NG桌面——2008（图）

Photograph by Ian Nichols
　　
　　伴随着喧闹嘈杂声，它迅捷的穿过密林，也许是为了恫吓附近的对手——“金刚”的一项主要日常工作就是保卫它的家庭。

 

Photograph by Tommy Heinrich
　　
　　狂暴的强风猛击着南加帕巴峰雄伟的鲁巴尔壁。有20多个人在这座山上丧命，之前的冬季远征也都失败了。在2006年底，一支九人组成的波兰登山队在这里展开了另一场无畏的登顶挑战。

 

　Photograph by Bruce Dale
　　
　　Ajanta 2号洞窟中央装饰华丽的佛像。

 

　Photograph by Viktor Sykora, Charles University, Prague
　　
　　捷克共和国，在显微镜下，胡萝卜籽看起来就像一群身上长满硬毛的外星入侵者。一公斤重的胡萝卜籽，约有100万颗。

 

　Photograph by John Stanmeyer
　　
　　科学家预测到了默拉皮火山2006年的这场喷发，但许多相信神秘主义的当地人却拒绝离开。“印尼人所面临的最大问题，”一位火山学家说，“就是让当地人相信科学家说的话。”

 

Photograph by Eugene Richards
　　
　　北达科他州，埃平
　　55岁的丹·斯托姆里从小在附近长大，但他对这栋孤立在圆丘上的房舍一无所知。当地一名高龄90多岁的老妇人可能知道，但是大约一年前，她的心智开始衰退。
　　30年前，斯托姆里原本想买下这个地方，但在知道屋主不愿意卖出后，并没有生气。他说：“这可能一直是他们家的房子。”
　　在更北边，斯托姆里的祖父家也开始倒塌。他祖父以前都骑马巡视100公顷的土地，他拥有20头奶牛，会把奶油送到北达科他州的克洛斯比，每周一次。
　　
　　

 

Photograph by Tommy Heinrich
　　
　　形单影只的登山者沿着山脊前往二号营，在喀喇昆仑山的群峰之间显得格外渺小。强风、频繁的降雪和危险的低温在整场远征行动中与波兰登山队如影随形，一点一滴地降低他们成功的机会。

 

　Photograph by Ian Nichols
　　
　　因为需要补充能量来源，这头银背大猩猩泡在沼泽里好几个小时，有技巧地把泥土从草根上剥开洗去，然后津津有味地大啖美食。

 

　Himalayan peaks frame the whitewashed gompa, or monastery, at Alchi in Ladakh, a region in the high-altitude state of Jammu and Kashmir. Alchi\'s temples house a spectacular collection of 11th- or 12th-century murals.

 

　I\'m the oldest man in town, says Ragnar Slaaen, 96. :That house used to belong to some people from Montana, been empty at least 50 years. They farmed a little bit. What happened to them? I suppose they got old and croaked.

 

　Belching volcanoes such as Mount Semeru (in background) and Mount Bromo (at left) are portals to a subterranean world that shapes not only Indonesia\'s landscape, but also its beliefs and culture.
　　A long exposure time captured stars (seen as white flecks in the sky) and the exceptional light in this image. Such a unique view can only occur during those few seconds where the existing moonlight balances with the almost unseen first rays of sunlight.

 

At sunset, wind scours the upper reaches of Nanga Parbat, forming a cloud of blowing snow.

 

　The deep frown is a common Kingo face, says author Mark Jenkins. The gorilla patriarch awaits the return of the females who are feeding elsewhere in the jungle.

 

　Gas drillers probably triggered an eruption of mud in East Java in May 2006. So far, the mud has engulfed 12 villages and displaced 10,000 families, and is still surging today. Neither engineers nor mystics can stem the flow.

 

　Photographer Tommy Heinrich angles his camera between his boots, downhill, where expedition leader Krzysztof Wielicki, defying his 57 years, powers up a steep slope.

 

　They squealed with laughter like little girls on a trampoline, recalls the author. But Kusu and Ekendy are all boy, climbing, tumbling, and shrieking in a very childlike way. All in good fun, play helps teach essential gorilla social skills.

 

Hewn from the surrounding rock, the eighth-century Kailasa temple at Ellora in Maharashtra state represents one of the most magnificent examples of rock-cut architecture in India. Stonemasons took decades to carve the detail-rich structure.

 

　Working amid acrid fumes, miners excavate chunks of sulfur from the base of the caldera of Mount Ijen in East Java. They then use baskets to lug the sulfur out of the volcano, which hasn\'t erupted in more than five years.

