Innehållsförteckning för January 2026 från National Geographic Magazine

EXPLORATION On a mission to catalog subterranean biodiversity, National Geographic Explorer and cave biologist Iva Njunjić collects invertebrates from the cold, clear water inside Kaimakias Cave, in Greece’s Agrafa mountains. “It’s the essence of a hidden, mystical place,” says photographer Sotiris Kountouras, who rappelled down a cliff with Njunjić to reach the underground waterway. WILDLIFE In El Tanque, Costa Rica, where development is fragmenting the tropical forests, brown-throated sloths are navigating a landscape with dwindling habitat. After this one caused a traffic jam while crossing a busy road, photographer Emmanuel Tardy followed it. “The moment is etched in my memory,” he says, “watching this sloth moving slowly across land that was no longer truly its own.” SCIENCE Using a powerful laser-scanning microscope, biologist Amaia Alcalde Antón captured images of the…

Founded in 300 b.c. by one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Antioch became the third largest city in the Roman Empire. But as it has grown throughout the millennia, its footing has never been secure: Earthquakes have mauled the city several times. The 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes hit the city core on both sides of the Asi (Orontes) River especially hard, as tall buildings constructed with inadequate engineering and low-quality materials were disproportionately prone to collapse. A new vision prioritizes lower buildings with solid foundations. Wider avenues will provide better sight lines to nearby mountains, while expanded green space and a network of paths will keep the community safer and more connected.…

The Camp fire of 2018 was both the deadliest and most destructive wildlands fire in California history, with 85 fatalities, most of them in the town of Paradise. An unincorporated community until 1979, the town had grown up without a master plan, and aspects of its layout would prove dangerous when fire swept over it. Many of its streets, for instance, ended in cul-de-sacs from which escape was practically impossible. A post-fire long-term recovery plan has eliminated dead ends and calls for other improvements yet to be implemented, such as buried electrical transmission lines.…

Preserve the land A sustainably built trail follows the contours of the terrain to prevent erosion (above). Subtle dips and rises on the path and a moderate grade ensure water sheds easily (right). Immerse the user Using rocks and trees as anchor points helps signal turns and urges hikers to stay on the path (right). A designer uses those same materials for structures like stairs and bridges, when needed (far right). Keep hikers on their toes The best trails feed our desire for novelty. They’ll alternate between close-up, intimate views and expansive vistas. It’s even better if the changes unfold gradually, allowing a user to build anticipation for a grand reveal. Manage behavior Wide, climbing turns are easier to navigate than tight and steep switchbacks. They also discourage all users—hikers,…

THE ROOM WE ARE IN IS locked. It is windowless and lit from above by a fluorescent bulb. In the hallway outside—two stories beneath the city of London—attendants in dark suits patrol silently, giving the scene an air of cinematic drama. We’re in the downtown safety deposit center where the Iranian British art collector Kambiz Mahboubian, keeper of one of the world’s great troves of Near Eastern ancient art, houses some of his more precious pieces under lock and key. Sitting across from me at a small table, Mahboubian reaches gingerly into a green plastic shopping bag from Waitrose & Partners, the British supermarket chain. From it, he produces a silver beaker covered with friezes long ago hammered out in high relief. As he places the teakettle-size vessel on the table,…

ONE BRISK MORNING LAST AUGUST in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert, a female meerkat weakly pulled herself from her burrow, tail dragging slowly behind. She joined her family members as they foraged for grubs, but she was too sick to eat. Nearby, carved in the auburn soil, lay a terrifying clue: the long, sinewy tracks of a puff adder. She had been bitten. Even though meerkats measure just 12 inches tall and weigh no more than two pounds, they can typically withstand snake venom potent enough to kill an adult human. Still, a large dose can be dangerous. That day, the bitten female’s fellow meerkats banded together to find extra food for her. When they returned to their burrow at night and realized she’d been left behind, they turned around, calling for…

IN THE ERA OF MEGA-DISASTERS, language fails us. We reach for an adjective—the worst storm, the deadliest flood, the largest wildfire—but even the superlatives come up short. What words, after all, can convey the scale and ferocity of the fires that devastated two very different Los Angeles communities one year ago? The lead-up to Southern California’s winter had been the driest on record. The Santa Ana winds were topping out at nearly 100 miles an hour. On the morning of January 7, those winds began fanning a brush fire on the bluffs above the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood, and within an hour, towering flames were consuming homes. That evening, 26 miles away, another wildfire started spreading from Eaton Canyon into the unincorporated community of Altadena, prompting frantic evacuations throughout the…

FOR YEARS, SCIENTISTS BELIEVED that when elephants swung their trunks or flapped their ears at humans in certain scenarios, they might be gesturing to communicate their wants. But no one had proved this in experiments. Then two years ago, a research team began studying semi-captive African savanna elephants near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. The animals were offered either a tray with apples or an empty one. If given the empty tray, they would use up to 38 different gestures to ask for the apples—but only when the experimenter was there. “The most surprising thing was that they were so creative,” says University of Vienna biologist Vesta Eleuteri, a lead researcher. “It’s as if they’re really thinking about what to do next.” Until now, such flexible, intentional signaling using many gestures…

