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Sep 24, 2018Mooncake time

In ancient China, moon worship was tied closely to fertility and the harvest. So the full moon that happened closest to the fall equinox became the holiday now called Mid-Autumn Festival, also called Moon Festival by some. Originally a celebration of the harvest and a plea to the gods for rains to ensure a good harvest next year, the festival has become a more secular bit of autumn fun, with children and adults alike eating sweet mooncakes, lighting lanterns, and giving thanks for all they have. Really, they had us at ‘mooncake.’Desktop Version

Oct 28, 2018Do spirits haunt the Gardens of Versailles?

That’s not a ghost in our homepage picture; it’s just a statue (at least, we think it is). But it’s easy to imagine ghosts wandering the vast gardens here at the Palace of Versailles, about 12 miles outside of Paris. One ghost in particular has a reputation for showing herself. In 1901, on a sultry August afternoon, two visitors to the Gardens of Versailles claimed to have witnessed the gardens magically transform to their 18-century grandeur. Then, they said, they encountered the ghost of Marie Antoinette, whom they spotted calmly lounging and drawing in her sketchbook. The queen of course had been guillotined a century earlier. The story was later adapted as an opera, which debuted in 1991.Desktop Version

Feb 16, 2023Horsetail Fall, Yosemite National Park, California

Illuminated by the setting sun on Yosemite"s famous El Capitan is a rare natural phenomenon known as the "Firefall," which appears for just a few weeks a year. From mid to late February, the sun is at just the right angle to set Horsetail Fall aglow, but only if sufficient water is flowing and the sky is clear. Even then, the Firefall only lasts for about 10 minutes in the evening, so vantage points can be very crowded.Desktop Version

Mar 25, 2020It s Tolkien Reading Day

For Tolkien Reading Day, we"re featuring Oxford University"s Radcliffe Camera, the reading room for the Bodleian Library, which is home to the world"s largest archive of J.R.R. Tolkien"s original manuscripts and drawings. While Tolkien never worked in the Radcliffe Camera (Latin for "room"), he both studied at Oxford (graduating in 1915 with first-class honors in English language) and taught here as a professor.Desktop Version

Sep 28, 2018Southern right whales sail home to South Africa

Each year during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter and early spring months (June through November), southern right whales migrate from the far Southern Ocean near Antarctica to the coast of South Africa to mate and calve. Their tendency to swim in shallow waters near the shore—and their curiosity around boats—delight tourists here, and has made the town of Hermanus, South Africa, an international whale-watching hot spot. The town even employs its own ‘whale crier,‘ who sounds a horn when a sighting is made. Today marks the start of the Hermanus Whale Festival, a celebration of these mighty migrants.Desktop Version

Nov 8, 2018Manatees rebound

We’re in Florida’s Blue Spring State Park for Manatee Awareness Month. As winter approaches, Blue Spring becomes a safe harbor for manatees, aka sea cows, looking for warmer inland waters. It’s also a protected area for the manatees, where they can eat and swim without fear of injury from boats. In fact, researchers identify many of the manatees in Blue Spring by the scars they bear from accidental boat collisions and motor blade cuts. Identifying individual manatees has been crucial to tracking the population rebound of this once endangered species. A 2016 census of manatees in Florida’s springs counted 6,250 of the large, surprisingly graceful beasts.Desktop Version

Jan 8, 2022American bison

For an American bison, winter is the season to slow down, plump up, and let your hair grow out. Relatable, sure, but these massive mammals get there without the aid of beer, chips, and a couch.Desktop Version

Jan 24, 2021These patterns tell a story

Is it possible for an article of clothing to express the essence of an entire people? Well, not usually, but for the Indigenous Guna people of Panama, the colorful handwoven textiles seen here may be an exception. Molas, which means "clothing" in the Guna language, are traditionally displayed on both the front and back of women"s blouses. Even today, many Guna women prefer to wear them instead of modern attire. The textiles often feature abstract geometric patterns, as well as images from nature such as turtles, flowers, birds, and fish. Guna women of yesteryear were known to paint their bodies with those same geometric patterns and designs, and by the late 1800s they had begun weaving them onto cloth instead of painting themselves. Today, the production of molas is still generally done by women, who use an intricate process called reverse appliqué, where as many as seven layers of fabric are sewn together to form a panel, which is then hand-cut to create the vibrant designs.Desktop Version

