National Geographic
National Geographic
National Geographic
APRIL 2014
THE DEBATE OVER
OWNING EXOTIC ANIMALS
FOUND IN FRANCE: A ROMAN BOAT CAN COAL EVER BE CLEAN?
8:45 p.m., January 20, 2014
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Shot with the Nokia Lumia 1020
Follow my journey through the
Seven Natural Wonders of the World at
nationalgeographic.com/nokia.
| |
Every day on this assignment, I woke up
astounded that a place this beautiful could be
real. Soccer isnt all that will amaze people in
Rio this year. The Harbor is the worlds larg-
est bay; mountains rise up all around it; and
wedged right between is the spectacular city.
Easy to see why its one of the Seven Natural
Wonders of the World, and once again, the
Nokia Lumia 1020 let me explore and shoot
in a whole new way. In fact, I look at my images
and cant believe they were all shot with a
smartphone.
The Lumia 1020 is an absolutely incred-
ible low-light camera. The details it captures,
like the sparkling lights in this nighttime image,
astonish me. I used the 1020 just like a DSLR
camera, shooting aerials, action, in all kinds of
light with fantastic quality. I just cant believe
the picturesand I took them!
Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic photographer
NOKIA LUMIA 1020
Telling Rios story like never before.
|ntroducing the K900, fron Kia.
2015 K900 V expected 5pr|ng 2014. lni!iallg onlg availabl in slc! nark!s wi!| lini!d availabili!g. 2015 K900 V8 pro!o!gp s|own wi!| op!ional !a!urs. No! all
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T|g sag !|a! !radi!ion is w|a! naks a luxurg sdan, bu! is !|a! !rulg !| cas? Or can luxurg
sinplg b d!ind bg !| wag son!|ing looks? T| wag i! !ls? T| wag i! naks gou !l? lr|aps
i!s !| wag i! naks o!|rs !l abou! gou? W|il son will cling !o !| no!ion !|a! |ri!ag is
w|a! naks a luxurg sdan, !| opnnindd will !orn an opinion o! !|ir own.
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VOI. 223 - NO. 4
Te Romans had a serious
trash problem, though it
was good-looking trash.
page 126
28
The Shentou Number 2 power plant spews y ash and coal dust over the country-
side near Shuozhou, China. The coal-red plant provides electricity to Beijing.
OF F I CI AI J OURNAI OF THE NATI ONAI GE OGRAP HI C S OCI E T Y
Hats Of to Breton Women
Have you ever tried to climb into a tiny car with
a 13-inch-tall column of lace on your head?
By Amanda Fiegl Photographs by Charles Frger
Wild Obsession
Owners love their pet chimps, tigers, bears.
Critics say its dangerous and cruel.
By Lauren Slater Photographs by Vincent J. Musi
Romans in France
The muddy Rhne River is full of surprises: stat-
ues, luxury goods, a 102-foot-long Roman boat.
By Robert Kunzig Photographs by Rmi Bnali
Can Coal Ever Be Clean?
We burn eight billion tons a year. Demand is surg-
ing. The challenge: control the carbon pollution.
By Michelle Nijhuis Photographs by Robb Kendrick
A Tale of Two Atolls
Amorous turtles and young sharks nd
happiness by a pair of Indian Ocean islands.
By Kennedy Warne Photographs by Thomas P. Peschak
Cosmic Dawn
When a star is born, the best way to take a look
is with ALMA, the gigantic new telescope in Chile.
By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee Photographs by Dave Yoder
86
96
120
28
62
76
April 4
ROBB KENDRICK
A Veil of Eggs
The monksh lays a million at a time,
protected by a oating, gauzy lm.
Commuter Science
A city-by-city breakdown of hours lost
Gallery of Gardens
Artist Fritz Haeg has helped 15 families
turn their lawn into a work of art.
Reunited After 163 Years
A newfound ancient turtle bone
matches up with a specimen from 1849.
Block That Meteorite
Early warnings could keep us safe.
Soylent on Rye
Its a synthesized food that does
not depend on agriculture.
Sugar Solution
Fructose plus water can make tissues
transparent for a clear view of organs.
18
136
137
4
6
8
10
16
Editors Note
Letters
Survival Guide
VISIONS
NG Connect
The Moment
Found
On the Cover Jade the hedgehog was nearly 11 months old (and 16
ounces) when she was photographed. South Carolinian Brandon Harley uses
her as a breeder in his pet business. Photo by Vincent J. Musi
Your Shot
DIGITAL EDITIONS
April 4
NEXT
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Deer in the Home Lights
Video
Dillie the blind deer tours
her domestic digs.
Cosmic Dawn
Interactive
Experience the expansion
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dyson.com/DC59
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EDITORS NOTE
PHOTO: VINCENT J. MUSI
The Bear in the Backyard
About 15 years ago I had an assignment to photo-
graph wild dogs in Botswanas Okavango Delta.
A pack had hunted down an impala and dragged
the carcass near my Land Rover. I crawled under
the vehicle so I would be as inconspicuous as
possible while photographing the scene, but an
adult male trotted over to me, sniffed my face, and
started tugging at my leg. I stayed absolutely still,
heart racing, hardly breathing. It was an intimate
encounter with one of Africas most endangered
carnivores but was completely on the animals
terms, not mine.
Turning a wild animala lion, a lemur, a bear
into a pet creates a different dynamic. The
relationship exists on the terms of the human
owner, and I question the wisdom of that for
both sides. In this months story on exotic pets,
writer Lauren Slater and photographer Vince
Musi take us into living rooms and backyards
shared with animals whose natural habitats lie
far from the suburbs. Undoubtedly, their owners
feel an attachment no less profound than what
you or I feel for the domestic dogs and cats in
our lives. All my life people have let me down,
a woman who keeps three kangaroos told Slater.
My animals never have.
Its said that the morality of a nation can be
judged by the way it treats its animals. But treat-
ment is not just a matter of providing food, shelter,
and care. Its whether the animal in question ought
to be a pet at all.
Boo Boo lived in John Matuss Ohio
backyard for nine years before her
relocation to a Colorado sanctuary
in 2013. I miss her a lot, says
Matus, who raised her from a cub.
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As we all know youre only young
ONCE. If you do the math, that means about
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national geographic apri l
LETTERS
December 2013
On my wall I have a Buckminster Fuller Dymaxion map of
the world. Many times I have gazed into it, fantasizing about
(someone) taking the walk from the southern tip of Africa
to the southern tip of South America. Given the right weather
conditions, even the small gap between Cape Dezhneva in
Russia and Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska could perhaps be
crossed. Im really looking forward to nally taking that walk,
albeit from the comfort of my armchair, thanks to the next
seven years of what Im sure will be adventurous reporting
from Paul Salopek.
GEOFF SYKES
Eagle Rock, California
Our Greatest Journey
FEEDBACK Readers
sent in word of suspected
cougar sightings around
the U.S.
Paul Salopek has the eye of an
artist, the insight of a philoso-
pher, and the candor of a poet.
What better way to understand
what it means to be human
than to walk among us?
MARTIN LEIF
Roswell, New Mexico
From the rst time I sang Its
a Small World as a Brownie,
I have tried to remember that
we are all in this together. I
will be interested not only in
the geographic journey and
the physical wonders this man
will see but also in his discovery
of the many ways we human
beings are alike and connected.
Wow. What a ride!
LYNNE MILFORD
Fort Worth, Texas
Tumbleweeds
When I was a child growing
up on the northern edge of
the San Fernando Valley,
tumbleweeds were playthings.
We chased them when the
Santa Ana winds blew and
watched them jump down our
dirt road and pile up against the
fences. When the wind stopped,
we built forts and houses out
of them in the eld next door.
At Christmas my mother always
used three to make a snowman
and painted it white. It was the
closest wed get to snow. But
my father always yelled at us
when wed pull a tumbleweed
over the fence and into our
yard. Now I know why.
JAN GANDY
Palo Cedro, California
This article was an eye-opener.
Although Ive lived in the West
nearly all my life, I had never
learned that tumbleweeds were
an invasive species. Kudos to
author George Johnson and
your magazine for an article
that had the perfect blend of
history, science, sci- thriller,
and sardonic wit.
MARIE KEEHN
Discovery Bay, California
Corrections
DECEMBER 2013, ENGLISH BY THE BOOK The
catalog of the history of words referenced
on page 60 was begun in 1857, not 1859.
ART: KIRSTEN HUNTLEY
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LETTERS
First Skiers
I already knew the fate of the two bull
elk before I nished reading. Any wildlife
biologist can tell you that the stress
brought on by such an exhausting ordeal
doomed the elk even before they were
freed. The wolves only made quick work
of what were already near-dead beasts.
RUFUS BAUR
Council, Idaho
Ghost Cats
I was thoroughly enjoying the article
on cougars, until I read the claim that
California has an abundance of deer
and one of the lowest rates of cougar
conicts with humans. Though the
golf course at Pebble Beach may have
an abundance of deer, populations
in northeast counties and the Sierra
Nevada have been decimated. I live
in Shasta County, in the heart of the
deers winter range, and it is all too easy
to nd a fresh kill. Livestock depletion
must not count as conict with humans
either, because we sure have a lot of
dead sheep gone to feed cougars.
LAWRENCE J. RIVARD
Falls River Mills, California
Those mountain lions (we still call them
mountain lions where I live) crossing the
meadow were photographed near my
home. The comeback is a heartwarming
story to some. But to others it is simply
the return of a serious competitor.
JEFF VAN FLEET
Kalispell, Montana
As an active hunter, conservationist,
and pragmatist raised in the American
West, I was encouraged to read about
the rebound of the cougar and the
science behind it. Now attention needs
to be turned to repatriating and manag-
ing another of our long-neglected apex
predators: the jaguar.
JARED ZAUGG
Sandy, Utah
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(LABA). LABA medicines such as formoterol increase the risk of death
from asthma problems. It is not known whether budesonide, the other
medicine in SYMBICORT, reduces the risk of death from asthma problems
seen with formoterol.
Call your health care provider if breathing problems worsen over time
while using SYMBICORT. You may need diferent treatment
Get emergency medical care if:
o Breathing problems worsen quickly, and
o You use your rescue inhaler medicine, but it does not relieve your
breathing problems
SYMBICORT should be used only if your health care provider decides
that your asthma is not well controlled with a long-term asthma control
medicine, such as an inhaled corticosteroid, or that your asthma is severe
enough to begin treatment with SYMBICORT.
If you are taking SYMBICORT, see your health care provider if your asthma
does not improve or gets worse. It is important that your health care
provider assess your asthma control on a regular basis. Your doctor will
decide if it is possible for you to stop taking SYMBICORT and start taking a
long-term asthma control medicine without loss of asthma control.
Children and adolescents who take LABA medicines may have an
increased risk of being hospitalized for asthma problems.
SYMBICORT does not replace rescue inhalers for sudden symptoms.
Be sure to tell your health care provider about all your health conditions,
including heart conditions or high blood pressure, and all medicines
you may be taking. Some patients taking SYMBICORT may experience
increased blood pressure, heart rate, or change in heart rhythm.
Do not use SYMBICORT more often than prescribed. While taking
SYMBICORT, never use another medicine containing a LABA for any
reason. Ask your health care provider or pharmacist if any of your other
medicines are LABA medicines.
SYMBICORT can cause serious side efects, including:
Pneumonia and other lower respiratory tract infections. People with
COPD may have a higher chance of pneumonia. Call your doctor if
you notice any of the following symptoms: change in amount or
color of mucus, fever, chills, increased cough, or increased breathing
problems
Serious allergic reactions including rash, hives, swelling of the face,
mouth and tongue, and breathing problems
Immune system efect and a higher chance of infection. Tell your health
care provider if you think you are exposed to infections such as chicken
pox or measles, or if you have any signs of infection such as fever, pain,
body aches, chills, feeling tired, nausea, or vomiting
Adrenal insufficiency. This can happen when you stop taking oral
corticosteroid medicines and start inhaled corticosteroid medicine
Using too much of a LABA medicine may cause chest pain, increase
in blood pressure, fast and irregular heartbeat, headache, tremor,
or nervousness
Increased wheezing right after taking SYMBICORT. Always have a
rescue inhaler with you to treat sudden wheezing
Eye problems including glaucoma and cataracts. You should have
regular eye exams while using SYMBICORT
Lower bone mineral density can happen in people who have a high
chance for low bone mineral density (osteoporosis)
Slowed growth in children. A childs growth should be checked regularly
while using SYMBICORT
Swelling of blood vessels (signs include a feeling of pins and needles or
numbness of arms or legs, u like symptoms, rash, pain or swelling of the
sinuses), decrease in blood potassium and increase in blood sugar levels
Common side efects in patients with asthma include nose and throat
irritation, headache, upper respiratory tract infection, sore throat, sinusitis,
stomach discomfort, u, back pain, nasal congestion, vomiting, and thrush
in the mouth and throat.
Approved Uses for SYMBICORT
SYMBICORT 80/4.5 and 160/4.5 are medicines for the treatment of asthma
for people 12 years and older whose doctor has determined that their
asthma is not well controlled with a long-term asthma control medicine
such as an inhaled corticosteroid or whose asthma is severe enough to
begin treatment with SYMBICORT. SYMBICORT is not a treatment for
sudden asthma symptoms.
Please see full Prescribing Information and Medication Guide
and discuss with your doctor.
You are encouraged to report negative side efects of prescription drugs to
the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Please read this summary carefully and then ask
your doctor about SYMBICORT.
No advertisement can provide all the information needed to
determine if a drug is right for you or take the place of careful
discussions with your health care provider. Only your health
care provider has the training to weigh the risks and benets of a
prescription drug.
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION
I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SYMBICORT?
People with asthma who take long-acting beta
2
-agonist
(LABA) medicines, such as formoterol (one of the medicines
in SYMBICORT), have an increased risk of death from asthma
problems. It is not known whether budesonide, the other medicine
in SYMBICORT, reduces the risk of death from asthma problems
seen with formoterol.
SYMBICORT should be used only if your health care provider
decides that your asthma is not well controlled with a long-term
asthma control medicine, such as an inhaled corticosteroid, or that
your asthma is severe enough to begin treatment with SYMBICORT.
Talk with your health care provider about this risk and the benets of treating
your asthma with SYMBICORT.
If you are taking SYMBICORT, see your health care provider if your asthma
does not improve or gets worse. It is important that your health care provider
assess your asthma control on a regular basis. Your doctor will decide if it
is possible for you to stop taking SYMBICORT and start taking a long-term
asthma control medicine without loss of asthma control.
Get emergency medical care if:
breathing problems worsen quickly, and
you use your rescue inhaler medicine, but it does not relieve your
breathing problems.
Children and adolescents who take LABA medicines may be at increased
risk of being hospitalized for asthma problems.
WHAT IS SYMBICORT?
