MetaFilter posts tagged with NationalGeographic

The Kingpin

gman — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:39:58 -0800

An exposé of the world's most notorious wildlife dealer, his special government friend, and his ambitious new plan. Photo Gallery and more info.

Plant Sex.

eleyna — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:41:28 -0800

Pollen, pollen everywhere. The article isn't bad, but it's the photo gallery that is truly fascinating.

WY couldn't get any more square here.

NikitaNikita — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:25:38 -0800

Senators' STATEments: As part of Geography Awareness Week, National Geographic asked United States Senators to draw and label their home states with at least three important places.

Orchids

netbros — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:24:46 -0800

How do you spread your genes around when you're stuck in one place? By tricking animals, including us, into falling in love. Orchids — Love and Lies Orchids are dizzying in their diversity. Over the past 80 million years, some 25,000 wild species have taken root on six continents, in nearly every kind of habitat. Representing a full fourth of the world's flowering plants, there are four times as many orchid species as mammals, and twice as many as birds. Perhaps the most clever deceit of all is offered by those orchids that hold out the promise of sex. And not exactly normal sex. Really weird sex, in fact. I went in search of one of the most ingenious and diabolical of orchids: the Ophrys. (Some botanists call it the "prostitute orchid.") I'd been eager to lay eyes on this orchid and meet its hapless pollinator ever since reading about its reproductive strategy, which involves what my field guide referred to as "sexual deception" and "pseudocopulation." The pollination strategy of the Ophrys is, like that of so many orchids, ingenious, intricate, wily, and seemingly improbable—so much so that proponents of intelligent design sometimes point to orchids as proof that the hand of a higher intelligence must be at work in nature. (And a rather sadistic intelligence at that.) Yet the peculiarities of orchid sex actually offer one of the great case studies of natural selection, as Charles Darwin himself understood. Darwin was fascinated by orchid pollination strategies, and though he was puzzled by the purpose of Ophrys's uncanny resemblance to bees (pseudocopulation wasn't observed until 1916), he taught us much of what we know about these plants in The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, the volume he published immediately after The Origin of Species. Outcrossing, or mixing one's genes with distant mates, increases vigor and variation in one's offspring, maximizing fitness. The sexual frustration of a deluded bee turns out to be an essential part of the orchid's reproductive strategy. Determined not to make the same mistake again, the bee travels some distance and, if things work out for the orchid, ends up pseudocopulating (and leaving his package of pollen) with an orchid a ways off. That distant orchid is likely to look and smell ever so slightly different from the first, and some botanists believe these subtle variations from plant to plant are part of the orchid's strategy to prevent bees from learning not to fall for a flower. "Imperfect floral mimicry" [pdf] is the botanical term for this adaptation. There's a video on YouTube, a riveting snippet of interspecies porn, in which you can watch a wasp be utterly bamboozled, and then humiliated, by an Australian tongue orchid. The tongue orchid (Cryptostylis) lures its pollinator by deploying a scent closely resembling the pheromone of the female wasp. "Prurient apparitions," is how Victorian critic John Ruskin described these flowers. Prurient? Is it possible that humans can look at an orchid and, like the deluded orchid bees or male dupe wasps, see an apparition of female anatomy? (Georgia O'Keeffe certainly did.) Could it be that plant sex and animal sex have gotten their wires crossed in human brains just as they have among the bugs? That accident of evolution has proved another happy one for the orchid, for look how much we humans now do for these flowers: the prices paid, the risks to life and limb endured, the pains taken …

Before New York

Glibpaxman — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:23:51 -0800

"There are views in this city where you cannot see, except for a person or maybe a dog, another living thing. Not a tree or a plant. How did a place become like that?" Before and after photo gallery

"Vampire bats must feast on fresh blood"

Burhanistan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:02:58 -0800

Vampire Bats Biting People. They just need to feed their babies like anyone else.

Sign of the time, so out of line

Joe Beese — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:35:33 -0800

National Geographic's photographic history of monkeys in space.

The Global Food Crisis

dgaicun — Sun, 17 May 2009 08:59:27 -0800

The End of Plenty: Our hot and hungry world could face a perpetual food crisis. From National Geographic Magazine. Full page link (warning: printer prompt). Photo Gallery.

Wild Wonders of Europe nature photography

cog_nate — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:17:42 -0800

Wild Wonders of Europe "wants to show that Europe really is not about just highways and cities. But today, many seem to know more about nature in Africa or in America, than in Europe, because that is what’s on TV. The European natural wonders are still very little known to the World. We want to change that." 58 nature photographers are working on the project, and there are 29 galleries representing 16 countries thus far, with more to come. [via]

Baby Mammoths on ice!

Science! — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:48:48 -0800

Make Believe you're in a ~~jungle~~ movie. Watch the frozen baby ~~elephants~~ mammoths go by. The ~~beat~~ world is groovy. Awesome pictures of the frozen little guy, and a BBC story about the find a few years ago.

"When I came here... I became a human being."

amyms — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:11:30 -0800

Necessary Angels. They are not doctors. They are not nurses. They are illiterate women from India's Untouchable castes. Yet as trained village health workers, they are delivering babies, curing disease, and saving lives—including their own. Photo Gallery. Video.

Small collection of National Geographic photos

Brandon Blatcher — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:17:18 -0800

Nothing but a few pretty pictures.

