Stop #5: Bangalore, India—Why We Came
The size and the smells were one reason. The pace of the population was another. But really, there’s no place in the world like India. It’s a country that’s also a subcontinent that also sometimes...
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Meet Raghava KK: Welcome to the New India
India is a country of contrasts. Farmers walk their cows along the same roads that people drive fancy sports cars. While some people continue to observe 5,000-year-old traditions, a few blocks away...
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Getting to Know Some of India’s Future Leaders
Before I arrived in Bangalore, people told me: Bangalore is different. It’s techy, it’s new, and it has a spirit of entrepreneurialism. Bangalore is full of people too impatient for their economy to...
View ArticleVideo: How Do You Get Around Jakarta?
I only had one night in Jakarta. How could I make the most of it, I wondered? In most cities, a cab can take you anywhere your hotel concierge recommends. But not in Jakarta. Twenty-eight million...
View ArticleStop #6: Medan, Indonesia–Why We Came
About two months ago, while planning our itinerary around the world, we learned about two biologists who also liked flying model airplanes. They were trying to combine both fields of expertise with a...
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Drones Overhead: Protecting the Rain Forest From Above
In 2011, two scientists, one American and one Dutch, met in Switzerland over coffee with a gripe familiar within the field of wildlife conservation. Animals in big countries get roped off in national...
View ArticleStop # 7: Guam, USA—Why We Came
No tour of the world is complete without a stop in the Pacific islands—specifically Guam, an island at an intersection of cultures. Guam was initially inhabited by people from Indonesia, then later...
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Guam: Can Invasive Species Be Stopped?
It’s hard to find somewhere more remote than Guam, the U.S. territory east of the Philippines that’s part of the Mariana Islands. Its remoteness has been a benefit, especially to the U.S. military,...
View ArticleThe Only Way to Time Travel
Crossing the International Date Line is one of the rare thrills of travel. Pass over the Pacific Ocean in the right direction (eastward) and you can relive the same day twice. We left Guam on Thursday...
View ArticleVideo: Full Circle Around the Earth
The Earth is vast—nearly 25,000 miles at its fattest. We’ve gone even further than that as we zigzagged between continents. And now, after a few days producing a story in Hawaii, we’re headed back to...
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The Race to Save the World’s Rarest Plants
O ne day last month on the Pacific island of Kauai, Steve Perlman was ready to throw himself off a cliff. In a blue t-shirt and cargo pants, Perlman, a botanist, was preparing to lower himself on a...
View ArticleThe Talented Mushroom
Close readers might remember a story we did this summer on mycology, or mushroom science. We went out to Seattle to meet Paul Stamets, a researcher who looks and plays the part of someone deeply...
View ArticleHow a Food Becomes a Delicacy
No food might characterize Texas more than chicken-fried steak, the golden fried beef cutlet that usually comes smothered in creamy gravy. This month’s Texas Monthly describes it as one of the state’s...
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Capturing the Beauty of Trash
In his 2008 book, Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough wrote about the strange condition of garbage—the thing we toss that, as soon as leaves our hands, goes to the magical place known as “away.” It’s...
View ArticleHow India’s Onions Explain the Developing World
Few foods in India are consumed in larger quantities than the onion. It’s a crucial ingredient in most traditional dishes, and at a high rate of production is one of the cheapest foods you can buy....
View ArticleWhen is it Time to Confront Climate Change?
A UN report out this week on the causes and impacts of climate change makes a conclusion we’ve all heard before. Without urgent action—meaning within the next 15 years—the world will reach a point of...
View ArticleRussia’s High-Stakes Olympic Moment
Of all the adjectives that network broadcasters will use to describe Sochi, Russia, in the coming weeks, we’re unlikely to hear the word “frozen.” Sochi is one of Russia’s southernmost points, directly...
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The Day the Arctic Came to D.C.
Here’s what it’s like to work at National Geographic. On Friday afternoon, several colleagues and I did something rare for a group of working adults on the clock in Washington, D.C.: We took a field...
View ArticleA Cure for Colorblindness
For all of the qualities that differentiate humans—how we look, where we live, how we speak—one that gets decidedly little attention is how we see. Vision is a binary system: You either have it or...
View ArticleWho Will Win the Solar Race?
Energy is still cheapest when it comes from fossil fuels, excavated in the form of oil, coal, or natural gas. But as the price continues to come down on the unit cost of energy from solar and wind,...
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