ETRUSCAN ca 700 B.C.–1st century A.D. Etruscan, derived from an early Greek alphabet, has more than 10,000 known inscriptions. While the characters’ pronunciations are understood, the vocabulary is still a riddle. LINEAR A ca 1800–1450 B.C. Used by the ancient Minoans, Linear A was uncovered in 1900 at the Knossos archaeological site. To date, over 1,400 examples of the writing have been unearthed. LINEAR ELAMITE ca 2300–1880 B.C. Rooted in the powerful kingdom of Elam, Linear Elamite was discovered in 1903. New revelations are helping decode this extinct writing system. INDUS SCRIPT ca 2600–1900 B.C. Stone seals with the Indus script, which is linked to the Indus Valley (Harappan) civilization, were found in the late 19th century. Since then, more than 3,000 objects have surfaced. RONGORONGO ?–A.D. 1860s The system…

THE MAGNETIZED NEEDLE of a conventional compass wants to align with Earth’s magnetic field—helpful, unless you’re near the poles, where the field tugs straight downward, rendering magnetic compasses useless. Pilot and National Geographic Explorer Richard E. Byrd, who hoped to fly over the North Pole in the summer of 1925, lamented this during a pre-trip address to the National Geographic Society, and his gripe sent chief cartographer Albert H. Bumstead tinkering. Bumstead developed a novel piece of hardware, a bit like a swiveling watch. Incline it to match one’s latitude and the single, 24-hour hand tracks the sun across the sky. Since the sun at northern latitudes sits due south at noon, an Arctic aviator can align the hand with the sun and set a compass dial by the timepiece.…

Memento from the burn zone When Gideon Mendel visited Los Angeles to take portraits of those displaced by last year’s wildfires (“There Is No Going Back,” p. 42), it was only the latest stop in his years-long project to photograph victims of disasters fueled by the climate crisis. Along the way, he’s collected ruined objects his subjects have offered, including this camera, found among the ashes of cinematographer Aasulv Austad’s home in the L.A. foothills. “I feel like it carries some kind of radioactive force,” Mendel says. NEW FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS Wild Eye: A Life in Photographs by Beverly Joubert Written by Dereck Joubert In 40 years of photographing the wildlife and landscapes of her native Africa, National Geographic Explorer at Large Beverly Joubert has captured dramas both intimate…

BUILT FOR SURVIVAL Matriarchs are the largest and most aggressive of the group. Like other meerkats, they have impressive adaptations for weathering an unpredictable environment. CALLING THE CROWD TO ORDER Meerkats produce more than 30 different calls, ranging from calming chirps to loud barks signifying specific types of danger. Many are used to maintain social hierarchy. CONSTRUCTING A LIFE UNDERGROUND Burrows provide refuge for the matriarch and her family, allowing them to sleep, and to birth and raise pups in peace. They often co-opt and expand tunnels dug by other wildlife. A RUTHLESS HIERARCHY A dominant female lords over as many as 50 individuals—though 10 to 15 is typical. Matriarchs will often evict older or pregnant subordinate females, most of which are her offspring, and kill or abandon their newborn…

THREE HOURS BEFORE DAWN on February 6, 2023, a 29-year-old pastrymaker named Nuri Imren woke to the sound of his sister screaming. His family’s high-rise apartment in the Turkish city of Antakya was shaking violently—first from side to side, then up and down. A heavy wardrobe fell on his sister, pinning her under it and breaking her arm and shoulder. Imren, an amateur weight lifter, hurried into her room and raised the top of the wardrobe, resting it on his knees. A minute later, the shaking stopped and he was able to pull his sister free and usher her and their parents down 10 flights of stairs to the street. It was cold and dark outside, and a light rain was falling. All over the city, power was out. The…

On March 11, 2011, a section of the Pacific Plate east of the Japanese mainland shifted at a spot 18 miles below the surface, releasing energy equivalent to two million Hiroshima bombs. Seismic waves reached Japan’s main island, Honshu, less than a minute later. While around a hundred people were killed by the quake, many more—an estimated 20,000—lost their lives in the tsunami that followed. Further havoc was wreaked by the nuclear reactors at Fukushima, which suffered a core meltdown after floodwaters snuffed out the plant’s generators. The total economic damage caused by the quake exceeded $300 billion, which ultimately led to a raft of new protections and ways to use the land. Great East Japan Earthquake With a magnitude of 9.1, the strongest to ever affect Japan, the quake…

THE FIRST TIME Atul Chaurasiya saw a YouTube video of the dumping grounds in Kishangarh, he knew he had to visit the place: a pearly white landscape, shining like a snowfield atop a hot, dry plain in northwest India. It was a six-hour train ride from his home in Delhi, but for Chaurasiya, a travel influencer who makes scenic social media videos for a living, the trip paid off with an Instagram Reel that racked up a quarter million likes. Kishangarh’s peculiar attraction is built on a by-product from its marble-processing industry: marble slurry, a mix of water and fine particles of calcium carbonate and other minerals. Tanker trucks deliver loads of it each day to the city’s outskirts, hauled in from more than 1,200 facilities that cut, grind, and…

Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Susa in 1903 uncovered the Table au Lion, which had a 4,000-year-old bilingual inscription in known Akkadian cuneiform and undeciphered Linear Elamite (LE). Though this was a promising first step, the dearth of signs stalled decipherment until 2015, when François Desset gained rare access to silver beakers with hundreds of new LE signs and pieced together what could be the world’s first phonetic writing system. Here’s how he did it. 1. Identifying proper nouns Early on, linguists determined that the Table au Lion bore the same names in LE and Akkadian cuneiform: King Puzur-Sušinak and the Elamite god Insušinak. The tablet’s linguistic patterns were a jumping-off point for Desset to later identify other names and royal titles. 2. Decoding phrases When Desset secured access…