Innehållsförteckning för October 2022 från National Geographic Magazine

UNTIL RECENTLY I lived in a magical corner of the city of Seattle, on a hillside overlooking Puget Sound, surrounded by thick stands of big-leaf maples interspersed with mature fir, cedar, and spruce trees. My husband, Charles, and I shared this patch of nature with abundant wildlife: coyotes, weasels and river otters, deer, and all manner of birds. In our last few months there, we became transfixed by ongoing hostilities between a barred owl roosting in one of our maples and a murder of crows. No matter the time of day, when the crows spotted the owl, they would surround it, caw incessantly, dive-bomb, and generally harass the bird. It was hard not to feel sorry for the owl, which was, to my mind, simply trying to get some rest…

I HAVE LIVED for eight years now with my dog, Charlie—a bloodhound who’s embarrassingly bad at tracking scents. He greets me jubilantly every time I come home, even if it’s from a quick grocery run. I can hear his tail go thump-thump-thump on the floor in the next room when I laugh; he echoes my mirth even when he can’t see me. Yet, despite sharing this bond, I often sit down next to him on the couch, give him a hug, and ask my wife, “Do you think he loves me?” “Yes, yes!” she replies, with only slight exasperation, which is charitable because I ask so often. This routine is almost like a ritual in our household. I wonder if Charlie has any thoughts about it. Looking at him sunning…

Givânia Maria da Silva knows challenges. She was born in an eastern Brazil community founded by African women who were victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Like many descendants of enslaved people, Silva, 56, faced racial discrimination—and worse—while growing up in Brazil, the last country in the Western Hemisphere to ban slavery. She endured death threats when she was younger, often from outsiders who tried to seize the land where she and her family lived in a quilombo, one of the thousands of communities in Brazil established by people who escaped slavery. Silva went on to become the first woman from Conceição das Crioulas to earn a college degree—an extraordinary achievement in a nation where quilombo residents have long struggled for individual and property rights. It’s a part of Brazil’s…

Few places can boast of myths quite as connected to the land as Spain. Its primordial mix of historic cultures layered upon wildly diverse landscapes has inspired storytelling so rich, all travelers need to do to discover it is to explore the country’s more curious, undiscovered corners. Within the ravines and caverns of Asturias’ Picos de Europa mountain range, folklore speaks repeatedly of a winged, dragon-like serpent cloaked in shadow—the cuélebre. Believed to guard treasure, the creature emerges only to feast on livestock, or any other living soul unlucky enough to cross its path. The ancient kingdom’s biospheres of grassy valleys and Dinosaur Coast offer great insight into the inspiration behind this dragonesque legend. To the east, you’ll hear whispers of creatures from the watery mythology of Basque Country. Along…

‘THE MIGHTY MOUNTAINS IN THE HUNZA VALLEY PUT UP A RINGSIDE SHOW OF MUSCLE POWER.’—Faisal Farooq, Pakistani multimedia journalist STRETCHING OVER THE GLACIER-FED waters of the Hunza River and linking the rugged faces of the Karakoram Range, the Hussaini Hanging Bridge appears to be no more than a delicate thread. Indeed, when the wind blows, the entire length of rope and wooden planks begins to sway. GETTING THE SHOT To capture this image, photographer Kevin Faingnaert didn’t have to set foot on the precarious passageway, which has claimed lives. He took aim from the western bank of the river. From that vantage point, Faingnaert says, he could fully appreciate the scale of the surrounding peaks. SKY-HIGH Not far from the river rises the towering Rakaposhi mountain, a destination for skilled…

DURING WINTERS IN NORTH AMERICA, many amphibians dive or burrow deep to avoid freezing—but not the wood frog. These fig-size croakers stay put aboveground as the water between their cells freezes, and they spend the season in a kind of cryosleep. When spring arrives, most wood frogs awaken from their icy slumber with one thing on their mind: sex. Males find a pond or temporary vernal pool and call to females with sounds “almost like a quacking duck,” says Dartmouth College’s Ryan Calsbeek, a biology professor who studies amphibians’ sex lives. As more males join in, the cacophony of croaks can be heard throughout the forest. Hearing the come-ons from the ponds around them, females hop toward the croaks they find most seductive. In a recent study using an advanced…

