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for camel rides, sandboarding, ancient ruins, and salty lakes. But these bodies of water are a sign of trouble in paradise. Before the nineteen eighties, Sewa's only source of water was two hundred natural flowing springs. To expand agriculture in the region, farmers drilled thousands of wells to access groundwater in the

aquifers below. The wells supplied more water for irrigation, but without a well planned drainage system in place, excess water produced salty drainage lakes and caused water logging and salinization of the soil. Ironically, too much water in this desert attraction is leading to the deterioration of agriculture, killing cash crops like date palms, which are crucial to creating the

humid microclimate of the oasis. Siwa is not alone. More than thirty three million acres of oases around the globe degraded into deserts from nineteen ninety five to twenty twenty. Next new hope for rhinos nan Yuki, Kenya. Only two Northern white rhinoceroses remain on the planet, both females protected by armed guards around the clock at Old Pajita con Conservancy in Kenya. The subspecies of white rhino has been hunted to functional extinction for its horn, coveted for carvings

and unproven medical uses, but a solution had emerged. In January, scientists from an international project called bio Rescue announced that they had for the first time, achieved a pregnancy after using in vitro fertilization fertilization IVF to transfer a Southern white rhino embryo into a Southern white rhino surrogate. Southern white rhinos, once near extinction themselves, are now the most popular species of rhino thanks to over a century of

conservation efforts. The success was bittersweet. Before scientists could confirm the pregnancy, the surrogate mother died from an unrelated bacterial infection. A necro necropsy revealed that she was pregnant. While the moment was heartbreaking, Ami Vitelli says it proved that IVF is viable in rhinos. The bio Rescue Team plans to transfer a Northern white rhino embryo into a Southern white rhino surrogate in early twenty twenty five. The procedure may

save other rhinos. Three of the five species are critically endangered. For Vitale, whose work documenting steps to save these rhinos over the past fifteen years will be included in a forthcoming national geographic film, the fetus is a symbol of the group's determination. The thing that drives this team is

their optimism, she says. They just are not giving up. Next, tracking the elusive black tiger Odisha State, India, The Similipal Tiger Reserve covers more than a thousand square miles in eastern India and is home to the world's only wild population of pseudo melanistic tigers, also called black tigers for their extra wide stripes. The unique colour pattern results from a genetic mutation found solely in the Similipal population. About half of the twenty seven tigers living here are black.

Similipol tigers are skittish and shy. Even longtime residents of the villages within the reserve told Pressinjeet yadd Yadev they had never seen one. To photograph the tigers, Yadev set up camera traps with infrared triggers on twenty four trails, three of which ultimately saw regular tiger activity. However, the tigers often seemed to sense a change on the path and headed off trail out of the camera's range. Even if my camera was camouflaged, he explains, they'd say, this

is something new, I want to avoid it. Other wildlife like monkeys and elephants, played with and broke his cameras. Yadov kept fourteen to sixteen hour days managing his equipment and improving his techniques to avoid detection. He eventually got this image of a young female tiger, one of just a few photos captured of the black tigers over sixty

days inside the reserve. Next Dangerous Crossroads Siloama Zombia Jasper Doze was documenting an international effort to protect transporter wildlife corridors when he heard that an elephant had been killed the night before by a car on the M ten Highway outside of Tioma Niguezi National Park. A passenger the vehicle also died. Elephants must cross the M ten to reach the Zambezi River, their only water source during hot,

dry months. Human animal interactions are increasing as roads, villages, and farms encroach upon habitat for elephants and other wildlife. In addition, climate change raises temperatures and altars rainfall patterns, forcing animals and humans into more frequent competition for resources like water. In the past, locals saw only the occasional elephant, But now, they told Dost, the animals raided their crops and leave paths of destruction as they moved through villages

in larger numbers. You could feel the tension. Dost says of the conflicts at the exodents seen bystanders gathered and buses arrived with school children. Despite their generally adversarial relationship with elephants, many villagers had not seen one up close. People approached to touch the animal and stroke his trunk

in Awe. Conservation measures like the wildlife corridors that Dosts had been photographing, address the needs of both animals and humans for water and land resources, and are ever more important. It's about creating the infrastructure for coexistence, he says. Next, will travelers find a lost incast city by Lucian Chalvain High in the Peruvian clouds. The hard to reach ruins of Chaqua karl are spared the crowds that flock to