SYMBICORT is an inhaled prescription medicine used for asthma and
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It contains two medicines:
Budesonide (the same medicine found in Pulmicort Flexhaler
,
an inhaled corticosteroid). Inhaled corticosteroids help to decrease
inammation in the lungs. Inammation in the lungs can lead to asthma
symptoms
Formoterol (the same medicine found in Foradil
Aerolizer
). LABA
medicines are used in patients with COPD and asthma to help the
muscles in the airways of your lungs stay relaxed to prevent asthma
symptoms, such as wheezing and shortness of breath. These symptoms
can happen when the muscles in the airways tighten. This makes it
hard to breathe, which, in severe cases, can cause breathing to stop
completely if not treated right away
SYMBICORT is used for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease as follows:
Asthma
SYMBICORT is used to control symptoms of asthma and prevent symptoms
such as wheezing in adults and children ages 12 and older.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
COPD is a chronic lung disease that includes chronic bronchitis,
emphysema, or both. SYMBICORT 160/4.5 mcg is used long term, two
times each day, to help improve lung function for better breathing in adults
with COPD.
WHO SHOULD NOT USE SYMBICORT?
Do not use SYMBICORT to treat sudden severe symptoms of asthma or
COPD or if you are allergic to any of the ingredients in SYMBICORT.
WHAT SHOULD I TELL MY HEALTH CARE
PROVIDER BEFORE USING SYMBICORT?
Tell your health care provider about all of your health conditions,
including if you:
have heart problems
have high blood pressure
have seizures
have thyroid problems
have diabetes
have liver problems
have osteoporosis
have an immune system problem
have eye problems such as increased pressure in the eye,
glaucoma, or cataracts
are allergic to any medicines
are exposed to chicken pox or measles
are pregnant or planning to become pregnant. It is not known
if SYMBICORT may harm your unborn baby
are breast-feeding. Budesonide, one of the active ingredients
in SYMBICORT, passes into breast milk. You and your health care
provider should decide if you will take SYMBICORT while
breast-feeding
Tell your health care provider about all the medicines you take including
prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal
supplements. SYMBICORT and certain other medicines may interact
with each other and can cause serious side effects. Know all the
medicines you take. Keep a list and show it to your health care provider
and pharmacist each time you get a new medicine.
HOW DO I USE SYMBICORT?
Do not use SYMBICORT unless your health care provider has taught
you and you understand everything. Ask your health care provider or
pharmacist if you have any questions.
Use SYMBICORT exactly as prescribed. Do not use SYMBICORT
more often than prescribed. SYMBICORT comes in two strengths for
asthma: 80/4.5 mcg and 160/4.5 mcg. Your health care provider will
prescribe the strength that is best for you. SYMBICORT 160/4.5 mcg
is the approved dosage for COPD.
SYMBICORT should be taken every day as 2 puffs in the morning
and 2 puffs in the evening.
Rinse your mouth with water and spit the water out after each dose
(2 puffs) of SYMBICORT. This will help lessen the chance of getting
a fungus infection (thrush) in the mouth and throat.
Do not spray SYMBICORT in your eyes. If you accidentally get
SYMBICORT in your eyes, rinse your eyes with water. If redness or
irritation persists, call your health care provider.
Do not change or stop any medicines used to control or treat your
breathing problems. Your health care provider will change your
medicines as needed
While you are using SYMBICORT 2 times each day, do not
use other medicines that contain a long-acting beta
2
-agonist
(LABA) for any reason. Ask your health care provider or
pharmacist if any of your other medicines are LABA medicines.
SYMBICORT does not relieve sudden symptoms. Always have a
rescue inhaler medicine with you to treat sudden symptoms. If you
do not have a rescue inhaler, call your health care provider to have
one prescribed for you.
Call your health care provider or get medical care right away if:
your breathing problems worsen with SYMBICORT
you need to use your rescue inhaler medicine more often than usual
your rescue inhaler does not work as well for you at relieving symptoms
you need to use 4 or more inhalations of your rescue inhaler medicine for
2 or more days in a row
you use one whole canister of your rescue inhaler medicine in 8 weeks time
your peak ow meter results decrease. Your health care provider will tell you
the numbers that are right for you
your symptoms do not improve after using SYMBICORT regularly for 1 week
WHAT MEDICATIONS SHOULD I NOT TAKE
WHEN USING SYMBICORT?
While you are using SYMBICORT, do not use other medicines that contain a
long-acting beta
2
-agonist (LABA) for any reason, such as:
Serevent
Diskus
or Advair
, or
Perforomist
WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS
WITH SYMBICORT?
SYMBICORT can cause serious side effects.
Increased risk of pneumonia and other lower respiratory tract infections if
you have COPD. Call your health care provider if you notice any of these
symptoms: increase in mucus production, change in mucus color, fever,
chills, increased cough, increased breathing problems
Serious allergic reactions including rash; hives; swelling of the face,
mouth and tongue; and breathing problems. Call your health care
provider or get emergency care if you get any of these symptoms
Immune system effects and a higher chance for infections
Adrenal insufciencya condition in which the adrenal glands do not
make enough steroid hormones
Cardiovascular and central nervous system effects of LABAs, such as
chest pain, increased blood pressure, fast or irregular heartbeat, tremor,
or nervousness
Increased wheezing right after taking SYMBICORT
Eye problems, including glaucoma and cataracts. You should have regular
eye exams while using SYMBICORT
Osteoporosis. People at risk for increased bone loss may have a greater
risk with SYMBICORT
Slowed growth in children. As a result, growth should be carefully monitored
Swelling of your blood vessels. This can happen in people with asthma
Decreases in blood potassium levels and increases in blood sugar levels
WHAT ARE COMMON SIDE EFFECTS OF SYMBICORT?
Patients with Asthma
Sore throat, headache, upper respiratory tract infection, thrush in the mouth
and throat
Patients with COPD
Thrush in the mouth and throat
These are not all the side effects with SYMBICORT. Ask your health care
provider or pharmacist for more information.
NOTE: This summary provides important information about SYMBICORT.
For more information, please ask your doctor or health care provider.
SYMBICORT is a registered trademark of the AstraZeneca group of companies.
Other brands mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners and are not
trademarks of the AstraZeneca group of companies. The makers of these brands
are not afliated with and do not endorse AstraZeneca or its products.
2010 AstraZeneca LP. All rights reserved.
Manufactured for: AstraZeneca LP, Wilmington, DE 19850
By: AstraZeneca AB, Dunkerque, France Product of France
Rev 11/11 1504903
Visit www.MySymbicort.com
Or, call 1-866-SYMBICORT
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or benefciary designation, you can pass on your love
of exploration, science, and conservation to future
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Mail to National Geographic Society
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Of ce of Planned Giving
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I have included National Geographic g p
n my will, trust, or benefciary
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COPYRIGHT 2014 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY SUSAN MCCONNELL, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT
14PGFC04B
LEAVE A LEGACY OF LOVE.
national geographic apri l
SURVIVAL GUIDE
ART: ISTVAN BANYAI. PHOTO: LAWRENCE BOYE, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
Nalini Nadkarni
National Geographic
Grantee
EXPERTISE
Forest Ecologist
LOCATION
Costa Rica
Caught Up Ive studied the plants
and animals that live in forest canopies for
30 years. Its like climbing mountainstheres
always some danger in moving up and down
a tree. When you climb day after day, though,
sometimes for months on end, you forget that
youre up more than a hundred feet. Eating
a sandwich and an apple up there can seem
like having a picnic on the ground.
I used to wear my long hair in two braids that
I kept tied up behind my head to keep them out
of the way. One day I forgot to tie them back.
I noticed a tugging on my rappelling gear a few
feet down. Within seconds the rope was so taut
that my chin was pressed against it. There is
a metal clip called a whales tail that the rope
loops through to create friction to help you
control your slide. My braid was caught in it
and it was getting tighter and more painful.
I tried pulling myself up, tried yanking my
braid out. It was futile. After ve minutes I
thought, Im going to have to cut this thing
off. I had always identied myself as someone
with long hair. My father was from India, and
hair is a source of beauty and honor there.
Somehow my ancestral motivation wasnt
quite as strong when I was strung up.
Holding myself up with one hand, I reached
into my pocket and pulled out a penknife and
starting sawing. When the last hairs were cut,
my weight went back into the harness and my
braid dropped to the ground. I made my way
back to the forest oor and snatched it up. We
had a museum of odd things wed found in the
canopy. I put my braid on display as a reminder
that every momentlike this one, 150 feet above
the forest ooryou have to be fully aware.
Y
our watch shouldnt cost more
than your car. It should look and
feel like a power tool and not a piece
of bling. Wearing it shouldnt make
you think twice about swinging a
hammer or changing a tire. A real
mans timepiece needs to be ready for
anything. But thats just my opinion.
If you agree, maybe youre ready for
the Stauer Centurion Hybrid. Use
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This is a LOT of machine for not a lot of
money. The Stauer Centurion Hybrid
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The luminous hour and minute hands
mean you can keep working into the
night. And the dual digital displays give
this watch a hybrid ability. The LCD
windows displays the time, day and
date, includes a stopwatch function,
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luminescent backlight. We previously
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with the exclusive promotional code
its yours for ONLY $59!
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feeling the only problem youll have
is deciding whether to keep the
Stauer Centurion on your dresser or
tucked inside your toolbox.
14101 Southcross Drive W., Dept. CNW215-03
Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 www.stauer.com
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NEXT
PHOTOS: CARLOS GONZALEZ; TED DAESCHLER, ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, DREXEL
UNIVERSITY (BONE). ART: LVARO VALIO (TOP). SOURCE: EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE. NGM ART
A Humerus Tale Call it the luckiest break. In 2012 an amateur
paleontologist found half a turtle bone in New Jerseys Monmouth County.
When David Parris of the state museum saw it, he was reminded of a leg-
bone fragment hed seen at Philadelphias Academy of Natural Sciences,
where it was studied back in 1849. The two parts t together perfectly.
Now a complete 21-inch humerus (far left) from a 2,000-plus-pound Creta-
ceous sea turtle existsafter more than 160 years. Jeremy Berlin
Growth Period Artist Fritz Haegs work is
taking root. Over the past decade hes helped 15 families around
the world turn their grass-only lawns into lush, organic gardens that
he calls edible estates. Planted in front yards from Tel Aviv, Israel,
to the Twin Cities in Minnesota, the plots give nourishment and
pleasure. More important, says Haeg, they provide a sharp contrast
to surrounding propertieswhich typically lack biodiversity.
Confronting the issue of land use is an idea that resonates with
environmental geographer Paul Robbins. Turfgrass lawns are ecologi-
cally problematic because they keep other species from thriving.
Nature abhors a monoculture, says Robbins. Lawn maintenance
is a desperate struggle against nature. Catherine Zuckerman
Siblings Andrea and
Aaron Schoenherr tend
their Woodbury, Minne-
sota, gardenpart
of a global art project.
For the rst time the worlds farmed sh
production is larger than its beef production.
10 feet
Prices and availability subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a predictor of future performance. NOTE: GovMint.com
is a
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government. Satisfaction assured with our 30-Day Guarantee. Facts and gures deemed accurate as of November 2013. 2014 GovMint.com.
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veryone wants luck and good fortune in their
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Earth
Venus
Mercury
Asteroid belt
Mars
Jupiter
Pallas
THE ASTEROID BELT THE MOON AND MARS
Hygiea Ceres Vesta
About 50 percent of the belts mass is in these four asteroids: Asteroid impacts expel debris, called ejecta.
are from the asteroid belt
99.8% 99.8% are from
Vesta alone
6% 6%
are ejecta from the moon and Mars
0.2%
Where meteorites originate
Falling objects
Meteorites on Earth
NEXT
On Deflection Asteroids of the size
that caused the meteor explosion over Russia in 2013 may
plunge into the atmosphere every 30 yearsten times more
often than once thought. Veteran astronaut Tom Jones says
that early warning could stop them. Robotic missions could
ram an asteroid or hover to exert a gravitational tug. This might
shift an asteroids velocity enough, he says, to make it miss its
appointment with Earth. Eve Conant
GRAPHIC: PERISCOPIC. SOURCES: JEFFREY N. GROSSMAN AND MICHAEL E. ZOLENSKY, NASA
METEOR
These trails of light created by vaporizing
particles are also called shooting stars.
METEOROID
Smaller than asteroids, these tiny chunks of
debris orbit the sun, and some fall to Earth.
METEORITIC DUST
Up to 100 tons of fragments and particles,
including remnants from the solar systems
formation, enter Earths atmosphere daily.
The largest surviving
meteorite on Earth is
in Namibia. It weighs
about 60 tons.
The meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk,
Russia, is the largest known object to enter
Earths atmosphere since 1908. Of its 13,200
tons, 76 percent vaporized above Earth.
METEORITE
A meteorite is the part of an asteroid
or comet that reaches Earths surface.
The average meteorite weighs about
an ounce, equivalent to a large marble.
There are class action Settlements involving DRAM, a
memory part that is sold by itself or as part of electronic
devices such as computers, printers, and video game
consoles.
The lawsuits claim that the Defendants xed the price of
DRAM causing individuals and businesses to pay more for
DRAM and DRAM-containing devices. The Defendants
deny that they did anything wrong.
Who is included in the Settlements?
Individuals and businesses that:
Purchased DRAM or a device containing DRAM
anywhere in the U.S. between 1998 and 2002,
For their own use or for resale.
Purchases made directly from a DRAM manufacturer
are not included (see the list of manufacturers at
www.DRAMclaims.com or by calling 1-800-589-1425).
What do the Settlements provide?
The combined Settlements total $310 million. The amount
of money you will receive depends on the type and quantity
of electronic devices you purchased and the total number of
claims made.
Eligible individuals and businesses are expected to get a
minimum $10 payment and perhaps much more. Large
purchasers could recover many thousands of dollars.
How can I get a payment?
Claim online or by mail by August 1, 2014. The simple
online Claim Form only takes 3-5 minutes for most
individuals.
What are my rights?
Even if you do nothing you will be bound by the Courts
decisions. If you want to keep your right to sue the
Defendants yourself, you must exclude yourself from
the Settlement Class by May 5, 2014. If you stay in the
Settlement Class, you may object to the Settlements by
May 5, 2014.
The Court will hold a hearing on June 25, 2014 at 9:00
a.m. to consider whether to approve the Settlements and
a request for attorneys fees up to 25% of the Settlement
Fund, plus reimbursement of costs and expenses. You or
your own lawyer may appear and speak at the hearing at
your own expense.
For More Information:
1-800-589-1425 www.DRAMclaims.com
Text: DRAM to 96000
(You may receive notications via text. Message & Data rates may apply.)
Chemistry Casanova
Reinvents the Emerald
San Fransisco CAIt is 1937. You never saw a genius more
in love. She loved him back, but how could he surprise her
and stun her without breaking the bank? He knew she loved
that glittering green necklace in the jewelry store window.
But he also knew that he could never afford a natural emerald
on a chemist's salary. So he made his own.
A few years later, he brought 100 carats along on his honey-
moon in New York City. But when the couple visited a Fifth
Avenue jeweler for a professional opinion, the manager called
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Own a piece of emerald history. We have spent the last
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the fire of our exclusive DiamondAura rounds.
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Chemically, the scientific stones grown in a lab are
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and an incredibly rich, intense green.
Your satisfaction is guaranteed. Bring it home and
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full refund of your purchase price. But after wearing the
worlds smartest gem, you will see first-hand how beauty and
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Burnsville, Minnesota 55337
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Stauer
emissions.
It kills thousands a
year in mines, many
more with polluted air.
POCA, WEST VIRGINIA
The Poca High School
Dots practice near an
American Electric Power
coal-red plant that powers
nearly two million homes.
