther on, the view opens onto a treeless valley creased with trenches and exposed ancient walls. Over the past seven years a team of Afghan and international archaeologists, supported by up to 650 laborers, has uncovered thousands of Buddhist statues, manuscripts, coins, and holy…

Maynard Owen Williams photographed Tehran’s Bagh-e Melli gate—then an entry to the Ministry of War complex—while working on a story for the October 1931 National Geographic. The 1906 structure echoes traditional Persian architecture, but a look through the loupe reveals a modern twist: Decorative tiles showing machine guns adorn the facade. Today the gate still stands, and the machine guns remain. The tile-work flags on either side of the guns, though, have been painted over to conceal the central image of a lion and sun, longtime symbol of Iran’s rulers. Subscriptions For subscriptions or changes of address, contact Customer Service at ngmservice.com or call 1-800-647-5463. Outside the U.S. or Canada call +1-813-979-6845. We occasionally make our subscriber names available to companies whose products or services might be of interest to…

A novel storm formula is shedding new light on lightning. While researching cloud behavior, the University of California, Berkeley’s David Romps and colleagues devised what they say is the most accurate model yet for predicting lightning strikes. Then they used that model to project how strikes will multiply—and how that could lead to more wildfires—if the planet continues to warm. For a storm to produce the sudden electric discharge known as lightning, liquid water and ice, plus updrafts fast enough to keep both suspended, must be present. Romps theorized that by putting those factors into an equation, he could calculate how often lightning would strike. He multiplied the measured precipitation by the convective available potential energy, or how fast a storm cloud can rise. His calculations using 2011 data matched…

Combining innovative thinking, pet behavioral science, and smart marketing, the Nebraska Humane Society (NHS) managed to reverse what could have been a serious ban on pit bulls and other so-called “bully breeds.” Denise Gurss, Director of Shelter Training and Behavior, said, “A lot of people hear ‘pit bull’ and think ‘dangerous.’ So we created the Breed Ambassador program.” Since launching the initiative in compliance with the city’s Breed Specific Ordinance in 2009, the shelter has facilitated hundreds of adoptions—and proven that these dogs can be exceptional companions. NHS covers all the bases. “Initially, our animal control officers talk to people on the street with ‘pitties’” and make sure they understand the ordinance, which mandates that their pets be leashed, wear a muzzle, and be controlled by an adult over 19…

Most people prefer swallowing a pill to being poked with a needle. But pills aren’t perfect. Intravenous injections get medicine to the bloodstream faster, and some protein-based drugs—insulin, for instance—can’t be taken orally. The stomach starts digesting them before they can be absorbed. Now researchers have come up with a better way for you to take your medicine: Swallow the needle. From the outside, this new pill “looks like any other multivitamin,” says chemical engineer Carl M. Schoellhammer, “but once it reaches the stomach, the outer coating dissolves, and it reveals the needles.” The stainless steel needles, one-twentieth of an inch long, release the drug when they penetrate the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing. The GI tract doesn’t register pain. And at a…

People from 135 countries submitted more than 9,000 images to last year’s National Geographic Photography Contest, our annual collection of readers’ top shots judged by the magazine’s photo editors and photographers. The judges selected winners in the categories of People (this page), Places, and Nature (next page). The winning images convey a sense of place and time, capturing unique moments in inventive ways. “They were layered and nuanced and invited the viewer to think,” says Monica Corcoran, director of both the photo contest and the Your Shot community. For the photo below, grand-prize winner Brian Yen received $10,000 and a trip to National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. To enter this year’s contest, go to ngphotocontest.com. PEOPLE Brian Yen Hong Kong, China On a hot day in Hong Kong, people…

During the past decade the trafficking of ivory has turned increasingly professional and militaristic. Organized networks of poachers prey on elephants in regions where instability and violence are rife. Ivory can rise tenfold in price as it moves through African transit points to lucrative retail markets such as China and Southeast Asia. Making a Killing Smugglers’ Trail Ivory contraband is a rich source of financing for terrorist groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has conducted vicious attacks on villages in central Africa. To trace the illicit trade, National Geographic commissioned the creation of artificial tusks with hidden GPS trackers that were planted in the smuggling supply chain.…

The fortified Kafiriat Tepe monastery, depicted here as it may have looked in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., was part of the ancient mining complex of Mes Aynak, an affluent hub of Buddhism. The copper-rich region, 30 miles south of Kabul, more recently served as an al Qaeda training ground and a source of antiquities for looters. Archaeologists are trying to uncover and save what they can before the site becomes an open-pit copper mine. STORAGE ROOM Large earthenware vessels stored food and water. SOUTHERN CHAPEL Massive clay statues of the Buddha, influenced by classical Greco-Roman and Indian art forms, are flanked by smaller depictions of devotees and bodhisattvas, those on the path to enlightenment. STUPA COURTYARD Prayer flags wave overhead as monks and visitors circumambulate stupas with enshrined…