Machipichu that could soon change. Lamas seem to graze everywhere in Peru's mountains, but none are quite as memorable as the herd at chau Qua Quarol. Fashioned that of white rocks and embedded in gray schist walls, two dozen beguiling lamas have stood fixed in stone for centuries. There is nothing else like this in the Andes, says Gorri Tumi Echivaria, who specializes in prehistoric rock art and has worked at the sprawling Pre Columbian Archaeological Complex since two thousand five,

a year after the lamas were discovered. It was an artistic innovation that occurred prior to the sixteenth century and was never repeated in the andes of southern Peru. Cha Quako is a cousin to the more frequently visited Machupicho, just twenty seven miles northeast. The complex of structures was created by Inca architects. It includes ceremonial halls, chambers that once held mummified remains, intricate farming terraces, and hundreds of

buildings where Inca communities worked and lived. But the star attraction for travelers and archaeologists is the lamas in a perpetual procession toward the ruins central plaza where they're live, where their live relatives may have been sacrificed. The route to the ten thousand foot high Choquacarol is not for the faint hearted. Visitors typically fly inland from Lima to Pusco, and the site is accessible only by foot, human or mule.

It takes most hikers two to three days to trek there and back along a thirty nine mile trail that often hugs the cliff side as the Apurimac River rages below. The trail is strewn with rocks and lined with thorny branches, but every stubbed toe and scratched arm is worth the views of the snow dusted andes and enigmatic structures encountered along the way. A much debated cable car project could change the journey considerably by ferrying visitors to the base

of the ruins. Proponents say the tourism revenue would be a boon to the region. Our opponents argue that the cable car could cause the entire complex to collapse. For now, the site's remoteness and the difficulty reaching its ruins help retain its magical mythical quality. But Chaquacaro, translated as Cradle of Gold in Quetcha All, wasn't always off the beaten path in the pre Columbian age. When the place thrived, it sat along a route people traversed as they moved

between Andean peaks and jungle lowlands. The heart of Chaququaro, with an open plaza containing ceremonial fountains and a building filled with rooms that were used for rituals and niches for mummified remains, is smaller than what travelers experience that Machupichu, with the complex itself is much larger. As trekkers approach the ruins, the first things they see are terraces step like platforms that turn hillsides into arable land, still used

by farmers in the Peruvian highlands. Chaquacoro has miles and miles of terraces, many of them covered by vegetation. They stretched from the top of the ruins nearly a mile down toward the Apurimac River. Kovaroubias, whose family has lived in the nearby community of Marampata for more than a century, says her ancestors used the terraces for planting and pasturing livestock until the nineteen eighties. Clearing the terraces of vegetation

led archaeologists to the stone lamas. Their white bodies stand in stark contrast to the gray walls, suggesting depth and dimension. They reflect these sunlight when the rays hit them each afternoon. Chokokwaro's size and remoteness mean that much of the site has never been excavated. Nelson Sierra, who operates a high mountain trekking company Ritisuyo, points to vine covered elevations rising beyond the central clearing. They are not small hills, but

collapsed structures reclaimed by dense vegetation. So much work is still needed here, but restoring it all would be a massive job, he says. In theory, the proposed tramway could spur restoration work and boost the region's economy, but the idea of increasing tourism is a pressing issue that cuts both ways in this part of the Andes. Concerned by the influx of visitors to sensitive places, UNESCO has threatened in the past to put Machipichu on a danger list.

A cable car system would bring not only more visitors to Choquacaro, but also the sort of infrastructure that might damage the fragile area. Some complained that mass access to the sacred site could spoil its rarefied, undiscovered appeal and harm the grass roots tourism outfits that now bring people there. Melchorapuga, who offers lodging and runs a restaurant in Chiquisca on the Apouramak side of the trail, worries the cable car would force her and others to abandon their way of life.

We depend on tourism, Puga says. The cable car would be like killing the roots of a tree and thinking the tree could live. We would not survive. Samuel kispe a summer retired mule driver says the cable car would eliminate jobs for people like him and a whole range of service providers whose businesses would be bypassed by a quick cable car ride. One of his seven children, Jose Luis, is also a mule driver, and his family runs a

small store and campground in Cocamsana along the trail. Many of the trekkers who venture to Quacarakayo says something else could be lost too. The enticing thing about Cocacraio is that it takes time, so there is a commitment to do it, says Madison mac donald, twenty six, from Houston. Ritisuyos Sierra says that the government should focus on improving the existing infrastructure instead of arguing over a cable car. Maintenance of the trail and better services would permit a