Scrubbers clean some of
the sulfur and mercury
but not the carbonfrom
the smoke.
ROBB KENDRICK
Just look at West Virginia, where whole Appa-
lachian peaks have been knocked into valleys
to get at the coal underneath and streams run
orange with acidic water. Or look at downtown
Beijing, where the air these days is ofen thicker
than in an airport smoking lounge. Air pollu-
tion in China, much of it from burning coal,
is blamed for more than a million premature
deaths a year. Tats on top of the thousands who
die in mining accidents, in China and elsewhere.
Tese problems arent new. In the late th
century, when coal from Wales and Northum-
berland was lighting the frst fres of the indus-
trial revolution in Britain, the English writer
John Evelyn was already complaining about the
stink and darknesse of the smoke that wreathed
London. Tree centuries later, in December ,
a thick layer of coal-laden smog descended on
London and lingered for a long weekend, pro-
voking an epidemic of respiratory ailments that
killed as many as , people in the ensuing
months. American cities endured their own
traumas. On an October weekend in , in the
small Pennsylvania town of Donora, spectators at
a high school football game realized they could
see neither players nor ball: Smog from a nearby
coal-fred zinc smelter was obscuring the feld. In
Michelle Nijhuis has won multiple awards for her
writing about the environment. Robb Kendricks last
piece, in April , was on reviving extinct species.
Environmentalists say that clean coal is
Part one | The invisible carbon
By Michelle Nijhuis
national geographic apri l
coal
the days that followed, people died, and ,
peoplenearly half the townwere sickened.
Coal, to use the economists euphe mism, is
fraught with externalitiesthe heavy costs it
imposes on society. Its the dirtiest, most lethal
energy source we have. But by most measures its
also the cheapest, and we depend on it. So the
big question today isnt whether coal can ever
be clean. It cant. Its whether coal can ever be
clean enoughto prevent not only local disas-
ters but also a radical change in global climate.
Last June, on a hot and muggy day in Wash-
ington, D.C., President Barack Obama gave
the climate speech that the American coal and
electric power industries had dreadedand en-
vironmentalists had hoped forsince his frst
inauguration, in . Speaking in his shirt-
sleeves and pausing occasionally to mop his
brow, Obama announced that by June the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would
draf new rules that would put an end to the
limitless dumping of carbon pollution from
our power plants. Te rules would be issued
under the Clean Air Act, a law inspired in part
by the disaster in Donora. Tat law has already
been used to dramatically reduce the emission
of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and soot par-
ticles from American power plants. But carbon
dioxide, the main cause of global warming, is a
problem on an entirely diferent scale.
In the world emitted a record . billion
metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.
Coal was the largest contributor. Cheap natural
gas has lately reduced the demand for coal in the
U.S., but everywhere else, especially in China,
demand is surging. During the next two decades
several hundred million people worldwide will
get electricity for the frst time, and if current
trends continue, most will use power produced
by coal. Even the most aggressive push for alter-
native energy sources and conservation could
not replace coalat least not right away.
How fast the Arctic melts, how high the seas
rise, how hot the heat waves getall these ele-
ments of our uncertain future depend on what
the world does with its coal, and in particular on
what the U.S. and China do. Will we continue
to burn it and dump the carbon into the air un-
abated? Or will we fnd a way to capture carbon,
as we do sulfur and nitrogen from fossil fuels,
and store it underground?
We need to push as hard as we can for re-
newable energy and energy efciency, and on
reducing carbon emissions from coal, says Stan-
ford University researcher Sally Benson, who
specializes in carbon storage. Were going to
need lots of andsthis isnt a time to be focus-
ing on ors. Te carbon problem is just too big.
American Electric Powers Mountaineer
Plant, on the Ohio River in New Haven, West
Virginia, inhales a million pounds of Appalachian
a myth. Of course it is:
C
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n
a
U
.
S
.
I
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d
i
a
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u
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r
i
c
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p
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P
o
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a
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d
S
o
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t
h
K
o
r
e
a
A
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s
t
r
a
l
i
a
2011
3.8 billion
tons
2000
1.5 billion
tons
2000
141 million tons
2011
131 million tons
coal every hour. Te coal arrives fresh from the
ground, on barges or on a conveyor belt from a
mine across the road. Once inside the plant, the
golf-ball-size lumps are ground into dust as fne
as face powder, then blown into the frebox of
one of the largest boilers in the worlda steel
box that could easily swallow the Statue of Lib-
erty. Te plants three steam-powered turbines,
painted blue with white stars, supply electric-
ity round the clock to . million customers in
seven states. Tose customers pay about a dime
per kilowatt-hour, or roughly $ a month, to
power the refrigerators, washers, dryers, fat
screens, and smartphones, to say nothing of
the lights, of an average household. And as
Charlie Powell, Mountaineers plant manager,
ofen said, even environmentalists like to keep
the lights on.
Te customers pay not a cent, however, nor
does American Electric Power (AEP), for the
privilege of spewing six to seven million met-
ric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
every year from Mountaineers thousand-foot-
high stack. And thats the problem. Carbon is
dumped without limit because in most places
it costs nothing to do so and because there is,
as yet, no law against it in the U.S. But in
it looked as if there might soon be a law; the
House of Representatives had already passed a
bill that summer. AEP, to its credit, decided to
get ahead of it.
Tat October, Mountaineer began a pioneer-
ing experiment in carbon capture. Powell over-
saw it. His father had worked for three decades
at a coal-fred power plant in Virginia; Powell
himself had spent his career at Mountaineer.
The job was simple, he said: We burn coal,
make steam, and run turbines. During the ex-
periment, though, it got a bit more complicated.
AEP attached a chemical plant to the back of
its power plant. It chilled about . percent of
Mountaineers smoke and diverted it through
Increase
Decrease
Top ten
coal-consuming
nations, 2011
Change in consumption
since 2000
Coal use per
capita, 2011
Average daily consump-
tion of coal per person
worldwide
World Coal Consumption
AN
APPETITE
FOR
ENERGY
Though coal burning has
plateaued in countries like
the U.S., it has soared in rap-
idly industrializing countries
like China and India, which
manufacture many of the
Wests consumer products.
World coal consumption
rose by 54 percent from
2000 to 2011.
ALL CHARTS: JOHN TOMANIO AND ALEXANDER STEGMAIER, NGM STAFF
SOURCE: U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION 6.4
lbs
coal
a solution of ammonium carbonate, which ab-
sorbed the CO. Te CO was then drastically
compressed and injected into a porous sand-
stone formation more than a mile below the
banks of the Ohio.
Te system worked. Over the next two years
AEP captured and stored more than 37,000 met-
ric tons of pure carbon dioxide. Te CO is still
underground, not in the atmosphere. It was only
a quarter of one percent of the gas coming out
the stack, but that was supposed to be just the
beginning. AEP planned to scale up the proj-
ect to capture a quarter of the plants emissions,
or I.3 million tons of CO a year. Te company
had agreed to invest $334 million, and the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) had agreed to
match that. But the deal depended on AEP being
able to recoup its investment. And afer climate
change legislation collapsed in the Senate, state
utility regulators told the company that it could
not charge its customers for a technology not
yet required by law.
In the spring of 20II AEP ended the project.
Te maze of pipes and pumps and tanks was
dismantled. Though small, the Mountaineer
system had been the worlds frst to capture and
store carbon dioxide directly from a coal-fred
electric plant, and it had attracted hundreds of
curious visitors from around the world, includ-
ing China and India. Te process did work,
and we educated a lot of people, said Powell.
But geez-oh-whizits going to take another
breakthrough to make it worth our while. A
regulatory breakthrough above allsuch as the
one Obama promised last summerbut techni-
cal ones would help too.
c.v1Uvic c.vno uioxiui and storing or
sequestering it underground in porous rock
formations sounds to its critics like a techno-
fx fantasy. But DOE has spent some $6.3 bil-
lion over the past three decades researching
and testing the technology. And for more than
four decades the oil industry has been injecting
compressed carbon dioxide into depleted oil
felds, using it to coax trapped oil to the sur-
face. On the Canadian Great Plains this practice
has been turned into one of the worlds largest
underground carbon-storage operations.
Since 2000 more than 20 million metric tons
Capturing CO
2
sounds to
its critics like
a techno-x
fantasy.
of carbon dioxide have been captured from a
North Dakota plant that turns coal into synthet-
ic natural gas, then piped 200 miles north into
Saskatchewan. Tere the Canadian petroleum
company Cenovus Energy pushes the CO deep
into the Weyburn and Midale felds, a sprawling
oil patch that had its heyday in the I960s. Two
to three barrels of oil are dissolved out of the
reservoir rock by each ton of CO, which is then
reinjected into the reservoir for storage. Tere it
sits, nearly a mile underground, trapped under
impermeable layers of shale and salt.
For how long: Some natural deposits of carbon
dioxide have been in place for millions of years
in fact the CO in some has been mined and sold
to oil companies. But large and sudden releases
of CO can be lethal to people and animals, par-
ticularly when the gas collects and concentrates
in a confned space. So far no major leaks have
been documented at Weyburn, which is being
monitored by the International Energy Agency,
Average daily consumption
of coal per person
in the U.S.
Average daily consumption of coal
per person in Australiaone of the
worlds highest gures 18
lbs
33
lbs
or at any of the handful of other large storage sites
around the world. Scientists consider the risk of a
catastrophic leak to be extremely low.
Tey worry more about smaller, chronic leaks
that would defeat the purpose of the enterprise.
Geophysicists Mark Zoback and Steven Gore-
lick of Stanford University argue that at sites
where the rock is brittle and faultedmost sites,
in their viewthe injection of carbon dioxide
might trigger small earthquakes that, even if
otherwise harmless, might crack the over lying
shale and allow CO2 to leak. Zoback and Gore-
lick consider carbon storage an extremely ex-
pensive and risky strategy. But even they agree
that carbon can be stored efectively at some
sitessuch as the Sleipner gas feld in the North
Sea, where for the past years the Norwegian
oil company Statoil has been injecting about a
million tons of CO2 a year into a brine-saturated
sandstone layer half a mile below the seabed.
Tat formation has so much room that all that
CO2 emitted by
fossil fuels, 2011
of global fossil fuel CO2 comes
from burning natural gas, mostly
for heat and electricity.
Venting CO2 from a smokestack is usually free, like littering.
Capturing and storing CO2 underground would cost up to
a quarter of a power plants energyand a lot of money. It
wont become the norm unless governments make it happen.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
DISPOSING OF
WASTE CO
2
ART: LVARO VALIO
SOURCES: HOWARD HERZOG, MIT;
U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION
Capture
CO2 is separated
from other stack
gases and com-
pressed into a
liquid-like state. This
is the most costly
step in CCS.
The four steps
of capturing
and storing
carbon dioxide
Transport
Fluid CO2 is moved
to a storage reser-
voir. Pipelines are
the most efcient
carrier, but trucks,
trains, and ships
can do the job.
Injection
CO2 is injected deep
underground into a
porous formation
an old oil eld, say,
or a saline aquifer
under a cap rock
that deters leaks.
Monitoring
The reservoir must
be watched in
perpetuity for leaks.
Even slow ones
could defeat the
purpose of prevent-
ing climate change.
21
%
Underground
formations
could hold
1,000 years
worth of
emissions.
CO2 hasnt increased its internal pressure, and
theres been no sign of quakes or leaks.
European researchers estimate that a centurys
worth of European power plant emissions could
be stored under the North Sea. According to the
DOE, similar deep saline aquifers under the U.S.
could hold more than a thousand years worth of
emissions from American power plants. Other
types of rock also have potential as carbon lock-
ers. In experiments now under way in Iceland and
in the Columbia River Basin of Washington State,
for example, small amounts of carbon dioxide are
being injected into volcanic basalt. Tere the gas
is expected to react with calcium and magnesium
to form a carbonate rockthus eliminating the
risk of gas escaping.
Te CO2 that Statoil is injecting at Sleipner
doesnt come from burning; its an impurity in
the natural gas the company pumps from the
seabed. Before it can deliver gas to its customers,
Statoil has to separate out the CO2, and it used
to just vent the stuf into the atmosphere. But
in Norway instituted a carbon tax, which
now stands at around $ a metric ton. It costs
Statoil only $ a ton to reinject the CO2 below
the seafoor. So at Sleipner, carbon storage is
much cheaper than carbon dumping, which is
why Statoil has invested in the technology. Its
natural gas operation remains very proftable.
At a coal-fired power plant the situation
is diferent. Te CO2 is part of a complex swirl
of stack gases, and the power company has no
fnancial incentive to capture it. As the engineers
at Mountaineer learned, capture is the most ex-
pensive part of any capture-and-storage project.
At Mountaineer the CO2 absorption system was
the size of a ten-story apartment building and
occupied acresand that was just to capture
a tiny fraction of the plants carbon emissions.
Te absorbent had to be heated to release the
CO2, which then had to be highly compressed
for storage. Tese energy-intensive steps create
what engineers call a parasitic load, one that
could eat up as much as percent of the total
energy output of a coal plant that was capturing
all its carbon.
One way to reduce that costly loss is to gasify
the coal before burning it. Gasifcation can make
power generation more efcient and allows the
carbon dioxide to be separated more easily and
cheaply. A new power plant being built in Kem-
per County, Mississippi, which was designed
with carbon capture in mind, will gasify its coal.
Existing plants, which are generally designed
to burn pulverized coal, require a diferent ap-
proach. One idea is to burn the coal in pure oxy-
gen instead of air. Tat produces a simpler fue
gas from which its easier to pull the CO2. At the
DOEs National Energy Technology Laboratory
in Morgantown, West Virginia, researcher Geo
Richards is working on an advanced version of
this scheme.
comes from oil, which is used
primarily to make various trans-
portation fuels.
comes from burning coalthe
cheapest and dirtiest fossil fuel,
used primarily for electricity.
A small
beginning
for CCS
One U.S. power
plant, in Missis-
sippi, is now being
equipped for CCS.
It would take a
whole new indus-
try to make a dent
in U.S. emissions.
1.5 billion metric tons
Annual CO2 output
of all U.S. coal-red
power plants
3.5 million metric tons
Annual CO2 capture
planned at rst U.S. power
plant equipped for CCS
35
%
44
%
coal
Five
largest
emitters
since
1850
Cumulative atmospheric carbon
added by human activities
BILLIONS OF METRIC TONS
Fossil fuel consumption
and cement production
Land-use change due primarily
to deforestation and agriculture
1850 1900 1950 2000 2012
1933
100
1967
200
1983
300
1997
400
2008
500
2012
545
U.S.
China
U.K.
Germany
Russia*
All
other
nations
carbon-capture system is a tiny fraction of the
size that would be required at a real power plant.
In this business, Richards says, you have to
be an optimist.
In West Virginia these days, century-old
coal mines are closing as American power
plants convert to natural gas. With gas prices
in the U.S. near record lows, coal can look like
yesterdays fuel, and investing in advanced coal
technology can look misguided at best. Te view
from Yulin, China, is diferent.
Yulin sits on the eastern edge of Inner Mon-
golias Ordos Basin, dusty miles inland from
Beijing. Rust-orange sand dunes surround for-
ests of new, unoccupied apartment buildings,
spill over highway retaining walls, and send
clouds of grit through the streets. Yulin and its
three million residents are short on rain and
shade, hot in summer and very cold in winter.