WE’RE FREE AT LAST from the crush of Kabul morning traffic, and the map on my smartphone estimates it’ll take nine hours to drive 300 miles to Kandahar on National Highway 1, the most expensive and important road in Afghanistan. The United States poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this stretch of asphalt—one leg of the 1,400-mile road that circles the country—to speed travel and boost commerce between the nation’s capital and its second largest city. But it would be foolish to make dinner plans in Kandahar. The highway was first built in the 1950s and ’60s by the Soviet Union and the United States, Cold War rivals jockeying for influence over Kabul. It was ruined by decades of war and neglect, and only about 30 miles of paved…

WHO A German-born, U.S.-based documentary photographer WHERE Montecito Heights in Los Angeles WHAT Canon 5D Mark III with a 24mm tilt-shift lens Ludwig, who lives in Los Angeles, often spends his nights photographing cars at rest. “Like a devoted bird-watcher, I’ve learned to recognize their sleeping patterns,” he says. Ludwig wanders the streets until he finds a vehicle that speaks to him; perhaps it’s lit by the moon or sheltered by a tree in full bloom. Police sometimes question him, but after he shows them images on his camera, they relax—and even tip him off about the next potential sleeper subject. National Geographic is the most popular brand on Instagram, with more than 312 million followers. This page showcases images from our accounts: @natgeo, @natgeotravel, @natgeointhefield, @natgeoadventure, @natgeoyourshot.…

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER with a coffee-table book set graphic designer Darren Pearson on a new artistic path. He was charmed by one element in particular: a 1949 black-and-white photograph of Pablo Picasso at work. But instead of a brush, Picasso is using a light to “paint” his creation in midair. “I was captivated,” says Pearson. “I was like, How is this possible?” Photographer Gjon Mili was able to capture Picasso creating objects with light by setting his camera to a slow shutter speed. Pearson, founder of the light-painting company Dariustwin, now uses that same long-exposure technique—but he doubles down on the artistry, taking the photos and painting the subjects. And he works only at night. Pearson begins by placing his camera on a tripod, aimed at the desired backdrop. Then,…

On Earth, we know flames as flickering tongues—but in space, that changes. Without gravity, hot air lacks the buoyancy to whip flames into their familiar, dancing forms. In microgravity they can swell into ethereal domes and orbs that can burn at a surprisingly cool 900 degrees Fahrenheit (a gas stove burner’s high setting is about 3100°F). The flames in the image above burned aboard the International Space Station, as part of ACME (short for Advanced Combustion via Microgravity Experiments). “I’ve had science fiction writers contact me about the flames,” says the University of Maryland’s Peter Sunderland, an ACME investigator. “They are otherworldly.” For more than four years on the station, ACME ignited over 1,500 flames, in tests aimed at improving spacecraft fire safety and computer models of combustion. And none…

IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIELD in a lesser known part of Ireland is a large mound where sheep wander and graze freely. Had they been in that same location centuries ago, these animals might have been stiff with terror, held aloft by chanting, costumed celebrants while being sacrificed to demonic spirits that were said to inhabit nearby Oweynagat cave. This monumental mound lay at the heart of Rathcroghan, the hub of the ancient Irish kingdom of Connaught. The former Iron Age center is now largely buried beneath the farmland of County Roscommon. Ireland is pushing for its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Spread across more than two square miles, Rathcroghan encompasses 240 archaeological sites, dating back 5,500 years. They include burial mounds, ring forts (settlement sites), standing…

AS A CHILD, KAROLINE ZANKER had a magical playground. From her home in the quaint Austrian village of Sankt Martin bei Lofer, near Salzburg, she’d hike past a little pilgrimage church and up into the Lofer Mountains, just below the tree line where even hardy larches cease to grow. At an altitude of about 5,200 feet, under the lofty peaks, she’d slip through a narrow portal in the limestone and crawl right inside the mountain. Prax ice cave, she says, was just like a fairy tale. Ice poured down from the cave ceiling like frozen waterfalls, and towers of it rose from the floors of corridors hundreds of yards long. Ice crystals and icicles glittered like precious gems on the walls. “It was incredibly marvelous,” recalls Zanker, now 48 and…