National Geographic Flashback

Kattullus — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:35:23 -0800

The National Geographic Flashback is a section where the magazine publishes old pictures from its archives. There are many strange and wondrous pictures. Some of my favorites include: turtle riding, cooking with verbs, moving the lawn at Stonehenge, Robert Peary at the North Pole, artist along the Dordogne, cannibal fork, Great Pyramid of Khufu lit up by 6500 bulbs and flying car.

Can Two Engineers and Some Elbow Grease Save The World?

chuckdarwin — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:11:09 -0800

Beautiful pictures of toxic sea slugs

phunniemee — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:06:11 -0800

National Geographic has a really neat photo gallery of nudibranchs. These are very colorful, very cute sea slugs. Enjoy.

National Geographic Photos Online

RussHy — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:10:33 -0800

National Geographic Magazine is all about the photos. Check out the Editor's Choices. Other goodness includes the Daily Dozen, a jigsaw puzzle generator, and user-generated photo galleries.

Never Pay A Bill Again

jonson — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:25:45 -0800

Braving Alaska is a fantastic 1992 National Geographic special that may make you want to move to Alaska. Focusing on a handful of U.S. families who have moved from the cities in the lower 48 to handmade homes above the arctic circle and now receive their mail by bush pilot maybe 3 times a year, living hundreds of miles from their nearest neighbor, and exist entirely of their own capability, the documentary is a fascinating view of life WAY off the grid. Presented here in a YT playlist of six segments, there are more great moments (from sawing through the frozen fish to the enumeration of meals made from Moose) than I can list.

wsg — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:30:20 -0800

National Geographic has a lot of cool webcams. Pete's Pond in Africa is my favorite. (previously) It's up and running again for its third season till mid-December, the end of the dry season. Best viewing times are 4-8 PM EST and 12-4 AM EST. Lots of highlights can be found at youtube, of course. NG also provides the Seal Cam from Año Nuevo, California, Bald Eagle Cam from Maine, the Kakadu Cam from Australia and and the Polar Bear Cam from Canada. There are a lot of grizzly bears fishing right now on the Bear Cam from Alaska, but the Crane Cam from Nebraska is down right now. To view these cams you have to sit through a short commercial at first, but after that it's all live wildlife goodness. There are also very active forums where people share their screencaps and vicarious adventures.

"SeaWorld bespeaks the essence of Orlando, a place whose specialty is detaching experience from context, extracting form from substance, and then selling tickets to it."

wander — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:10:53 -0800

"All over Orlando you see forces at work that are changing America from Fairbanks to Little Rock. This, truly, is a 21st-century paradigm: It is growth built on consumption, not production; a society founded not on natural resources, but upon the dissipation of capital accumulated elsewhere; a place of infinite possibilities, somehow held together, to the extent it is held together at all, by a shared recognition of highway signs, brand names, TV shows, and personalities, rather than any shared history. Nowhere else is the juxtaposition of what America actually is and the conventional idea of what America should be more vivid and revealing."

"Welcome to the theme-park nation." [more inside]

Kira Salak

jason's_planet — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 13:03:38 -0800

Kira Salak is a writer who embodies an old-fashioned spirit of adventure. She has kayaked the Niger River solo; during her time in Africa, she freed a slave. On another trip, she sampled Ayahuasca in the Peruvian jungle. At the age of 24, she trekked alone through the tribal violence of Papua New Guinea. Her work is a wonderful alternative to the blandness and narrowness of contemporary consumer society, in which there is nothing new to be discovered and everything can be reduced to lucre.

On the Gnostic Gospel of Judas.

brownpau — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:08:40 -0800

Gnostic Gospel of Judas, they say! Hot on the heels of Christ On Ice and the, er, "newly discovered" Gospel fragment, the news outlets are currently drooling all over National Geographic's recent conclusive dating and translation of surviving fragments of the Apocryphal Gospel of Judas, now dated to about 300 CE. The text is classically Gnostic, emphasizing a duality splitting Christ's "spiritual" and "fleshly" natures, as opposed to Christian orthodoxy's belief in the Incarnation. Looking beyond the wide-eyed "OMG THIS WILL REVOLUTIONIZE CHRISTIANITY AS WE KNOW IT" sensationalism, Internet Monk asks if a 300 year-old apocryphal biography of George Washington would be regarded as authentic were it discovered in 1970. James F. Robinson, an expert on ancient Egyptian texts, regards the Judas Gospel as mostly a dud, produced by Cainite Gnostics who took it upon themselves to "rehabilitate" villians of Bible mythos. Even if you don't believe in the account of Judas, there's no denying his contributions to the Christian narrative. Truly a historical icon.

Even educated fleas do it

CunningLinguist — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 10:12:27 -0800

That thing called love. "National Geographic Photographer Jodi Cobb scoured the globe to document how people define love and how it fits into their lives." Some great photos and interesting commentary.

...whose hunger for elephants will likely only grow

jonson — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 21:04:37 -0800

National Geographic Video of 7 lions attempting to kill & eat a full grown elephant. embedded wmv, amusingly hyperbolic narrator

FUCK YOU INTERTNET

Keyser Soze — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 01:17:14 -0800

Michael Moore giving Farenheit 9/11 out for free October 26th to any participating independant video store. In other non related news, National Geographic calculates that 85% of young Americans cannot point out Iraq on a map.

Cocaine Country

homunculus — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:54:38 -0800

Cocaine Country, Sights & Sounds. An 8 minute Flash movie from National Geographic's story, Cocaine Country, by Carlos Villalón, about cocaine in Colombia and what the crop means to the people. [Via TalkLeft.]