But the region is blessed with mineral resources,
Come and see our new toy, he says, hunch-
ing his shoulders against a bitter Appalachian
winter day and walking briskly toward a large
white warehouse. Inside, workers are assem-
bling a fve-story scafold for an experiment in
chemical looping. Making pure oxygen from
air, Richards explains, is costly in itselfso his
process uses a metal such as iron to grab oxygen
out of the air and deliver it to the coal fre. In
principle, chemical looping could radically cut
the cost of capturing carbon.
Richards has dedicated more than years
of his career to making carbon capture more
efcient, and for him the work is largely its own
reward. Im one of those geeky people who just
like seeing basic physics turned into technology,
he says. But afer decades of watching politi-
cians and the public tussle over whether climate
change is even a problem, he does sometimes
wonder if the solution hes been working on will
ever be put to practical use. His experimental
CO2 and Climate Change
THE TRILLION-
TON THRESHOLD
To limit global warming since the 19th century
to 2C (3.6F) and thereby avoid its worst effects,
scientists estimate we must limit our cumulative
emissions of carbon as CO2 to a trillion metric tons.
As of 2012, by burning fossil fuels, making cement,
cutting trees, and so on, we had emitted 545 billion
tons. Were on course to pass a trillion by 2040.
The rising
CO2 threat
*U.S.S.R. DATA PRIOR TO 1992
SOURCES: THOMAS BODEN, CARBON DIOXIDE INFORMATION ANALYSIS
CENTER/OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY; R. A. HOUGHTON, WOODS HOLE RESEARCH CENTER; EPA 84
%
Portion of U.S. greenhouse
gases emitted by human
activity that is CO2
including some of the countrys richest deposits
of coal. God is fair, says Yulin deputy mayor
Gao Zhongyin. From here coal looks like the
fuel of progress.
Te sandy plateaus around Yulin are punc-
tuated with the tall smokestacks of coal power
plants, and enormous coal-processing plants,
with dormitories for live-in workforces, sprawl
for miles across the desert. New coal plants, their
grids of dirt roads decorated with optimistic red-
bannered gateways, bustle with young men and
women in coveralls. Coal provides about per-
cent of Chinas electric power, but it isnt just for
making electricity. Since coal is such a plentiful
domestic fuel, its also used for making dozens
of industrial chemicals and liquid fuels, a role
played by petroleum in most other countries.
Here coal is a key ingredient in products ranging
from plastic to rayon.
Coal has also made China frst among nations
in total carbon dioxide emissions, though the
U.S. remains far ahead in emissions per capita.
China is not retreating from coal, but its more
than ever aware of the high costs. In the past
ten years, says Deborah Seligsohn, an environ-
mental policy researcher at the University of
California, San Diego, with nearly two decades
experience in China, the environment has gone
from not on the agenda to near the top of the
agenda. Tanks to public complaints about air
quality, ofcial awareness of the risks of climate
change, and a desire for energy security and tech-
nological advantage, China has invested hun-
dreds of billions of dollars in renewable energy.
Its now a top manufacturer of wind turbines and
solar panels; enormous solar farms are scattered
among the smokestacks around Yulin. But the
country is also pushing ultraefcient coal power
and simpler, cheaper carbon capture.
Tese eforts are attracting both investment
and immigrants from abroad. At state-owned
Shenhua Group, the largest coal company in
commitment to improving air quality and re-
ducing carbon dioxide emissions: If you want
to make the greatest impact on emissions, you
go where the greatest source of those emissions
happens to be.
Will Latta, founder of the environmental en-
gineering company LP Amina, is an American
expat in Beijing who works closely with Chinese
power utilities. China is openly saying, Hey,
coal is cheap, we have lots of it, and alternatives
will take decades to scale up, he says. At the
same time they realize its not environmentally
sustainable. So theyre making large investments
to clean it up. In Tianjin, about miles from
Beijing, Chinas frst power plant designed from
scratch to capture carbon is scheduled to open in
. Called GreenGen, its eventually supposed
to capture percent of its emissions.
Last fall, as world coal consumption and
world carbon emissions were headed for new
Yesterdays
fuel? In China
coal looks
like the fuel of
progress.
the world, its National Institute of Clean-and-
Low-Carbon Energy was until recently headed
by J. Michael Davis, an American who served
as assistant U.S. secretary for conservation and
renewable energy under the first President
Bush and is a past president of the U.S. Solar
Energy Industries Association. Davis says he was
drawn to China by the governments durable
800,000
yrs
108
%
Minimum time since
the CO2 level was
as high as it is today
Increase in global per
capita emissions between
1950 and 2010
coal
records, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) issued its latest report. For the
frst time it estimated an emissions budget for
the planetthe total amount of carbon we can
release if we dont want the temperature rise to
exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahren-
heit), a level many scientists consider a threshold
of serious harm. Te count started in the I9th
plant, for example, would be equivalent to 2.8
million people trading in pickups for Priuses.
Te frst American power plant designed to
capture carbon is scheduled to open at the end of
this year. Te Kemper County coal-gasifcation
plant in eastern Mississippi will capture more
than half its CO emissions and pipe them to
nearby oil felds. Te project, which is supported
in part by a DOE grant, has been plagued with
cost overruns and opposition from both envi-
ronmentalists and government-spending hawks.
But Mississippi Power, a division of Southern
Company, has pledged to persist. Company
leaders say the plants use of lignite, a low-grade
coal thats plentiful in Mississippi, along with
a ready market for its CO, will help ofset the
heavy cost of pioneering new technology.
Te technology wont spread, however, until
governments require it, either by imposing a
price on carbon or by regulating emissions di-
rectly. Regulation is what carbon capture needs
to get going, says James Dooley, a researcher
at DOEs Pacifc Northwest National Labora-
tory. If the EPA delivers this year on President
Obamas promise to regulate carbon emissions
from both existing and new power plantsand
if those rules survive court challengesthen
carbon capture will get that long-awaited boost.
China, meanwhile, has begun regional experi-
ments with a more market-friendly approach
one that was pioneered in the U.S. In the I990s
the EPA used the Clean Air Act to impose a
cap on total emissions of sulfur dioxide from
power plants, allocating tradable pollution
permits to individual polluters. At the time, the
power industry predicted disastrous economic
consequences. Instead the scheme produced in-
novative, progressively cheaper technologies and
signifcantly cleaner air. Rubin says that carbon-
capture systems are at much the same stage that
sulfur dioxide systems were in the I980s. Once
emissions limits create a market for them, their
cost too could fall dramatically.
If that happens, coal still wouldnt be clean
but it would be much cleaner than it is today.
And the planet would be cooler than it will be
if we keep burning coal the dirty old way. j
century, when the industrial revolution spread.
Te IPCC concluded that weve already emitted
more than half our carbon budget. On our cur-
rent path, well emit the rest in less than 30 years.
Changing that course with carbon capture
would take a massive effort. To capture and
store just a tenth of the worlds current emissions
would require pumping about the same volume
of CO underground as the volume of oil were
now extracting. It would take a lot of pipelines
and injection wells. But achieving the same re-
sult by replacing coal with zero-emission solar
panels would require covering an area almost as
big as New Jersey (nearly 8,000 square miles).
Te solutions are huge because the problem is
and we need them all.
If we were talking about a problem that
could be solved by a 3 or I0 percent reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions, we wouldnt be
talking about carbon capture and storage, says
Edward Rubin of Carnegie Mellon University.
But what were talking about is reducing global
emissions by roughly 80 percent in the next 30
or 40 years. Carbon capture has the potential
to deliver big emissions cuts quickly: Capturing
the CO from a single thousand-megawatt coal
The rst U.S.
power plant that
will capture most
of its CO
2
is under
construction.
national geographic apri l
Photographs by Robb Kendrick
The world gets huge amounts of energy from coaland puts huge energy
into extracting it from the ground. The carbon that ends up in the atmosphere
is just a ghostly echo of an industry of monumental scale and impact.
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
An automated bucket-
wheel excavator loads coal
into ships bound for China
and India. Australia is
second only to Indonesia
in coal exports.
Part two | The visible impacts
It burns nearly half the worlds coal, mostly to
support a 13-fold increase in electricity generation
since 1980. Demand is still growing. So is public
outrage over the lthy air in Chinese cities, which
has been linked to 1.2 million deaths a year.
CHINA
SHUOZHOU, CHINA
Amid the withered stalks
of last years corn, a farmer
prepares for spring near
a power plant in Shanxi
Province. The facility,
which supplies electricity
to Beijing, 200 miles away,
covers local elds, crops,
and people with soot.
DATONG, CHINA
At a coal terminal in Shanxi
Province workers pick rocks
from low-priced coal as it
moves past on a conveyor
belt. Often working without
masks that would protect
them from coal dust, they
earn three dollars for an
11-hour shift.
The U.S. mines more than a billion tons of coal
a year. Once it came mostly from underground
mines in the East; now strip mines in the West
dominate. Domestic demand has fallen lately,
but exports to Europe and Asia have increased.
MADISON, WEST VIRGINIA
They call it mountaintop
removal. For each ton of
coal taken from the Hobet
21 mine, 20 cubic yards of
moun tain are blasted away,
then dumped in valleys.
Hun dreds of square miles
of Appalachian ridges have
been dismantled that way.
PANORAMA COMPOSED OF TWO IMAGES.
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
At the Lamberts Point
Coal Terminal, railcars
loaded with coal line up
to ll waiting ships. Some
20 million tons of coal
about 2 percent of U.S.
productionmove through
this terminal each year,
most of it from Appalachia.
WRIGHT, WYOMING
The Black Thunder mine,
one of the worlds largest,
covers 75 square miles of
public and private land.
Trucks the size of houses
haul more than 90 million
tons of coal a year to
trains, which carry most of
it to eastern power plants.
It has 300 million people without electricity
and the fth largest coal reserves in the world.
The pressure to produce coal is taking its toll
on miners, many of whom work in illegal and
enormously dangerous mines.
JHARKHAND, INDIA
A young boy carries
a chunk of coal into the
mining camp where he
lives. His family will burn
the coal to make cokea
cleaner and hotter-burning
fuelwhich theyll either
sell or use themselves for
heating and cooking.
JHARKHAND, INDIA
Northeastern India has a
long history of coal mining,
and res ignited by mining
accidents almost a century
ago still smolder in deeply
buried coal deposits. In
this mining camp the air is
thick day and night with
smoke from coal res.
MEGHALAYA, INDIA
A miner (left) works in one of hundreds of coal mines in eastern
India that are neither sanctioned nor regulated by government. He
lies on his back in low-ceilinged, unsupported passageways, without
protective clothing, using a pick and shovel to load his cart. Coal
is lifted out of the mine shaft two tons at a time (top) and trucked to
a depot (above), where it is sorted by size and quality.
MEGHALAYA, INDIA
A coal miner climbs a
shaky ladder to daylight.
A 19th-century mine in
the U.S. or Europe might
have looked just as hellish;
mines there are safer now.
But coals environmental
costs have grownand
become global.
of
Atolls
Tale
Two
A
EUROPA Clutched in the embrace of her partner, a female
green turtle glides through indigo seas at Europa atoll, a vital
breeding area for this endangered species.
One of a pair of tiny French territories tucked between
Madagascar and southern Africa provides a mating area for
green turtles. Te other is home to Galpagos sharks.
BASSAS Galpagos sharks, though named for the islands that furnished
Darwin with insights into evolution, are found around tropical oceanic reefs
worldwide. Almost all the sharks in the protected lagoon at Bassas da India
are Galpagos sharks; the lagoon is thought to be a nursery for the species.
national geographic Apri l
INDIAN
OCEAN
M
o
z
a
m
b
i
q
u
e
C
h
a
n
n
e
l
le Europa
Land: 11.6 sq mi (30 sq km)
Lagoon: 18.1 sq mi (47 sq km)
Bassas da India
Land: 0.08 sq mi (0.2 sq km)
Lagoon: 33.5 sq mi (86.8 sq km)
FRENCH SOUTHERN
AND ANTARCTIC LANDS
AFRI CA AFRI CA
M
A
D
A
G
A
S
C
A
R
M
O
Z
A
M
B
I
Q
U
E
les parses (Scattered Islands)
Tromelin Island
Glorioso Islands
le Juan
de Nova
Runion (FR.)
Mayotte (FR.)
French Exclusive
Economic Zone
0 mi 250
0 km 250
NGM MAPS
picture two boulders dancing. Tats an approximation
of green turtle sex: two sumo-size behemoths clipped to each others shells,
fnning languidly through the crystal waters of a coral reef. A reef such as
the one that encircles le Europa, of the southwestern coast of Madagascar,
where on average more than 10,000 female green turtles congregate each
year to mate, later going ashore to lay their eggs.
Green turtles have a reproductive strategy known as scramble polygamy.
Rather than expend energy defending a territory or engaging in combat,
males focus their elephantine efort on fnding an unattached femaleor
attempting to cut in on a mating in progress. Males have large claws on their
fippers and tail, and use these to attach themselves to the shell of the female.
Other males attempt to knock a successful paramour of his perch, jousting
and biting and ofen wounding both members of the pair.
Occasionally a hormone-addled rival will clip on to the shell of the mount-
ed male. Tis is going absolutely nowhere for male number two, notes
marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols. Nichols has seen stacks of up to four
males, each clinging to the turtle in front. When this sort of thing hap-
pens with earthworms in the garden, its merely curious, he observes. With
400-pound sea turtles, its a circus.
Europas turtle circus is rarely seen by human eyes. The island is a
nature reserve, and its waters are protected. Like its neighbor, Bassas da India,
70-odd miles to the northwest, it is part of the Scattered Islands, fve specks
of land that ring Madagascar like moons. Remnants of the once mighty
French colonial empire, they fy the Tricolor as part of the French Southern
and Antarctic Lands.
French sovereignty, though contested by Madagascar and other states,
is strategic. Te total land area of the Scattered Islands is a mere 16 square
miles, but their collective exclusive economic zone is 15,000 times great-
eran expanse of ocean almost the size of Texas. Crucially for the islands
AFRICA
AREA
ENLARGED
By Kennedy Warne
Photographs by Tomas P. Peschak
BASSAS The lagoon is likely a haven for Galpagos sharks
in their early years, protecting them from predation by adults of
their species before they face the challenges of the open sea.
national geographic Apri l
biodiversity, France curbs illegal fishing and turtle poaching. Military
garrisons and a gendarmerie maintain a presence on several of the islands
Europa includedand naval ships patrol their waters.
Although Europa and Bassas da India lie close together in the middle of
the Mozambique Channel, they are very diferent places. Europa is a scrub-
covered island that is home not only to nesting turtles but also to a million
breeding pairs of seabirds. Bassas is an atoll that barely shows above the wa-
terline and has a shark-flled lagoon the size of Manhattan. Both are among
the last vestiges of healthy marine ecosystems in the western Indian Ocean
sanctuaries for wild nature in depleted seas. On the surface these places look
like nothinglike insignifcant dots, says marine biologist Tomas Peschak,
who photographed this article. But once youve dived here, youre spoiled
for the rest of your life.