Nov 11, 2018Poppies for Armistice Day

This is part of ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red,’ an art installation created by Paul Cummins and Tom Piper to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of World War I. Crafted of thousands of ceramic poppies, the touring exhibit has been seen by more than 4 million people in 16 locations around the United Kingdom. One large section of the installation, ‘Wave,’ is currently at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, England, which is where our image was photographed. We’re showing it today to honor Armistice Day, the day exactly 100 years ago when the Allied Forces and Germany signed an armistice that ended the war. The US renamed the holiday Veterans Day in 1954 to honor veterans of all its wars. To the roughly 20 million veterans in the US today–thank you.Desktop Version

Oct 27, 2018Don’t get lost in there

Look closely at today’s homepage picture and you might spot some adventurous folks searching for the way out of this elaborate corn maze in Northern California. Corn mazes—known as ‘maize mazes’ in the UK—are a popular fall-time tradition that allows for much creativity. A Massachusetts farm draws visitors to its Tom Brady tribute maze, designed to look like the Patriots quarterback throwing a football. And a farmer in Illinois built a 6.5-acre maze shaped like a vintage Indy 500 race car. We’re still holding out for a corn maze inspired by search engines. Anyone game?Desktop Version

Sep 23, 2020A tree of many memories

As autumn takes hold in China, a blanket of fan-shaped golden leaves—like this one at Xuanwu Lake Park in Nanjing—becomes a familiar sight. And it"s been that way for longer than anyone can remember, thanks to a native tree with a lineage going back eons, the ginkgo.Desktop Version

Mar 4, 2021The most wonderful day of the year. Period.

Er, comma—at least it seems like that"s what we"re seeing. And just like a comma breaks up a sentence, this structure called a breakwater interrupts the Pacific Ocean, punctuating waves with a crash before they can disturb this Bali beach. Whether its resemblance to a comma (or is that an apostrophe?) was intentional or not, it"s a fine visual for today"s syntactical celebration. That"s correct: It"s Grammar Day! (Note to hardline grammarians: We know punctuation—like a comma—isn"t exactly grammar, but we"re loosening the linguistical reins a bit in the generous spirit of Grammar Day. So put that red pen down, smarty-pants.)Desktop Version

Oct 13, 2020Where can you find a red fox?

The biggest of all fox species, the red fox lives in many different habitats around the world, including forests, grasslands, deserts, and mountains. This fox is in the Netherlands, but red foxes can be found throughout most of Europe, as well as in temperate Asia, North Africa, and North America. A male fox is called a dog, and the female a vixen. A young fox is a kit, cub, or pup. Foxes live in groups called skulks. The red fox"s tail accounts for about a third of its length, and it can serve as a blanket, as well as a flag the fox raises to communicate with other foxes.Desktop Version

Jun 1, 2020The largest living organism on Earth

Today marks the second-ever World Reef Day, an observance created to help focus global attention on the deteriorating health of our planet"s vital reef systems, and also to help marshal efforts to help them recover. Why should we care about the health of ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef, seen in this photo? Because reefs are an easy indicator of how healthy our oceans are. And right now, reefs aren"t doing too well. What can we do? Learn about reefs—not just the dangers that put healthy reefs at risk, but why reefs are such a critical part of Earth"s greater ecosystems.Desktop Version

Jul 7, 2020Mercury in retrograde

Today we"re traveling to outer space to catch a glimpse of the Caloris Basin on the planet Mercury. This small planet—about the size of Earth"s moon—is riddled with craters, but none as spectacular as the Caloris Basin. One of the largest impact craters in the solar system, Caloris is about 950 miles across and ringed by mile-high mountains.Desktop Version

Jan 10, 2022Ski touring in Austria

The High Tauern mountain range above the Austrian spa town of Bad Gastein is one of many regions around the world that attract brave ski-touring enthusiasts, like the three skiers crossing the ridge here. Ski touring is a sport for only the most skilled athletes since it usually involves navigating remote alpine territory and climbing with mountaineering gear, generally without removing your skis.Desktop Version

Sep 28, 2020Explorer of the sea

This blue shark is swimming near the Azores, a Portuguese chain of islands about 850 miles west of mainland Portugal. The inspiration for the shark"s name comes from its back color, which can vary from a light blue to a darker shade. Its slender, tapered body is propelled through the water with agility and grace by a long tail fin that sweeps from side to side. Listed as "near threatened," blue sharks are found off the coast of every continent except for Antarctica, making them the most widely distributed of all sharks. Swift and powerful swimmers, blue sharks migrate long distances. It"s common for them to swim 1,200 to 1,700 miles or even farther, following the clockwise currents of the Gulf Stream in search of food, mates, and "just right" water temperatures.Desktop Version