 

　An avalanche rumbles to within a hundred yards of Base Camp. In addition to bad weather, the Polish team faced frequent avalanches during the expedition.

 

　Kingo sits solo—but is not alone in his quest to survive. Conservationists have persuaded loggers to leave standing the Djéké Triangle\'s nearly 40 square miles (104 square kilometers) of pristine wildlife habitat. With gorillas in grave danger, such efforts are the best hope to help these apes beat the odds.

 

　Zambia: The 355-foot drop of Victoria Falls just inches away, a swimmer stands at the lip of a hidden pool—an eight-foot-deep divot in the riverbed drock—accessbile only when the Zambezi river runs low.

 

　In his travel diary, Narrow Road to a Far Province, Basho found lyric use for the iris and its brilliant hue. Presented with a gift of straw sandals with blue laces, Basho was moved to write: Sandal thongs of blue: / We\'ll seem shod with irises / Of the bravest hue!

 

　Isolation and bitter winters define Hazarajat villages like Qala-e Sabzi. But the harsh land is integral to this nomadic-herder culture with deep roots in high pastures. Koh-o mardomon moya, a saying goes, The mountains are our people.

 

Avian king of the rain forest canopy, the Philippine eagle is defenseless against logging and land clearing. Its precarious population status, estimated at fewer than a thousand individuals, makes it one of the world\'s rarest raptors.

 

　Pine, rock, and sea form an elemental vista along the Sea of Japan, where Basho endured the most difficult stretch of his 1689 journey. Beset by heat and rain, he struggled for nine days on the coastal path. It was every man for himself, he wrote, as the names of the worst spots implied: \'Oblivious of Parent, Oblivious of Child,\' \'Dogs Turn Back,\' and \'Send Back Your Horse.\'

 

　The splash of a frog, a cricket chirping from beneath an empty samurai helmet, the cool fragrance of snow: Such closely observed moments in nature, often marrying unlikely elements, distinguish Basho\'s poetry. Haiku (a three-line verse) originated as the first verse of longer poems. Using plain language in the service of spiritual insight, Basho raised the form to literature, each poem like a polished stone that, when dropped in water, creates an infinity of ripples.

 

　The facial disk of feathers circling this great gray owl\'s eyes channel forest-floor sounds back to its ears, helping the bird pounce on a vole and carry it away.

 

　Hazara potato farmers in Bamian Province head to work beneath a gaping reminder of things lost. Towering 1,500-year-old stone Buddhas, possibly carved by Hazara ancestors, once stood sentry in the limestone. The Taliban demolished them in 2001.

 

　Evolving without competition from big cats and other large predators, the eagles became the dominant hunters in Philippine forests. Their size—each may grow to 14 pounds—means they need a vast home range of tropical forest to find enough food.

 

　As drought drags on and Lake Powell\'s water level falls, the walls of Glen Canyon emerge, now covered in white.

 

　Shroud-like veils of falling water on the Abukuma River evoke the ghostly presence of past poets whose words kept Basho company on the rugged trail. Hoping to feel the truth of old poems, Basho plotted his route to pass sites known as uta-makura,,/i> or poetic pillows: shrines, mountaintops, cherry-tree groves, and other spots memorably described by other writers. Many of the haiku in his book allude to these earlier verses—Basho\'s way of adding layers of mood and meaning to the landscape he evoked.

 

 

 

　Centuries after Nubia lost control of Egypt, it continued to follow its neighbor\'s tradition of marking royal tombs with pyramids, like these restored at Meroë. Today Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt.

 

　A watery moon rises above Nanko lake, reminiscent of the moon views that Basho extolled. Comparing himself to a windblown cloud, he wandered for five months, from spring through fall, exulting in almost every view.

 

Like many birds, the Philippine eagle often twists its head to change its visual perspective, gaining a better sense of a viewed object\'s size and distance. The species\' blue-gray eyes are a rarity among raptors.
　　
　　btw:这个表情倒是很符合我看到“很强大”时候的状态。

 

At Jebel Barkal, Taharqa created a temple dedicated to the goddess Mut, the consort of Amun—part of a grand building campaign throughout his empire, from northern Egypt down into Nubia.

 

Owens Lake became a wasteland when in 1913 Los Angeles began diverting the river that fed it to quench the growing metropolis\'s thirst. Today salt-loving bacteria thrive in brine pools on the dry lake bed, lending a blood-red tint in this aerial view. A mining road cuts through the middle of the image.