Te two islands occupy an expanse of ocean whose vexing currents and
eddies have challenged mariners for centuries. Todays marine scientists have
found a way to study this environment without even going to sea. Because of
the close ecological connection between seabirds and marine life, they can
use birds as proxies for open-water species such as tuna. Many seabirds rely
on these ocean-roaming hunters to drive prey to the surface, within reach
of their bills and talons.
Boobies and terns form low-fying focks that track marine life from just
above the surface. Tese network foragers fan out from their roosts on land,
keeping each other in sight, ever alert in case one should encounter prey.
Other species track the trackers, soaring to high altitudes to survey the pan-
orama. Frigatebirds are supreme among the high fiers. Tese exceptional
Bassas da India
(FRANCE)
Lagoon
Reef exposed
at low tide
Sand exposed
at low tide
Sandy islets
barely above
water
Reef submerged
at low tide
2130S
3942E
Coral heads
Coral reef
SANTIAGO
SHIPWRECK
(1585)
0 mi 1
0 km 1
BASSAS
At high tide only
a few rocks show
above the waterline
at Bassas da India.
When the tide ebbs,
it exposes a ring of
coral 300 feet wide
and six miles in
diameter. This atoll
is the summit of an
undersea volcano
that rises from the
seabed 10,000 feet
below the surface.
Frequent contributor Kennedy Warne specializes in stories about nature and the
environment. Tomas P. Peschak is director of conservation for the Save Our Seas
Foundation, which facilitated his photographic coverage of the atolls.
aerialists soar on thermals, rising up to a mile high to scan not just the sea
but also the low-fying birds. When they spot a foraging fock, they swoop
down on their jet-black, angular wingsseven feet from tip to tipto snatch
squid from the waves or take fying fsh in midair.
At Bassas da India there are no trees for seabirds to roost in and no beaches
where turtles can lay their eggs. Bassas is a young atoll, still forming on its
parent volcano, a seamount that erupted from the seabed almost two miles
below the surface. From the air it looks like a blue plate with a bite-size chunk
missing from its northeast rim.
Where Europa has mangroves and a shallow lagoon that drains almost
dry at low tide, Bassas has not a sprig of vegetation and a lagoon thats up to
45 feet deepa giant tropical aquarium full of young sharks. Nearly all are
Galpagos sharks, a species ofen found around tropical islands but rarely in
the concentrations seen here. Biologists, puzzled as to why Galpagos sharks
should be so predominant at Bassas, have suggested that the limited range
of habitats available in the comparatively barren Bassas lagoon favors these
sharks, whereas in Europas lagoon the presence of mangroves and sea grasses
ofers habitat or refuge for other species. Bassas may ofer a unique snapshot
in a sharks life historyand an all-too-uncommon example of a healthy
juvenile population of a heavily exploited species.
Te ebbing tide at Bassas da India reveals the anchors of ships that have
been wrecked on the reef over the centuries. In 1585 the Santiago, a 900-ton
Portuguese vessel, split in two when it plowed into the reef in darkness. Imagine
the horror as dawn revealed the passengers plighta disintegrating ship, an
intimidating expanse of reef, the lifeboats washed away or broken. More than
400 perished, and a trove of bullion spilled from the ships belly into the depths.
In the 1970s divers recovered some of this treasure: silver coins, bronze
cannon, jewels, an astrolabe. But these are mere baubles compared with the
real wealth of Bassas da India and Europanot the bullion of ancient ships
but the biodiversity that fourishes in these tiny islands. j
MILITARY CAMP
AIRPORT
CEMETERY
ROAD Baie aux
Congres
Anse Gabriel
Lagoon
2221S
4022E
Mangrove
Savanna
Shrubs
Shrubs
Shrubs
Forest
le Europa
(FRANCE)
Pointe des
Paltuviers
Coral reef
SHIPWRECK
Coral sand
exposed
at low tide
Sand
Reef at
Reef slope
0 mi 1
0 km 1
EUROPA
A million pairs of
seabirds, including
sooty terns, red-
footed boobies,
and two species of
frigatebird, breed on
Europa, and several
thousand green
turtles nest on its
beaches. Unlike
Bassas da India,
which is uninhabit-
able, Europa hosts
French troops.
VIRGINIA W. MASON, NGM STAFF
SOURCES: TERRES AUSTRALES ET ANTARCTIQUES FRANAISES; DIRECTION RGIONALE DE LENVIRONNEMENT, RUNION; CIA; DIGITALGLOBE
BASSAS Young Galpagos sharks nose the camera in the lagoon. The
relatively undisturbed reefs of the two atolls are marine baselines, says Thomas
Peschak. Other places in the Indian Ocean, all I see is whats missing.
EUROPA Few divers ever explore the reefs around Europa, which lies in a
stretch of the Mozambique Channel known for its massive eddies, productive
nutrient upwellings, meandering currentsand spectacular surf.
Mozambique Atolls
EUROPA The bumps and bites of turtle courtship (left)
precede a mating that may last several hours, the male
clinging to the shell of the female with his ippers and
tail. Promiscuity is rampant, and hormone-juiced males
will attempt to dislodge rival males from their partners.
LIGHT FROM THE SETTING SUN DANCES ON ANTENNAS FORMING PART OF THE ATACAMA
LARGE MILLIMETER/SUBMILLIMETER ARRAY (ALMA), HIGH IN CHILES ATACAMA DESERT.
Witnessing the birth of stars would
require a telescope larger in diameter
than many cities. Say hello to ALMA.
COSMIC
DAWN
A view of the colliding Antennae galaxies, 70
million light-years from Earth, combines visible light
(blue) captured by the Hubble Space Telescope
with never before seen swirls of interstellar gas
revealed in a test image from the ALMA telescope.
Cosmi c Dawn
light equal to that of billions of suns, they re-
lease shortwave, high-energy x-rays and gamma
rays, detectable by specialized telescopes such
as NASAs space-based Chandra X-ray Obser-
vatory. Toward the opposite, colder end of the
spectrum are comets and asteroids, which shed
infrared wavelengths longer than what our eyes
and our optical telescopes can see.
Much of the universe is colder still. The
clouds of dust and gas from which stars are
made are only slightly warmer than absolute
zerothe temperature at which atoms come to
a standstill. Te birth of planets occurs in similar
settings, seeded by fragments of dust and gas
that clump together within the swirling fog that
rotates around newly born stars.
In the 1960s astronomers attempting to pen-
etrate this cold universe quickly realized how
challenging it was to use ground-based anten-
nas to detect wavelengths in the millimeter and
submillimeter range, even longer than infra-
red. Teir frst problem was how to cope with
a gigantic amount of static. Unlike visible light,
which travels through the planets atmosphere
without much interference, millimeter and sub-
millimeter waves are absorbed and distorted by
water vapor, which emits radiation in the same
band of the spectrum, adding earthly noise
to waves arriving from the heavens. Millime-
ter and submillimeter waves also carry far less
energy than visible light does, producing a weak
signal even in a radio dish with an enormous
collecting area.
The solution scientists came up with was
to arrange several antennas in an array on a
site with very dry air, combining their signals
so that they functioned together as a single
Tey had already spent a week and a half scout-
ing other locations in the Atacama, one on the
Argentine side of the desert. Now, guided by a
map obtained from the Chilean military by one
of the men, a Chilean astronomer named Hernn
Quintana, they were searching for a route up to
the Chajnantor plateau at 16,400 feet, almost
as high as the two base camps serving climbers
on Mount Everest.
With the Andes Mountains forming a barrier
to clouds gathering above the Amazon to the
east, and the winds from the Pacifc to the west
picking up little moisture as they pass over the
cold Peru Current (formerly called the Hum-
boldt Current), the Atacama Desert is known to
be among the driest places on Earth, with less
than a half inch of rain a year on average. Te
deserts remoteness and inhospitably thin, dry
airideal for observing the night skyhad al-
ready lured several large, multinational telescope
projects. For the most part, these were designed
to view the fraction of the cosmos visible at
optical wavelengthsthe portion of the light
spectrum that the human eye can see. Quintana
and his companions were scouting a location
for a diferent kind of telescope, one designed
to penetrate the curtains of dust and gas that
shroud galaxies, swirl around stars, and stretch
through the expanses of interstellar space. Te
project would require some 20 years and more
than a billion dollars to design and build.
First, however, they had to fnd the right spot.
Objects in the universe radiate energy in vari-
ous wavelengths, depending on how hot or cold
they are. Exploding supernovae, for instance, are
extremely hot; in addition to emitting visible
ON A MAY MORNING TWO PICKUP TRUCKS PASSED
THROUGH THE QUIET TOWN OF SAN PEDRO IN CHILES
ATACAMA DESERT AND HEADED UP A MOUNTAINSIDE
ON A DIRT ROAD. IT WAS 1994, AND THE FIVE MEN INSIDE
THE TRUCKS WERE ON A PECULIAR QUEST: TO FIND THE
HIGHEST, DRIEST, FLATTEST PLACE ON THE PLANET.
By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee Photographs by Dave Yoder
COLORIZED COMPOSITE IMAGE: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
AND NASA/ESA HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE. SOURCE: ESO
Baseline
A C
B
A C
B
A
A B B
A B B C A C
B D C D A D
D
10
1
10
2
10
3
1 10
-1
10
-2
10
-3
10
-4
10
-5
10
-6
10
-7
10
-8
10
-9
10
-10
10
-11
10
-12
Radio waves Microwaves
THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM
(in meters)
Infrared Ultraviolet X-rays Gamma rays
Visible
spectrum
ALMA range
AN EYE ON THE HEAVENS
Like our own eyes, optical telescopes are tuned to see visible light. ALMA is
designed to sense longer waves of electromagnetic radiation, roughly where
the microwave and infrared bands meet. By operating at these millimeter
and submillimeter wavelengths, the telescope can observe deep-space gas
clouds and other dark, cold areas veiled to optical instruments. The most
distant galaxies from Earth, whose light is stretched into longer wavelengths
because the universe is expanding, are also within ALMAs sight.
A single-dish telescope can detect faint signals, but
its images are blurry. Interferometry, which combines
signals from two dishes spaced a distance apart,
produces higher resolution. The longer the distance,
or baseline, the ner the details that can be resolved.
One long baseline can detect ne details;
additional baselines reduce interference.
Expanding from two to three
antennas creates three baselines.
Adding one more antenna doubles the base-
lines to six. Adding even more antennas further
sharpens the signal and reduces the noise.
ALMAs 66 antennas can create 1,291 separate baselines, giving the
telescope superb sensitivity and the ability to capture very ne details.
THE POWER OF TWO
THE MORE THE BETTER
JASON TREAT AND VIRGINIA MASON, NGM STAFF; KIRSTEN HUNTLEY
SOURCES: CHARLES BLUE, JAMES J. CONDON, AND BILL COTTON, NRAO
12-meter antenna
Baseline
Antenna pad
Service
roads
Mt. Everest
Atacama Plateau (ALMA location)
Machu Picchu
SOUTH
AMERICA
CHILE
ALMA
T
e
n
-
m
i
l
e
d
ia
m
e
t
e
r
ALMAS TEN-MILE-WIDE ZOOM
Elevation: 16,400 feet
Rearranging antennas on the wide plateau is like
adjusting a cameras zoom. At maximum spread,
shown here, the telescope focuses in on tight
sections of sky and ne details. Clustering the
antennas closer together is like using a wide-
angle lens to take in broader swaths of sky.
ALMA consists of two telescope
arrays working together. Two
massive transporters relocate
antennas in the main array with
submillimeter precision. The
Morita Array (above), a separate
group of 16 antennas built by
Japan, targets large-scale
structures in the universe.
As the last of 25 North American antennas rolls
toward a docking pad (at lower right), the worlds
largestand at $1.3 billion, costliestground-based
telescope nears readiness. The joint American,
European, and Japanese project will map unseen
cosmic regions with unprecedented clarity.
national geographic apri l
group had ever encountered anywhere. Tere
was no doubt in anybodys mind that some-
where nearby was the place, Giovanelli says.
A short time later, on a second scouting trip,
Brown found the actual site, a wide, expansive
plateau at the bottom of Cerro Chajnantor,
a nearby peak.
It was soon clear to all three international par-
ties that by joining forces they could build a single
array far more powerful than any one of them
could alone. In 1999 the National Science Foun-
dation and the ESO signed an agreement to work
together. Tey settled on a plan to contribute 32
antennas apiece, each 12 meters in diameter, or
about 40 feet. Te Japanese agreed to provide 16
more antennas in a complementary array.
Tus began an almost two-decade efort to
transform one of the worlds loneliest spots into
a bustling modern observatory. Land mines
planted decades before by the Chilean military
to deter incursions from Bolivia to the north
had to be located and removed. Protracted
negotiations were needed to persuade an oil
company that was planning to run a pipeline
through the site to reroute it. Prototype an-
tennas were redesigned afer testing in New
Mexico. Costs mounted. Quarrels were joined
and resolved. The NRAO and ESO couldnt
agree on a single antenna design, in part
because each side wanted to support manufac-
turers on its own shores; in the end they chose
two designs and two suppliers for their share
of the antennas, reduced to 25 from each of
the agencies. Ten there was the little town of
San Pedro, which had just two telephone lines
and a single gas station. We had to assemble
a little city on the mountainside in the middle
of nowhere, says the NRAOs Al Wootten, the
lead North American scientist on the project.
The first of the antennasweighing more
than a hundred tonsarrived from the U.S. at
the Chilean port of Antofagasta in April 2007.
Escorted by a convoy of police cars, a truck
hauled the gigantic dish up the mountain, its
progress occasionally interrupted by herds of
llamas being shepherded across the road.
Over the next fve years the dishes continued
telescope. By the 1980s several small arrays were
operating in Japan, France, and in the United
States, in Hawaii and California. Soon techno-
logical advances made it possible to contemplate
a far larger radio array, an enormous lens
with vastly more resolving power provided
a site could be found that was high and flat
enough to expand the distance between
antennas to whole miles. And if the dishes were
portable, the distance between them could be
adjusted to change the sensitivity of the tele-
scope to reveal fne detail. Placed far apart, they
could zoom in to focus on a small target such
as a disk of dust around a star. Bunching the an-
tennas together would have the efect of zooming
out, which would be useful for imaging large
objects such as a galaxy.
Searching for an ideal setting for such a tele-
scope, research groups from Europe, Japan, and
the U.S. converged on the Atacama Desert.
Hernn Quintana, who had pored over the
military maps of the desert for weeks before
the expedition in the spring of 1994, suspected
that only the high ground above San Pedro de
Atacama would satisfy all the requirements. But
it wasnt easy to get to.
The trip was slow and painful, because
the tires kept getting stuck in sand, remem-
bers Riccardo Giovanelli of Cornell University,
who accompanied Quintana, along with Angel
Otrola from the European Southern Observa-
tory (ESO) and Paul Vanden Bout and Robert
Brown from the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory (NRAO). Halfway up the road
from San Pedro, Vanden Bout and Otrolas
truck broke down. Te others made it to the
top of the Jama Pass.
Te sky was beautifulit was the deepest
blue one can expect to see, Giovanelli says.
One of the astronomers had brought along
an instrument to measure water vapor. The
volume of vapor in the air was lower than the
Tis is Yudhijit Bhattacharjees frst story for
National Geographic. Dave Yoder photographed
Florences Duomo for the February issue.