Dec 13, 2022Hallstatt, Austria

This tiny, snow-dusted village is Hallstatt, in Austria"s mountainous Salzkammergut region, sandwiched between the shore of Lake Hallstatt and the slopes of the Dachstein Mountains. The salt mines here are thought to be among the oldest in the world and were once the backbone of Hallstatt"s economy. Today they"re a popular tourist attraction—this little village draws in so many visitors that it is considered an area of over-tourism. Hallstatt has sought to limit the number of people who can visit each day.Desktop Version

Mar 29, 2021Rising up from the black sand like rock gods

Any visitor to Iceland knows that driving the Ring Road rewards the traveler with incredible changing landscapes. Today, we"re taking a quick detour to visit this chiseled stretch of Iceland"s southern coast, where black sand beaches meet spiky basalt sea stacks. This is Reynisfjara Beach, widely considered the most beautiful example of Iceland"s black sand beaches. The sea stacks fronting the beach are known as Reynisdrangar and were formed when a volcano erupted, spewing flowing lava that cooled into these formations. Ask the locals how they formed, however, and you may get a different story, one involving trolls and a battle with a three-masted ship.Desktop Version

Oct 31, 2020Twas a night just like tonight

In the late 18th century, a wealthy landowner built an estate in County Antrim in what is now Northern Ireland. To make a scenic but imposing entryway, he had 150 beech trees planted on either side of the road (90 trees survive). The trees grew to form the Dark Hedges—an arboreal tunnel leading up to the property. In the right conditions—say a gloomy autumn night with the moonlight casting shadows through the tree canopy—this road can be a little spooky.Desktop Version

Jul 24, 2021Can you see the family resemblance?

In honor of Cousins Day, we"re hanging out on a limb with these four Javan tree frogs in Indonesia. Tree frogs are smaller than your average terrestrial frogs because they spend the majority of their lives perched in trees, and their weight must be fully supported by twigs and leaves. At the rounded ends of their froggy fingers and toes are disc-shaped adhesive pads that help them to maneuver about on trees. While most tree frogs (there are 800 species all over the world!) are green, brown, or gray, these Javans are bright and colorful. This is so they can blend into their jungle environs and avoid notice by predators such as snakes, spiders, bats, and owls.Desktop Version

Mar 11, 2021Welcome to the drainpipe of the Pacific

We are standing here on the craggy Oregon coast looking out to Thor"s Well with the help of a photographer"s telephoto lens. Only the most daring of visitors would get this close to the gaping sinkhole at high tide. One misstep combined with a forceful surge from the raging Pacific Ocean, and into the plunging well we"d go.Desktop Version

Oct 24, 202075 years of the United Nations

We"re looking at the New York City skyline with the UN"s headquarters in the middle for United Nations Day, marking the anniversary of the date when the UN Charter entered into force. This year is a milestone 75th anniversary of the United Nations, which replaced the League of Nations as the world"s largest and most powerful intergovernmental organization. To mark the occasion, the UN launched its UN75 global dialogue initiative in January, and discussions have taken place around the world in settings ranging from classrooms to the UN General Assembly. COVID-19 has made some of these events a logistical challenge, but it"s also highlighted the need for countries to work together to face global issues. The UN website allows anyone to participate, with tool kits for dialogue, issues briefs, and other resources.Desktop Version

Aug 22, 2018Summer’s in home stretch

When people talk about the ‘dog days of summer,’ they’re referring to the sultry, hot days of the season that sometimes seem to stretch on forever–just like those long legs on the star of today’s homepage. This is a maned wolf, also known as a ‘fox on stilts,’ and it’s the largest species of canid in South America. As a canid, it belongs to the same family as the domestic dog, wolf, and coyote, and we think it makes a fun spokescritter for summer’s ‘dog days.’Desktop Version

Jul 3, 2019Keep calm and drive on (slowly)

Following its winter closure due to heavy snowfall, the Transfăgărășan in Romania is now open for business. Also known as the DN7C highway, the road cuts through the Făgăraș Mountains, offering stunning views of waterfalls, glacial lakes, and lush valleys—plus steep drop-offs and hairpin turns to amp up the drama. Back in 2009, Jeremy Clarkson, co-host of the British TV show "Top Gear," called this twisty route the "best road in the world," which helped turn it into a major tourist draw. The Transfăgărășan reaches elevations just shy of 6,700 feet and has more tunnels and viaducts in its 55 miles than any other road in this mountainous country. But proceed with caution. The speed limit is a sensible 25 mph. And watch out for herds of sheep that use it as a path to greener pastures, and don"t mind blocking traffic as they amble there.Desktop Version

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