 

A viable desert home during a long wet spell may be uninhabitable when the rains stop. The ancient Anasazi created a flourishing culture in New Mexico\'s Chaco Canyon, epitomized by Pueblo Bonito. Then prolonged drought hit the region in 1130. By the time it ended 30 years later, the Anasazi were gone.

 

　British naturalist and explorer John Whitehead collected the first specimen of the Philippine eagle in 1896 on the island of Samar. In 1899 it was given the genus name Pithecophaga, for monkey-eating, and the species name jefferyi, in honor of Whitehead\'s father, who funded his travels. Whitehead died of a fever in 1899 on the Chinese island of Hainan, at the age of 38.

 

　A setting sun seen through fringe of pampas grass heralds the night, a time when Basho enjoyed socializing. He often lodged in the houses of friends, students, or admirers, joining them in composing haikai—linked verse. He also stayed at shrines, where the discipline of the monks deeply impressed him. And at least once, according to his diary, he slept outdoors, witnessing the sunrise on the snowy heights of mount Gassan.

 

　The road gods beckoned. Thus the poet Matsuo Basho set off in 1689 into Japan\'s backcountry. His journal, Narrow Road to a Far Province, described a path, still visible on Natagiri Pass, that devotees have followed ever since.

 

How much thought goes on behind those eyes? A lot, in this case. Six-year-old Betsy can put names to objects faster than a great ape, and her vocabulary is at 340 words and counting. Her smarts showed up early: At ten weeks she would sit on command and was soon picking up on names of items and rushing to retrieve them—ball, rope, paper, box, keys, and dozens more. She now knows at least 15 people by name, and in scientific tests she\'s proved skilled at linking photographs with the objects they represent. Says her owner, She\'s a dog in a human [pack]. We\'re learning her language, and she\'s learning ours.

 

　Young Kanzi began picking up language on his own—observing scientists trying to train his mother. At 27, the bonobo talks using more than 360 keyboard symbols and understands thousands of spoken words. He forms sentences, follows novel instructions, and crafts stone tools—altering his technique depending on a stone\'s hardness. He even plays piano (he once jammed with Peter Gabriel). Lodge us together with bonobos for 15 generations, says Great Ape Trust\'s William Fields, and the bonobos would become less bonobo, the people less human. We aren\'t really that different. Case in point, Fields is now analyzing Kanzi\'s vocalizations: We think he may be speaking English words, just too fast and high-pitched for us to decode.

 

　This little face fronts a little brain—but one that does big, impressive things. Gunnison\'s prairie dogs, which live in colonies in the American Southwest, are a main prey item of foxes, coyotes, hawks, cats, snakes, eagles, and ferrets. Con Slobodchikoff at Northern Arizona University has shown that the prairie dogs have evolved both alarm calls and escape behaviors specific to each predator. Those calls even contain descriptive information about the predator\'s size, color, and speed, giving others in the colony a powerful picture of the enemy before it attacks.

 

On Easter Island, also called Rapa Nui, mysterious statues stand sentinel as the Milky Way spins cold and bright above. The giant moai may represent ancestors who ruled here after Polynesians discovered the island some thousand years ago during a wave of exploration that has been compared in its boldness to modern space voyages.

 

　As his mother scatters his ashes from a lifeguard boat, friends of Emery Kauanui, Jr., gather in a memorial paddle-our off La Jolla\'s Windansea Beach on June 9, 2007. The pro surfer, 24, died the previous month.

 

　Dwarfed by the jagged wall of the Kambhorn, derelict buildings mark where a family struggled to wrest a living raising sheep until its last members died out. Since 1900 the percentage of Icelanders in farming has fallen from 77 to 4.

 

　Dwarfed by the jagged wall of the Kambhorn, derelict buildings mark where a family struggled to wrest a living raising sheep until its last members died out. Since 1900 the percentage of Icelanders in farming has fallen from 77 to 4.

 

　Wending her way through an eastern forest, Kunzang Choden sets off with her nine-month-old baby to visit family. Bhutan\'s high entry fee for visitors keeps such idyllic places free from crowds of backpackers. Preserving nature is one of the pillars of Gross National Happiness.

 

Imposing walls of a tomb complex on Pohnpei were built for Nan Madol\'s rulers around A.D. 1350. Workers did not carve the stone but chose natural basalt columns—some weighing more than ten tons and fit them expertly together.