Cosmi c Dawn
to arrive. Set ting them up
to work collectively as a
single telescope required
astonishing precision.
Tey would need to swiv-
el together on command
and point at the same
target in the sky within
a second and a half of
one another. To merge
their signals coherently, a
massive supercomputer
had to be installed on-
site that was capable of adjusting, to within the
width of a human hair, the distance the signals
traveled through a cable from the antennas to
the processing centerwhile compensating for
the expansion and contraction of the cable due
to temperature fuctuations.
On a bright April morning a panoramic
view of the plateau ofers a striking juxtaposi-
tion of the ancient and the modern. Te brown
expanse is studded with white dishes that look
tiny against the skys limitless azure backdrop.
Up close, each of the 12-meter antennas towers
above the ground, the dishs surface glinting in
the sun. Operated remotely from a base camp,
they swivel gracefully in unison at the click of
a button, belying their massive weight. Two
custom- made 28-wheel transporters, nicknamed
Otto and Lore, stand ready to move them to new
locations on the plateau as needed.
By the time it was officially inaugurated in
March 2013, the Atacama Large Millimeter/
submillimeter ArrayALMAhad already be-
gun to deliver on expectations. Te year before,
with only 16 antennas in operation, research-
ers led by Caltechs Joaquin Vieira had peered
through ALMA at 26 distant galaxies showing
bursts of star formation. Tey were surprised to
fnd that the galaxies were on average as far as
11.7 billion light-years away, meaning that their
star production had been under way when the
universe was barely two billion years old. Such
frenetic star birth had previously been thought
to have begun at least a billion years later.
Since ALMAs inauguration, there has been
a steady stream of other discoveries. In July
2013 astronomers reported that the telescopes
observations had helped solve a long-standing
puzzle: why massive galaxies are so rare in
the universe. ALMAs high-resolution images of
the nearby Sculptor galaxy showed cold, dense
gas billowing out from the center of the galactic
disk. Astronomers concluded that the gas was
being blasted out by winds from newly formed
stars, a huge loss of starmaking material that
could stymie the galaxys future growth. If
confrmed in other galaxies, the phenomenon
could solve the mystery.
True to its promise, ALMA is also helping
researchers understand how planets are born.
Last year they reported on ALMAs images of a
disk of dust circling a young stara nursery of
planets. Te images revealed what appeared to
be a dust trap within the disk: a sheltered region
where little grains of dust could stick to one an-
other and, grain by grain, grow large enough to
seed a planet. Tis was the frst ever glimpse into
the start of the planet-forming process.
Tese observations are just the beginning.
When all of the antennas come on line later
this year, ALMA will conjure even fner details
of galaxies and star systems. On an arid plateau
a few miles from where shepherds once slept,
our eyes will open upon an unseen universe. j
ALMA IS DESIGNED TO PENETRATE
THE CURTAINS OF DUST AND GAS
THAT SHROUD GALAXIES, SWIRL
AROUND STARS, AND STRETCH
THROUGH THE EXPANSES OF
INTERSTELLAR SPACE.
Tune in to Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey,
a new series on the National Geographic
Channel on Monday evenings.
Te isolated villages of Brittany, in the
northwest corner of France, were once
known for their distinctive headdresses and
costumes. Now a younger generation is
continuing the tradition.
Plouguenast,
Ctes-dArmor
Each Breton ensemble
is specic to a place:
an individual village
and sometimes the
surrounding area,
known as a pays.
In these photos,
taken in Brittany with
a translucent back-
drop, each outt is
identied by village
and dpartement, an
administrative unit
of modern France.
Lace
Legacy
in
national geographic apri l
Climbing out of a tiny European car is
challenging enough; its nearly impossible in a
hat 13 inches tall. Yet Alexia Caoudal, 87, and
Marie-Louise Lopr, 90, manage to cantilever
out of the backseat of a friends silver Citron
with remarkable dignity, if not grace. Teir
host hurries to greet them with such smiling
deference that they might be royalty.
Princesses they are notthe two women
spent decades toiling in fish canneries. But
Caoudal and Lopr have achieved a certain
celebrity in this bit of northwest France known
as Bigouden country, in the Finistre region at
the western edge of Brittany. Tey are the only
women known to routinely wear the tower-
ing headdress, or coife, that was once a part
of daily life here.
Age has bent their bodies, but the stif lace
stands tall atop their waves of white hair, like a
lighthouse signaling: Here is a Bigouden woman.
Tere are dozens of Breton costumes, varying
by village, occasion, and time period. The
once simple caps used by peasant women for
modesty and protection from the elements
evolved into fantastic shapes and sizes in the
19th and 20th centuries, inspiring artists like
Paul Gauguin. In those times the coife was
like an identity card, says Solenn Boennec,
an assistant curator at the Muse Bigouden
in Pont-lAbb. It can reveal who you are,
where youre from, and if youre in mourning
for someone.
By the 1950s, however, most young women
had abandoned the old style. Today it lives on
in Breton rituals and in social groups called
Celtic circles, where young people like the ones
in these portraits train year-round to compete
in full costume at summer dance festivals. Tey
also sometimes participate in weddings and a
traditional religious pilgrimage, called a par-
don, during the feast of a local patron saint.
Its seen as less old-fashioned now than
when we were younger, says 20-year-old Apol-
line Kersaudy, who joined a Celtic group when
she was six. Other friends dont understand
why we cant go on summer holidays with
them. But the circle is more important.
Caoudal and Lopr pull, comb, and pin
their plaits up under a special black bonnet
every morning, adding the lace top on Sundays
and special occasions. Donning the full coife
takes nearly half an hour and seems wildly
impractical on this wet and windy edge of the
North Atlantic. Is it comfortable? Were used
to it, says Caoudal, shrugging. Like others of
their generation, the women speak a mixture of
French and Breton, the regional language. Full
of colliding consonants, its similar to Welsh, a
reminder of Brittanys Celtic heritage.
Todays youth guard that heritage with a
ferce pride. I am Breton, and I am French,
says Malwenn Mariel, 17, a member of the Pont-
lAbb Celtic circle. But I am Bigouden frst.
A Bigouden woman is frank and unafraid,
the girls in the circle say. She doesnt let anyone
walk all over her. Like her headdress, she is a
tower of strength. Amanda Fiegl
Photographs by CHARLES FRGER
Rostrenen, Ctes-dArmor
This funeral garb has velvet and embroidery on
the skirt, lace and ribbons on the sleeve ends.
breton women
Pont-lAbb, Finistre
The high point of Breton fashion is the coiffe, or headdressand the
most striking coiffe is that of the area around Pont-lAbb.
national geographic apri l
Cesson-Svign, Ille-et-Vilaine
Gumn-sur-Scorf, Morbihan
Batz-sur-Mer, Loire-Atlantique
Chteaulin, Finistre
St.-Nicolas-du-Plem, Ctes-dArmor
Pride and Prejudice
Though covering only about 10,500
square miles, Brittany is the kind of
place where local pride runs so deep
that villagers will tell you a town ten
miles away is nowhere nearby.
In earlier times residents of different
Breton communities could be iden-
ti ed by their distinctive costumes
and also mocked for them. People
in neighboring villages gave teasing
nicknames to one anothers head-
dresses, says Jean-Pierre Gonidec,
collections manager at the Breton
Museum in Quimper. The towering
Bigouden coiffe, for instance, is still
called le pain de sucrethe sugarloaf.
Other coiffe nicknames: wheelbarrow
and sardine head.
ILLE-ET-VILAINE
LOIRE-ATLANTIQUE
MORBIHAN
CTES-
DARMOR
FINIST ERE
Rennes
St.-Brieuc
Vannes
Nantes
Quimper
Brest
Chateaulin
Fouesnant
Pont-lAbb
Cesson-
Svign
Rostrenen
Cherbourg-
Octeville
St.-Nicolas-du-Pelem
Le
Croisty
Plouguenast
Pontivy
Guemene-
sur-Scorff
Batz-sur-Mer
St.-
Evarzec
E
n
g
l
i
s
h
C
h
a
n
n
e
l
(
L
a
M
a
n
c
h
e
)
Golfe
de St.-Malo
Bay of
Biscay
le de Brhat
C
o
t
e
n
t
i
n
B
I
G
O
UDEN
B R
I
T
T
A
N
Y
CHANNEL
ISLANDS
(U.K.)
Modern
Brittany
Historic
Brittany
(includes
Loire-
Atlantique)
LAUREN E. JAMES, NGM STAFF
0 mi 20
0 km 20
FRANCE
Paris
AREA
ENLARGED
B
R
I
T
T
A
N
Y
St.-varzec, Finistre
The wings of this coiffe are delicately pinned down and heavily
starched to hold their shape. Even light mist will deform them.
breton women
Fouesnant, Finistre
The forerunner of this coiffe was famous in the late 1800s due to the
attention of the Pont-Aven school of artists, Paul Gauguin in particular.
Le Croisty, Morbihan
The dress at right reects the fashion of 1900. As in other parts of
Brittany, the apron, of silk or satin, is colored if worn by a young woman.
Pontivy, Morbihan
The fashion in Pontivy was sober. Decorations were conned to
embroidery on the apron and sometimes on the coiffe.
le de Brhat, Ctes-dArmor
The embroidery on this shawl is too fancy for a funeral, although it
could have been worn at the end of a prolonged period of mourning.
Obsession
Wild
The perilous attraction
of owning exotic pets
John Matus bought
Boo Boo impulsively
as a cub. Last summer
the Ohio man gave her
to a wildlife sanctuary.
She needs to be with
her own kind, he says.
Its a lonely life.
national geographic apri l
At least not to Leslie-Ann Rush, a horse trainer
who lives on a seven-acre farm outside Orlando,
Florida, a place where the wind makes a rustling
sound when it whips through the palms. Rush,
57, who has a kind face and hair the color of
corn, breeds and trains gypsy horses she houses
in a barn behind her small petting zoo, a wire
enclosure where three male kangaroos, four le-
murs, a muntjac deer (originally from Asia), a
potbellied pig, a raccoon-like kinkajou called
Kiwi, and a dog named Dozer all livethe le-
murs leaping freely, the kangaroos sleeping on
their sides, the petite pig rooting in the ground,
the Asian deer balancing its rack of antlers on
its delicate head.
Rush weaves in and around her exotic pets
with ease and cheerfulness and Cheerios, dol-
ing them out to the lemurs. Tey thrust their
humanlike hands into the open boxes and draw
out fstfuls of Os, which they eat almost polite-
ly, one by one, dining daintily while the drool
gathers in the corners of their mouths.
Rush has a ring-tailed lemur, Liam; two rufed
lemurs, Lolli and Poppi; and a common brown
lemur named Charlie. While many lemurs are
threatened, the rufed lemurs are considered
critically endangered in the wild. Rush believes
that by caring for these captive-bred creatures
she is doing her part to help keep lemurs alive
on Earth, and she cares for her animals with
a profound commitment that consumes her
days and even her nights. As darkness falls, she
moves from the small enclosure into her home
and takes her favorite lemur with her; he shares
her bed, coiled up on a pillow by her head.
Because kangaroos are active typically at
dawn and dusk, the animals look lazy in the day-
light, dun-colored beasts lying on their sides in
cylinders of sun, their thick tails trailing in the
dry dirt. But come evening they hop up on their
hind legs and press their faces against the large
glass window, looking in on Rush in her home:
All across the nation, in Americans
backyards and garages and living rooms, in
their beds and basements and bathrooms,
wild animals kept as pets live side by side with
their human owners. Its believed that more
exotic animals live in American homes than
are cared for in American zoos. The exotic-
pet business is a lucrative industry, one
thats drawn criticism from animal welfare
advocates and wildlife conservationists alike.
These people say its not only dangerous to
bring captive-bred wildlife into the suburbs,
but its cruel and it ought to be criminal too.
Yet the issue is far from black or white.
By Lauren Slater
Photographs by Vincent J. Musi
In 2011 Terry Thompson
released 50 of his exotic
pets from their cages
and then killed himself.
Deputies outside Zanes-
ville, Ohio, shot the
animals dead. At the time
Ohio did not require a
license or permit for
exotic-pet ownership.
AP IMAGES
In response to Ohios
strict new law, Mike
Stapleton is building a
larger enclosure for his
ve tigers. He doesnt get
into the cage with them:
You never know when
that instinct they have is
going to kick in.
Nobody can tell
me that their cat is
100 percent safe.
Mike Stapleton
Sasha, a cougar, is the
love of my life, says Mario
Infanti, who underwent
more than a thousand
hours of training before he
acquired his rst wild cats.
The Florida musician had
Sasha declawed when
she was a month old, but
she can still bite.
Ive been bitten
a lot. After 60,
I stopped counting.
Albert Killian
A Burmese python
entwines Albert Killian
in the Florida home he
shares with 60 snakes.
Tags noting the proper
antivenomand the
nearest hospital that
carries itare posted
next to venomous pets.
national geographic apri l
Let me come in, they seem to say. Rush does not
let them in, although she did when they were
babies. I have all of these amazing animals of
diferent species, from diferent continents, and
the thing is, they play together, she says, and she
sweeps her hand through the air, gesturing to
her multicolored menagerie sunning, sleeping,
snacking. She has flmed and posted videos of
them playing on YouTube, the lemurs leaping
over the kangaroos, which hop and twirl and
chase the primates around the yard.
Despite occasional reports of wild kanga-
roos attacking humans in Australia, Rushs pets
Rush herself lives a lean life, much of her own
money poured into feeding her herd. And then
theres her time. She puts abundant hours into
caring for her exotics. Teyre 24/7, she says,
and then goes on to add, but theyre my family.
Tey need me. I cant explain to you what that
feels like. I wake up every morning and come
out here, and all my animals come rushing up to
greet me. I feel loved, and that feels great.
My family, she repeats, and a shadow sweeps
across her face. All my life, she says, people
have let me down. My animals never have.
Privately owning exotic animals is currently
permitted in a handful of states with essentially
no restrictions: You must have a license to own
a dog, but you are free to purchase a lion or
baboon and keep it as a pet. Even in the states
where exotic-pet ownership is banned, people
break the law, says Adam Roberts of Born Free
USA, who keeps a running database of deaths
and injuries attributed to exotic-pet ownership:
In Texas a four-year-old mauled by a mountain
lion his aunt kept as a pet, in Connecticut a
55-year-old womans face permanently dis-
fgured by her friends lifelong pet chimpan-
zee, in Ohio an 80-year-old man attacked by a
200-pound kangaroo, in Nebraska a 34-year-old
man strangled to death by his pet snake. And
that list does not capture the number of people
who become sick from coming into contact with
zoonotic diseases.
Te term exotic pet has no frm defnition; it
can refer to any wildlife kept in human house-
holdsor simply to a pet thats more unusual
than the standard dog or cat. Lack of oversight
and regulation makes it difcult to pin down just
how many exotics are out there. Te short an-
swer is, too many, says Patty Finch of the Global
Federation of Animal Sanctuaries. Its estimated
that the number of captive tigers alone is at least
5,000most kept not by accredited zoos but by
private owners. And while many owners tend to
their exotic pets with great care and at no small
expense, some keep their pets in cramped cages
and poor conditions.
Commercially importing endangered species
Lauren Slater is the author of Te $60,000 Dog: My
Life With Animals. Vince Musi ofen photographs
animals, domesticated and otherwise.
