This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features
Kalimantan miners Sukardi and Suwarni (foreground) spend hours in a pond mixing mercury with ore to separate out the gold, while exposing themselves to the toxic metal. Workers also use the mercury-tainted water for drinking and bathing.
See more photographs from the January 2009 feature story "Gold."
This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features
In early morning mist that rolls in from the coast, two brown bears tussle like teenagers. "I was at this spot a year earlier and saw these bears doing the same thing," says John Paczkowski, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. "They sparred for about 40 minutes, taking breaks to eat a few berries." Bears in the Kronotsky reserve often encounter each other at salmon streams and seem to socialize more here than in some other food-rich areas.
See more photographs from the January 2009 feature story "Russian Wilderness."
This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features
Clinging to the hand of a human protector, six-year-old Mugi is one of some 500 orphans cared for at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue Center in Indonesian Borneo. The island’s orangutans are endangered: The population has fallen by more than 50 percent in the past 50 years.
See more photographs from the November 2008 feature story "Borneo."
This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features
Neurobiologist Constance Scharff finds inspiration swimming near her Berlin home. Her discoveries trace a thread woven through all creatures: "The genetic hardware a bird uses to learn to sing probably isn’t far from what a mouse uses to learn to run a maze, and what you use to learn to speak."
See more photographs from the February 2009 feature story "Darwin’s Legacy."