 

　Common marmosets, as infants, learn what to eat by watching elders and, like apes, can imitate others\' actions—one of the most complex forms of learning. (They even have a sense of object permanence—knowing that something out of sight still exists.) But, says Friederike Range of the University of Vienna, the primates\' short attention spans may keep them from developing more complex behaviors.

 

Kenya—Hungry lions in a Masai Mara pride leave little of a wildebeest. The animals were so involved in eating that I was able to drive very close and take a picture standing n my car\'s roof, says photographer Michel Denis-Huot.

 

　The ocean boils as lava oozes into the waves at Hawai\'i Volcanoes National Park. Scanning the horizon, Lapita and later Polynesian explorers may have used billowing columns of steam and ash from volcanic eruptions as navigation aids, steering for the promise of new land.

 

　Its sails like fins against the dawn sky, the Hokule\'a, a modern Hawaiian voyaging canoe built on ancient designs, glides into port after a 3,800-mile voyage.

 

　Don\'t be too quick to squeal in revulsion: Rats are surprisingly intelligent and, actually, quite a bit like us. They giggle when tickled, they\'re sociable, they appreciate, even anticipate, sex. They also know their own intellectual limits, called metacognition, a trait thought limited to apes. In audio tests in which rats were rewarded for correct answers, given nothing for incorrect answers, and given a small reward for admitting I don\'t know, they opted for reliable (albeit meager) I don\'t know treats when they lacked confidence in judgment. Not too shabby for filthy alley vermin.

 

More than 3,000 wind turbines bristle across the hills of the Tehachapi-Mojave Wind Resource Area, generating enough electricity to serve a quarter million homes each year.

 

Master mimics with long memories, a tight grasp of vocabulary and syntax, and a creative streak, dolphins are cognitively and behaviorally flexible. Says University of Hawaii\'s Louis Herman, They have big generalist brains like we do. They\'ll manipulate their world to make things possible.

 

 

　Iceland\'s highest paying jobs and two-thirds of its people are packed in and around Reykjavík, the only city and the center for environmental activism.

 

　Name: Alex
　　Species: African Gray Parrot
　　Home: Brandeis University, Waltham, MA (until death at age 31 in September 2007)
　　Smarts: Counted; knew colors; shapes, and sizes had basic grasp of the abstract concept of zero.

 

　On a trip to the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, photographer Stephen Alvarez made this shot as a squall passed. Though the island was near, the weather concealed it, creating the kind of blank horizon Polynesian sailors undoubtedly sometimes faced. Scanning for clues, ancient sailors likely would have noticed the bird in the upper left—another hint that land might not be far off.

 

With sizable brains and dexterous arms, octopuses are known to block their dens with rocks and amuse themselves shooting water at plastic-bottle targets (the first reported invertebrate play behavior) and at lab staff. They may even express basic emotions by changing color, says Seattle Aquarium\'s Roland Anderson

 

　Molten lava flowing across wetlands and into the cold waters of Lake Myvatn set off steam explosions that created a chain of pseudo craters more than 2,000 years ago—a landscape that draws sightseers today.

 

　Honeybees have long amazed scientists with their social behaviors (dancing out directions to a food source, working in tandem with thousands of hive mates, taking on specialized jobs within and outside the hive). Also remarkable are their complex memories: Bees can learn and memorize local routes, landmarks, and when different flowers bloom—allowing them to visit the same spot at the same time the next day, improving their foraging efficiency.

 

　Meltwater from Icelands largest glacier thunders into a canyon, drawing tourists to the precipice. Until now most raging rivers like this—a huge potential source of hydroelectric power—have remained wild.

 

　In a blur of dust turbaned riders gather to watch a race in Abéché in eastern Chad. A thousand years ago men on horseback carried Islam and Arab culture across the vast, dry lands bordering the Sahara.

 

　The see-through skin of an inch-long glass frog reveals her eggs. Native to Venezuela, the frogs lay eggs in bushes and trees overhanging streams. Tadpoles hatch, then tumble into the current to be swept away.

 

　The only infant born in the Fongoli group last spring, Teva is the first baby scientists were able to track within a week or two of her birth. Closely monitoring her development will provide valuable insights into how chimps pass on behaviors. Her mother is one of the most prolific hunters, says Pruetz. It will be interesting to see if Teva picks it up.

 

　Draped in iridescent hues, rugged Nā Pali Coast on Kaua\'i provides a rampart against the Pacific—and a pot of tourist gold.