They take the
uncivilized into society
and in doing so
assert their power.
display not a hint of aggression. Tis may have
something to do with the fact that kangaroos are
naturally somnolent during daytime hours, and
it may also have something to do with the fact
that Rushs kangaroos are no longer truly wild:
Tey were bred in captivity; two of them have
been neutered; they are used to human contact.
Rush raised each kangaroo in diapers, bottle-fed
it, and, touching the sleek suede fur continually,
accustomed each animal to human hands.
Te $35 that Rush charges to visit what she
calls her Exotic Animal Experience helps de-
fray the costs involved in keeping her pets. Some
exotic-animal owners spend thousands a year on
fresh meat, for carnivores that dine daily on raw
steak, for primatesomnivores with complex
dietary needsfor snakes, which eat rat afer rat
afer rat. In Rushs case her kangaroos consume
huge quantities of grain, while the lemurs eat
mounds of fruits and vegetables.
into the United States has been restricted since
the early 1970s. Many of the large exotic ani-
mals that end up in backyard menageries
lions and tigers, monkeys and bearsare bred
in captivity. Today on the Internet you can fnd
zebras and camels and cougars and capuchins
for sale, their adorable faces staring out from
your screen; the monkeys with their intelligent
eyes; the big cats with their tawny coats. And
though such animals are no longer completely
wild, neither are they domesticatedthey exist
in a netherworld that prompts intriguing ques-
tions and dilemmas.
From his experience in providing sanctu-
ary for exotic animals in need of new homes,
ofen desperately, Roberts says that exotic-pet
owners tend to fall into multiple overlapping
categories. Some people treat their animals, es-
pecially primates, as surrogate children, dressing
them up in baby clothes, diapering them, and
training them to use the toilet. Some own exot-
ics as symbols of status and power, the exotic
animal the next step up from a Doberman or
pitbull. Tere are impulse buyers who simply
could not resist purchasing a cute baby exotic.
Still others are collectors, like Brandon Terry,
who lives in Wake County, North Carolina, in a
one-bedroom apartment with 15 snakes, three of
them venomous. And then there are wild animal
lovers who may start out as volunteers at a wild-
life sanctuary and end up adopting a rescued
animal in need of a home.
Denise Flores of Ohio explains how she ac-
quired her frst tiger. I went to a wild animal
park one day, and someone put a baby tiger in
my lap. My heart melted; it just melted. I was
hooked, says Flores, who ended up caring for
eight rescued big cats, including two white tigers
so beautiful they looked like fuid ivory.
Some people seek wild animals as pets as a
way to reconnect with the natural world. Tey
believe their exotics set them apart, the rela-
tionship made all the more intense by the unin-
tended social isolation that is ofen the result of
having an unpredictable beast as a companion.
Yes, of course my exotics make me feel unique,
Rush says. Tough anyone can own a cat or dog,
exotic-pet owners take pleasure in possessing an
animal that has, for hundreds of thousands of
years, refused the saddle of domestication: Tey
take the uncivilized into society and in doing so
assert their power.
I wanted something diferent, something un-
usual, says Michelle Berk, formerly of Palisades,
Florida, who bought her kinkajou, Winnie, on
craigslist. She was there for me to make my
own. We didnt get a dog because theres noth-
ing cool or outstanding about owning a dog. A
AL
AZ
AR
CA
CO
CT
DE
FL
GA
ID
IL IN
IA
KS
KY
LA
ME
MD
DC
MA MI
MN
MS
MO
MT
NE
NV
NH
NJ
NM
NY
NC
ND
OH
OK
OR
PA
RI
SC
TN
TX
UT
VT
VA
WA
WV
WI
WY
SD
AK
HI
SPECIES INVOLVED
Animal Human (82 deaths)
TYPE OF INCIDENT
Zoo 28 Circus 6 Private 66%
OWNERSHIP OF ANIMAL INVOLVED
Ban*
Partial ban
License or permit required
No license or permit required
Laws on private ownership of exotic pets
Primates 16 Big cats 19 Reptiles 32%
Death 14
Human
injury 24 Animal escape 42%
Other
GRAPHIC: LAWSON PARKER, NGM STAFF; MARGARET NG
SOURCE: BORN FREE USA
Exotic-pet incidents 1990-2013
Born Free USA has tracked 2,000
incidents involving wild animals
held in captivity. Due to incomplete
reporting, the database is limited.
* Animals covered by bans vary by state.
Ohio veterinarian Melanie
Butera took in Dillie after
the blind farm deers
mother rejected her. Dillie
used to sleep with Butera
but now has her own
room. Shes treated like a
princess, says Butera.
Watch a video of
Dillies story on our
digital editions.
After her rst capybara
died of liver failure, Melanie
Typaldos bought Garibaldi
Rous. The Texan was
attracted to the giant
rodents, which tend to die
in captivity, after seeing
wild ones in Venezuela.
You earn the love of
an animal like this.
Not like a dog, with its
thousands of years
of programming.
Melanie Typaldos
national geographic apri l
elephants sucking water up their trunks and
spraying themselves so their hides glistened.
Harrison gazed upon these wild animals, and he
says it was as if his eyes had been blistered shut
and were suddenly opened as he witnessed these
mammals moving in such profound harmony
with their environment that you could hear it: a
rhythm, a pulse, a roar. Tis, Harrison suddenly
realized, was how wild animals are supposed to
live. Tey are not supposed to live in Dayton or
any other suburb or city; they are creatures in
and of the land, and to give them anything less
suddenly seemed wrong.
Harrison says he understood then that he
didnt really own wild animals. What he had
back in Dayton was a mixed-up menagerie of
inbreeding and crossbreeding that resulted in
animals that had almost nothing to do with the
creatures before him now. He felt that hed been
no better than a warden and that he needed to
change his ways. When he returned to Ohio, one
by one he gave up his beloved wolves and pri-
mates and cats and handed them over to sanctu-
aries where theyd at least have safety and space.
It hurt him to do this. He knew his wolves so
well he could howl a hello, and a goodbye.
Today Harrison is retired from the police force.
He puts as many hours as he can into Outreach
for Animals, an organization he helped found
to rescue exotic pets and place them in one of
the sanctuaries he trusts. Many of the so-called
wildlife sanctuaries in this country are actually
using their animals to make a proft, commer-
cially breeding them or allowing public contact.
Te few that operate solely for the beneft of the
animals are already overloaded, says Vernon Weir
of the American Sanctuary Association, an ac-
crediting organization. I have trouble fnding
space for wolf-dog mixes, potbellied pigs, some
species of monkeys many retired from use in
researchand all the big cats and bears, Weir
says. A good sanctuary will take in only what
they can aford to care for.
Harrisons agency felds hundreds of calls a
month from law enforcement ofcials dealing
with an escaped animal or owners overwhelmed
by the cost and responsibility of an animals care.
kinkajounow that seems untouchable. And
who doesnt want the untouchable? Tey say
dont touch it, so you want to touch it.
TIM HARRISON UNDERSTANDS the allure of own-
ing exotic pets. Tirty-two years ago he worked
as a public safety ofcer in the city of Oakwood,
Ohio, and kept a menagerie in his house. He had
snakes wrapped around lamp poles. He had rhe-
sus monkeys leaping from counter to couch. He
had lions sunning themselves on his gravel drive-
way. He had capuchins and bears and wolves,
which were his favorites.
The delusion, rooted
in a desire to commune
with wild animals,
lingered long after the
beasts were gone.
After a hard day of chasing criminals or a
boring day of ticketing cars, Harrison would
change out of his uniform and drive home to
his animals. He always went to the wolves frst.
His body aching, his mind numbed, hed let the
canines come to him, weaving around his legs.
Hed drop down on his knees and then lie fat
on his back, the wolves clambering over him. I
would just lie there and let them lick me, Har-
rison says, and it was one of the best feelings
in the world.
Now the animals are gone. Harrison will never
again own anything wild or exotic. He believes
ownership of all potentially dangerous exotic
animals should be banned and is working to
make that happen. He underwent a profound
transformation, his entire outlook shattered and
put back together again in a new way.
What happened is this: Afer decades of being
an exotic-pet owner, Harrison went to Africa.
He drove over the open plains and grasslands,
and he can remember, all these years later, the
girafes long lope, the lions hypnotic canter, the
Exotic Pets
He has been on more than a hundred big cat
rescues in the past year and over his lifetime
has rescued close to a thousand exotic felines.
He was there when a man in Pike County, Ohio,
named Terry Brumfeld fnally agreed to give
up his beloved but ill-kept lions. He is currently
working with a man who owns a bear that bit
of his fnger. Te owner cant yet bring himself
to let the bear go.
I meet people where theyre at, says Harri-
son. If an owner isnt ready to give their exotic
up, I help them care for the animal in the best
way possible. I help them build a better enclo-
sure or get the best kind of feed. I dont judge.
My hope is that, with the right kind of support,
the person will eventually see that owning this
animal is a dangerous drain and will voluntarily
choose to give it up.
Harrison feels empathy for wild animal own-
ers, whose afection he so well understands. He
loved his animals. He believed, as most owners
do, that his animals loved him. He believed that
having a thriving menagerie made him special.
But I was deluded, he says. I used to believe
there was no animal I could not tame, no animal
I was unable to train, and that any animal living
under my roof was receiving the best of care.
Te delusion, rooted in a deep desire to com-
mune with wild animals, has lingered long afer
the beasts were gone. Every time he participates
in a rescue he has to stop himself from taking
the animal home. I try to keep my contact with
the animals I rescue to a minimum, Harrison
explains, because my addiction can come back
at a moments notice.
THE STATE OF OHIO HAS become ground zero
for the debate over exotic-animal ownership,
and heres why: In October , outside the
city of Zanesville, in Muskingum County, a
man named Terry Tompson let of his wild
animals, including lions and tigers, out of their
cages and enclosures before killing himself. Te
local sherifs department had little choice but
to shoot most of the animals, which were dodg-
ing cars, loping across backyards, and posing a
threat to public safety. Prior to the Zanesville
incident, Ohio was one of a handful of states that
required no license or permit to keep an exotic
or wild animal as a pet.
The Zanesville tragedy woke Ohio up. In
response to the outcry over the sight of exotic
carcasses lined up near Tompsons property,
the governor of Ohio signed an executive order
cracking down on unlicensed animal auctions.
Te state now requires owners of dangerous
exotic animals to have a permit, to microchip
their pets, to establish a relationship with a vet-
erinarian, and to buy insurance.
I couldnt aford the insurance, Flores says,
and so she sent her big cats to live in accredited
sanctuaries, which is exactly what state ofcials
hoped would happen. Tese are beautiful ani-
mals, yes, but let me tell you, says Flores, I had
the common sense to know to never get in the
cage with them. Id pet them through the bars,
if that. Tat was all.
Sherif Matthew Lutz was the one who gave
the order to shoot the animals afer Tompson
released them from their cages. Te incident
continues to haunt him. He has joined forces
with animal rights activists who have lobbied
for years, to no efect so far, for a federal law
that would prohibit the private possession and
breeding of large cats except by zoos and other
registered facilities.
Like Rush, many exotic-pet owners and pri-
vate breeders say they are motivated by a de-
sire to preserve and protect threatened species.
Climate change and human population growth
could wipe out a species in record time, so having
a backup population is a good idea, says Lynn
Culver, a private breeder of felines and executive
director of the Feline Conservation Federation
who believes that those who do it right should
have the right to do it.
But advocacy groups like Born Free USA
and the World Wildlife Fund say that captive
breeding of endangered species by private
ownerswhether for commercial, conservation,
or educational reasonsserves only to perpetu-
ate a thriving market for exotic animals. Tat, in
turn, results in a greater risk to animals still liv-
ing in their natural habitat. Conservation eforts
My life is completely
about the animals, says
Leslie-Ann Rush, a Florida
horse trainer. I rarely
leave them overnight
or take a vacation. She
raised her kangaroos and
lemurs from infancy.
Florida animal trainer
Pamela Rosaire Zoppe
bought Chance from pet
owners who could no
longer keep him. He now
appears in Hollywood
lms. Chimps are so
intelligent that they get
bored, she says.
I wouldnt advise
anyone to get a
chimp. Exotic animals
shouldnt be part of
the pet trade.
Pamela Rosaire Zoppe
national geographic apri l
should focus on protecting animals in the wild,
they assert, not on preserving what are ofen
inbred animals in private zoos.
If a federal law ever passes, violators could
face a fne and time in jail, as well as have their
animal confscated. Tat prospect enrages some
exotic-animal owners, who argue that the num-
ber of incidents involving injuries from exotic
pets pales in comparison to the number of peo-
ple who visit the emergency room for dog bites
each year.
Placing bans on wild animal ownership will
only increase the population of illegal exotics
African lion named Bam Bam. She has always
gravitated more toward animals than people.
Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to sur-
round myself with animals, she says. I never
wanted children.
Its true that even in states where wild animal
ownership is explicitly banned, existing laws are
not well enforced. Te market for exotics is so
alive and thriving that to call it underground is a
bit misleading. Te worst ofenders are the tiger
petting zoos that churn out cubs a year so
people can have their picture taken with them,
says Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue, an accred-
ited sanctuary.
At the raucous auctions held in muddy felds
or paved parking lots, auctioneers hold out ador-
able tiger cubs with scrumptious sof scrufs or
display tiny chimps in baseball hats and T-shirts
that say, I (heart) you. But people dont realize
that all too soon that adorable tiger will outgrow
its role as family pet and end up confned in a
chain link enclosure.
Its backyard breeders that Tim Harrison be-
lieves are to blame for most wild animal abuse.
Hes been to auctions where cages are stacked
one on top of the other, cramped with cougars
and other big cats, mostly cubs; the tents awhirl
with people whose pockets bulge with cash;
snakes and primates being sold for thousands
of dollars. Te parking lots are flled with every-
thing from shining Cadillacs to rusted trucks,
the public pouring in to see and touch.
The breeders stand to make hundreds of
thousands of dollars during an auction. Tey
coach their auctioneersthe middlemento
tell prospective buyers that their animals, usu-
ally babies, are harmless, and they are correct.
Te problem comes, says Harrison, when the
animal reaches sexual maturity and its natural
predator instinct kicks in.
Remember Michelle Berk and her kinkajou?
Like so many other wild animal stories, Winnies
came to a sad end. For years Berk kept the kin-
kajou in peace, but when the animal went into
her frst heat, her behavior changed. She tried to
eat her own tail as Berk and her family tried to
protect themselves while stopping the kinkajou
When we keep
wild animals as pets,
we turn them into
something for which
nature has no place.
out there, says Zuzana Kukol, who co-founded
REXANO (Responsible Exotic Animal Owner-
ship) to oppose bans on the private ownership
or use of animals. Bans do not work. Weve seen
this with alcohol and prostitution.
Kukol and co-founder Scott Shoemaker live
on ten acres of land an hours drive from Death
Valley, in the state of Nevada. Tey own two
bobcats, two African lions, two cougars, four
tigers, one serval, and one ocelot. Tey point out
that wild animal ownership has existed through-
out history and in all culturesby monarchs,
kings, monks, nomads, and peasantsand in-
sist that most owners today treat their animals
well and keep them from harming people. When
it comes to risk and its management, she is very
clear: Id rather die by a lion than by some stu-
pid drunk driver.
Local people, including farmers, give the couple
their ailing cows and horses, which Shoemaker
kills with a simple gunshot to the head, then
butchers into small pieces and feeds to the mena-
gerie, including Kukols favorite pet, a male
Exotic Pets
from tearing herself to pieces. Afer that Berk
turned Winnie over to a sanctuary. Its like we
lost a child. Shell always be our baby. Now she
has gone to a place where shell fnally get to be
a kinkajou, says Berk, who seems at peace with
the decision. Ive learned that Winnie never re-
ally needed us. She didnt need to be our pet. She
didnt need to be locked up. We got her because
we needed her.
So yes, the infant animals are docile, but doc-
ile is diferent from domesticated. Of all the large
land mammals that populate the planet, just over
a dozen have been successfully domesticated. No
matter how tamed or accustomed to humans an
undomesticated animal becomes, its wild nature
is still intact.
When making the case against exotic-pet
ownership, animal rights advocates tend to high-
light the dangers these formerly wild creatures
pose to humans; wild animal owners underscore
the inherent rights of humans to own exotics.
Back and forth the argument goes, but what can
get lost is whats best for the animals. If only it
were possible to look at the issue from the ani-
mals point of view.
YET PERHAPS WE NEED only look more closely,
with our own human eyes, at even a model exam-
ple of responsible wild animal ownership. Here
we are, back at the ranch owned by Leslie-Ann
Rush, the marsupials still snoozing in the sun,
the pig still rooting in the earth, the fruit trees
heavy with papayas.
In all ways Rush has done a fantastic job. Te
enclosure where she keeps her animals is clean.
Despite the fnancial pressures, they are well
fed and content. She is percent committed
and, on top of that, has managed to carve out
for herself a life that suits her, a sustaining inter-
dependent community of breathing beings, and
this is no small thing.
Like most exotic owners I spoke with, Rush
does not believe her animals pose a danger to
herself or anyone else. I dont have predators,
she says. Im not that kind of wild animal
owner. But perhaps danger to humans is not
really the point.
A rabbit runs through the yard, a newcomer,
or simply suddenly visible. Te potbellied pig
snifs and snorts. One kangaroo lifs a lazy eyelid
and then lowers it and starts to slumber again.
Only the youngest kangaroo is awake, and now,
suddenly, he perks up. His ears fork forward and
his eyes take on a sheen.
Hauling himself up on his hind legs, he snifs
the pigs mottled hide as it trots by, then starts
to hop behind the animal, lowering his pointed
nose to get a whif of the pigs rear. Te pig turns
around and snarls. Te kangaroo, the youngest
one, which hasnt been neutered, doesnt seem
to understand the meaning of the snarlwhy
would he, since hes been raised to comprehend
not animal but human languageand contin-
ues to pursue the pig, which picks up speed.
Te kangaroo is now in hot pursuit, trying to
mount the pig.
Look! Rush says. Teyre playing! But the
animals do not seem to be playing. Te pigs
snarl grows more threatening. Tere is, all of
a sudden, in what was a peaceful enclosure, a
series of misunderstandings. Although it seems
evident to me that the kangaroo is trying to mate
with the pig, Rush later tells me it was groom-
ing. Whatever is happening, the pig is having no
part of it and trots away as fast as his little legs
will go. Of course, a kangaroo cannot success-
fully mate with a Vietnamese potbellied pig. Yet
here, in this wired enclosure, the natural order
has been altered.
Adam Roberts of Born Free USA says his
organizations mission is to keep wildlife in the
wild, where it belongs. When humans choose
to keep what are supposed to be wild animals
as pets, we turn them into something outside of
wild, something for which nature has no place.
In the famous childrens book Where the Wild
Tings Are, a boy sails on a boat to an island
where he dances with beasts born from his own
imagination. In the end what we learn from
exotic-pet ownership is that when you take the
wild out of the wild, you eradicate its true nature
and replace it with fantasythe fantasy being
ours, we humans, the animals at once the most
and the least tamed of all. j
Romans
in France
An ancient
wreck tells
the tale of
n
e
Tarascon
Stone
quarry
Arles
P
e
t
i
t
R
h
n
e
Camargue
M
ed
ite
r
r
a
n
e
a
n
S
e
a
Saintes-Maries-
de-la-Mer
0 mi 10
0 km 10
Nero graced one coin found in the mud, but the
barge was probably built before his reign, just after
A.D. 50by C and L Postumius, judging from the
brand on one timber (right). The boats at bottom
was made of oak planks, its anks from two halves
of a r trunk. Some 1,700 nails held it together.
Only one aft section had been ripped away by the
river. An oil lamp (lower left) belonged to the crew.
his team discovered the barge he named Arles-
Rhne 3he had found evidence of two other
boats previouslyhe had no notion of there ever
being enough money available to raise it. He and
a colleague sawed a section out of the exposed
part, which the colleague analyzed down to
matchsticks. In 2007 three younger archaeolo-
gists, Sabrina Marlier, David Djaoui, and Sandra
Greck, took over the study of Arles-Rhne 3.
As they began diving onto the wreck that year,
just north of the highway bridge with its thun-
dering current of long-haul trucks, Long pro-
ceeded with his survey of the rest of the dump,
around 50 yards upstream. Opposite the center
of Arles now, he started fnding pieces of the
town: monumental blocks of stone, including
the capital of a Corinthian column, on which
he could make out traces of weathering by the
mistral. He also started fnding statuesa Venus
here, a captive Gaul there. Word began to leak
out. Te French customs police warned Long
that antiquities thieves might be watching his
operation. When his divers found a life-size
statue of Neptune, god of the sea and sailors,
they brought it up at night.
Before that diving season was out, the same
diver who had found Arles-Rhne 3, Pierre Giu-
stiniani, discovered the statue that set the boat
on its present course: a marble bust that looked
like Julius Caesar. Portraits of Caesar are surpris-
ingly rare. Tis one might be the only one extant
that was sculpted while he was aliveperhaps
MUSE DPARTEMENTAL ARLES ANTIQUE
(ALL): COIN, 1.4 INCHES; LAMP, 3 IN; BRAND
ON TIMBER, 4.5 IN. BARGE: 125 IMAGES
ASSEMBLED BY SYLVESTRE BNARD AND
NICOLAS DE BONNI, SINTEGRA
right afer he declared Arles a Roman colony,
launching it into long centuries of prosperity.
You have to understand, said Claude Sintes,
the director of the antiquities museum: Arles is
a small town, even a poor town. Te locomo-
tive workshop closed in 1984, the rice mill and
the paper mill within the past decade. Whats
lef is mostly tourism. Te tourists come in part
for Van Gogh, who painted here for a time. But
the town sits on minable deposits of the Ro-
man pastyou almost cant sink a shovel into
your garden without hitting a Roman stone or
tile. Te exhibition that Sintes built around the
bust of Caesar, afer news of it spread around
the world, showed that some of that stuf was
commercial grade. Te exhibitions success was
astonishing, Sintes said. When a modest town
like ours got 400,000 visitors, the politicians un-
derstood that the economic return was strong.
By the fall of 2010, as the Caesar exhibition was
nearing the end of its run, those ofcials were look-
ing for more culture to invest in: Te European
Union had designated Marseille and the whole
Provence region a 2013 European Capital of Cul-
ture. Arles wanted in on that promotional action.
Suddenly nine million euros became available to
build a new wing on Sintess museum and put a
Roman barge into it. Tere was just one catch.
Te project would need to be completed by 2013.
Tat sounds like enough time unless you know
about ancient wood and about the Rhne. Mud
national geographic apri l
had protected the wood of Arles-Rhne 3 from
microbial decay, but water had dissolved the
cellulose and flled the woods cells, leaving the
whole boat sof and spongy. Te wood was held
up only by water, said Francis Bertrand, direc-
tor of ARC-Nuclart, a restoration and conserva-
tion workshop in Grenoble. If the water were to
evaporate, the whole thing would collapse. Te
solution was to bathe the wood for months in
polyethylene glycol, then freeze-dry itgradually
infusing it with the polymer before removing the
water. But the barge would have to be cut into sec-
tions small enough to ft into the freeze-dryers.
And the process would take nearly two years.
Tat lef only one feld season, 2011, to ex-
tract the boat from the Rhne. Te project was
doomed to fail, said Benot Poinard, a profes-
sional diver and the site foreman. Te gloomy
premonition had come to him even before he
got stuck briefy under the boat one day. Nor-
mally, Poinard explained, the Rhne is safe for
diving only from late June to October; otherwise
the current is too strong. Tree or four months
would not be enough to excavate Arles-Rhne 3.
Then 2011 arrived. It hardly snowed in the
Alps that winter; that spring it barely rained. Te
Rhnes current was so gentle that Marliers team
got in the water by early May. Te visibility that
month reached an almost unheard of fve feet.
Marlier, who managed her anxiety about diving in
the Rhne by never straying from the barge, saw
for the frst time that shed been working for four
years right next to an abandoned car. Her team
worked straight into November, losing only a sin-
gle week to bad weatherand completed the job.
Two hours afer we fnished, Poinard said, the
Rhne became undivable for the whole winter.
Late in the feld season, as restorers from ARC-
Nuclart were disassembling the bow of the boat
on the quay, they found a silver denarius the size
of a dime. Te boats builder had sealed the coin
between two planks; it was meant to bring good
luck. And it did2,000 years later.
When Arles-Rhne sank, it was carrying 33
tons of building stones. Tey were fat, irregular
slabs of limestone, from three to six inches thick.
Tey had come from a quarry at St. Gabriel, less
than ten miles north of Arles, and were probably
headed toward a construction site on the right
bank or in the Camargue, the marshy farmland
south of Arles. Te boat was pointed upstream,
though, rather than downstream, indicating it
had been tied up at the quay when it sank. A
fash food had probably swamped it.
As the food subsided, the cloud of sediment
it had kicked up settled out of the water again,
draping the barge in a layer of fne clay no more
than eight inches thick. In that clay, in contact
with the boat, Marlier and her team found the
crews personal effects. A sickle theyd used
to chop fuel for their cooking fre, with a few
wood splinters next to the blade. A dolium, or
large clay jar, cut in half to serve as a hibachi,
with charcoal in the bottom. A plate and a gray
pitcher that belonged to the same manboth
bore the initials AT. Tats whats exceptional
about this boat, said Marlier. Were missing the
captain at the helm. But otherwise we have ev-
erything. Te mast, with its traces of wear from
the towropes, is to her the most precious fnd.
To that snapshot of the boat, the nearly 1,200
cubic yards of mud and Roman trash that even-
tually buried it add a kind of time-lapse image of
the commerce that was Arles. In the museums
dim basement, Djaoui and I walked down long
aisles of amphorae, many with their necks sliced
of. All this will have to be studied, he said, with
a trace of ambivalence. Te dump is almost too
rich; the archaeologists had already placed 130
tons of ceramic sherds back in the riverbed, in
the hole lef by the boat. I asked Djaoui about the
building stones that had started the whole story.
Tey were too heavy for the restored boat, he
said; replicas were being used. Djaoui took me
out behind the museum. Te stones were there,
next to a large trash bin, awaiting their own re-
turn to the river. j
When the barge sank, it was probably
tied to the quay. Among the things
scattered on board was this 15-inch
iron sickle, which the crew used to cut
kindling. No human remains were found.
MUSE DPARTEMENTAL ARLES ANTIQUE
national geographic Apri l
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Book of the Month
Mission: Animal Rescue
Packed with true stories, striking photography, and fun
facts, this new series is for kids who love animals and
are passionate about saving them. Read about a lioness
raising her cubs. Get tips from explorers in the eld. Try
hands-on rescue activities. The lion and wolf editions
are available April 8; look for more titles soon ($12.99).
NATIONAL PARKS Explore Yellowstone, Denali,
the Grand Canyon, and Zion (right) on naturalist-led
expeditions, active adventures, and family trips. See
all the itineraries at ngexpeditions.com/nationalparks.
PHENOMENA National Geographics spirited science writers take on dinosaurs, genetics,
new discoveries, quirky theories, and more on our Phenomena blog. Go to phenomena
.nationalgeographic.com for fresh posts from Virginia
Hughes, Brian Switek, Ed Yong, and Carl Zimmer.
LENS OF ADVENTURE Bryan Smith nds innovative ways to lm in extreme locations.
Join him for stories of what goes on behind the scenes during the making of a National
Geographic lm. Speaking dates in the United States and Canada are listed at nglive.org.
EARTH EXPLORERS This interactive exhibit introduces visitors
to diverse environments, including rain forests, the Poles, and the
African savannawhere Michael Nick Nichols (left) photographed
lions. The exhibit runs through September 1 at the Museum of
Science and Industry in Chicago. Visit msichicago.org for tickets.
Life Below Zero
Imagine a place where the
Arctic Circle is 200 miles to
the south and the nearest
neighbor is several hours
away. This is remote Alaska,
and its few human inhabi-
tants are a rugged bunch.
Find out how they manage
day to dayfrom traveling
by sled dog (left) to warding
off hungry grizzly bears. Its
all part of Life Below Zero,
back for its second season
this month on the National
Geographic Channel.
PHOTO: JEANNIE RALSTON (TOP)
THE MOMENT
Listen to an
interview with
Robb Kendrick on
our digital editions.
Robb Kendrick
Coal Tender His ten-hour workday is nished. But
now this miner burns coal from 4 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. After the ames
die down, whats left are pieces of coke, a hot-burning fuel his family
can use for cooking and for heating their home. His wife will sell any extra
at the nearby market in Ranchi, in northern India. I look at this manhes
got three kids, Ive got two, says photographer Robb Kendrick. The
only difference between him and me is our circumstances.
The mans village is located inside a mining complex, where he works
six days a week hauling 60-pound baskets of coal on his head, nearly ve
tons daily, for about four dollars a day. There is little relief from the smoky
air. Coal res, which have smoldered for decades because of ac ci dents
and poor management, release a constant haze of soot. This re, ringed
with children from the village, adds even more smoke and heat.
Kendrick spent a few days in the village building trust, then began
taking pictures. I was ve or six feet away for this shot, and my hands
were burning, he says, amazed at the mans fortitude. Before he left,
Kendrick snapped a portrait of the mans family, located a print shop,
and gave a copy to the beaming father. Eve Conant
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Tired Out The biggest tire ever made will cruise a lifeless continent, boasted
the caption for this phototaken in Akron, Ohio, near Goodyear headquartersin the
February 1940 Geographic. Ten feet in diameter and weighing 700 pounds, the tire
was made for a huge snow cruiser specially built for Admiral Richard Byrds 1939-1941
Antarctic expedition. The cruiser never cruised much in Antarctica, though. It had trouble
enough in the United States.
The plan was to drive the vehicle from Chicago to Bostons port, where it would be
shipped south to Byrd. Among other mishaps along the way, it got stuck in a rural
Ohio creek for three days and had two motors replaced in Erie, Pennsylvania.
In Antarctica things only got worse. First the cruiser crashed through the loading
ramp. Then its great weight sank the giant spinning tires deep into the snow. Within
months Byrds men abandoned the vehicle. Eventually it disappeared beneath the
snow. The cruiser was last glimpsed during a 1958 expedition but in the decades
since has vanished again. Margaret G. Zackowitz
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