 

　Sipping through a foot, the thorny devil lizard of the arid Australian desert demonstrates its ability to wick water to its mouth via channels between its scales. Scientists hope to mimic the mechanism to develop water-capture technologies for dry regions.

 

　Swallowing all but the tallest trees, dunes have buried cropland near the city of Goudoumaria, where a herder follows goats in search of forage. Reduced rainfall has withered vegetation and dried up wells in parts of southern Niger, forcing villagers to move. The Sahel experienced droughts in the 1970s and \'80s, and although rainfall has increased since the 1990s, a decades-long dry spell continues.

 

　Not far from its Franklin Island colony, a lone Adélie punctuates the looping scrawl of penguin tracks across plates of Ross Sea pack ice. Some 2.7 million of the birds populate the Ross Sea region.

 

　An adult male lingers at Sakoto pool, a favorite spot among the community of chimps scientists call the Fongoli group, for a stream that runs through their range.

 

　Just before setting, the moon silvers the waves washing Kalalau Beach. An old Hawaiian legend tells of Pele, goddess of fire, coming to this coast in search of a home, but she was driven away by a goddess of the sea. Their contest continues today, with the sea winning bit by bit.

 

　Behind the squared-off contours of the boxfish lies a lesson in sleek design. Low drag helps the fish swim up to six body lengths per second, stabilized by the keel-like edges of its carapace.

 

　A sudden downpour drenches women near Abéché during the rainy season. Changing climate has already brought the Sahel not only drier weather but also rains that fall too heavily, too early, or too late: In September 2007 floods inundated the normally parched region. As they have for centuries, the Sahel\'s people are finding ways to adapt in a land so uncompromising that failure means death.

 

　First-time mom Nickel reclines with her newborn, Teva, one of the newest members of the chimp group being studied at Fongoli. All the chimps clamored to groom the baby, but Nickel let Mike (at right), an orphan, get close. She avoided adult males, prone to noisy fits of branch shaking.

 

　Dusk settles on Kalalau Beach at the valley\'s western edge. Though now a remote retreat for hikers and the occasional hermit, the largest valley on Nā Pali Coast sustained a significant population of native Hawaiians for more than 600 years. Though they abandoned Kalalau around 1919, their terraced taro fields are still evident throughout the deep valley, evoking a simpler time and a natural beauty that now attracts visitors from around the world.

 

　Riding a mountain of belongings, migrants who had left Niger for Libya return home in the face of antiforeign sentiment. The Sahel was once the center of a camel-borne trade that took slaves, ivory, and gold to Europe and the Middle East, but it now lies on the margins of the world\'s economy. Many of the region\'s young men have gone to wealthier countries such as Libya and Algeria to find work.

 

　Nellie, a young female, grips a limb with her feet as she tightropes some 30 feet above the forest floor. Observing apes walking on branches has led some scientists to speculate that bipedalism may have actually arisen in trees rather than on the ground.

 

　The pristine sands, plunging valley walls, and famous stone arch of Honopū Beach have been featured in numerous films. Most notable was the 1976 remake of King Kong, in which the arch served as the gateway to Kong\'s kingdom. Hollywood fantasies aside, the valley still casts its spell over all who visit.

 

　Specialized wrist bones and fleshy pads on the backs of their hands allow chimps to knuckle walk, their primary mode of perambulating open ground. The method is effective for short bursts of speed but metabolically inefficient over long distances. A human burns roughly half as many calories walking as does a knuckle-walking chimp over the same span.

 

　Giant boulders on the edge of Kalalau Beach are telltale evidence of the powerful erosional forces that continue to sculpt the basalt cliffs of Nā Pali Coast. Sea caves—popular campsites for kayakers and hikers—have either collapsed or been covered by landslides. Geologists have also discovered evidence that a massive landslide extending miles out to sea may have occurred millions of year ago when the coast was young.

 

Invasive species, such as bamboo, rival native plants in Nā Pali\'s lush valleys.

 

　Sunset bathes the battlements of Kalalau, the largest valley on Nā Pali Coast. The famous fluted walls are the result of varying rates of weathering and erosion. The valley is accessible only by boat, when the seas are calm in summer, or by way of a dizzying 11-mile trail that hugs the cliffs.

 

　Five-year-old Wu Lianlian visits her family\'s hillside rice field with her hair ablaze in store-bought frills—a sign that the outside world has reached the once isolated farming community of Dimen.