greater flow of tourists and ensure local livelihoods. It would not be like Machupichu, but the people visiting Chokokuaro are not interested in another machu Pichu. Choco Kwaro is the perfect companion site. Next. The Navigational Power of Finding Zero Degrees by Matthew W. Chwastik for centuries, geographers, astronomers, and mariners around the world set their own standards for longitude without any agreement on a universal baseline. Here's why it looks so long. Took so long to agree out of

prime meridian. To day, geographers use the time honored system of intersecting lines to pinpoint places on the globe. Latitude running west to east has always had a convenient origin the equator, which divides Earth into northern and southern hemispheres, but longitude running north to south to determine what is east or west started without any such an easy demarcation.

Early cartographers chose their own zero line or prime meridian, often centered on their capital, and that worked until it didn't. The myriad prime meridians led to confusion in maps and

sea charts, time keeping, and global maritime commerce. At the eighteen eighty four International Meridian Conference in Washington, d C. Delegates from twenty five countries recommended the world wide adoption of the prime meridian running through the Royal Observatory at Granwich, England, as the world's baseline for longitude and standardized time, but traditions were hard to break. It took four decades for the last holdouts, including France and Portugal, to adopt this

first universal global positioning system. Here's how it evolved. Looking to the equator, equator marks the midpoint between Earth's poles. All lines of latitude run parallel to it and are therefore referred to as parallels. Prime meridians by era of main use third century BC, earliest use of latitude and longitude to a D sixteen hundred eight sixteen hundred age of modern map making until full adoption of Greenwich meridian

in nineteen fourteen, solving the space and time confusion. Before a single shared prime meridian was su selected, other lines were chosen for cartographic convenience, cultural tradition, or natural pride. After the Greenwich prime meridian was adopted, it became the

basis for standardized time, recognizing different origins. A meridian, from the Latin word meaning noon, is a line that indicates where the sun is directly overhead at midday, anchoring the hemispheres the equator in all meridians are called great circles because the plane of their lines passes through the center of the planet, dividing it into equal hemispheres. Rethinking ancient standards, Greek geographers often used Faroh, one of the Canary Islands,

the western limit of their known world. Exploration then expanded horizons deliferation of primes. Nearly forty other prime meridians were used before the universal adoption of the Greenwich line. Continuing to improve accuracy, global positioning systems now measure latitude, longitude, and also height with sea level as zero to plot locations more precisely. This computational process accounts for other factors such as gravity and irregularities in Earth's shape to be

even more exact. Next, what I found searching for My Family Story by Jordan Salama. Documents and genealogies are helpful, but perstile memories are invaluable. The binders stared back at me, yellowing papers and black and white photographs, spilled out its sides, and had written Spanish. The label on its spine read Historia Antigua Ancient History. I opened it to the first

page and began to read. I'm not sure what it is that I'm about to write, but I've had this idea for a number of years now, ever since a conversation I had with my father when I turned thirteen and had my bar mitzvah. This was clear in my grandfather's handwriting, a characteristically Argentine script marked by irregular capitalization. Who was Thanksgiving and I was in my grandparents' basement in the suburbs outside of New York City. As I read on in silence, I could hear my extended family

ambling about upstairs. Within the first few pages of the binder, Abuelo had recounted centuries of our family's history, touching Mesopotamia, Medieval Spain, Ottoman and Syria, Latin America, and the United States, as if had all been told to him by his father. What I held in my hands was an oral history, and Abuido was the first to write it down. As I gently flipped through the rest, I found diaries, travelogus, letters, and news clippings from Abueido's own youth, a treasure trove

of recollections, remembrance, and research. For several months, I didn't tell him when I found in his basement. Instead, I would look forward to college breaks and holidays at my grand's grandparents house when I could quietly slip away from the crowd to go downstairs and read more. One afternoon, months after I had first found the binder of Buelo came into the kitchen and motioned for me to follow him.

I want to show you something, he said. He led me down to the basement, and as we turned a left toward his library, I saw that the Heaththoria on Tigwell was already open on the desk. My face flushed. You've been looking at my writing, a Buelo said. My grandfather always spoke so matter of factully in English, carefully choosing his words. Yes I have, I said, a Buido, It's very interesting. His face broke into a wide smile. He began to laugh as he spoke, and his eyes

welled up with tears. How much of you read? Not much? I lied. We sat down in front of the desk of Buelo, thumbed through the binder of past religious documents of Kituba or Jewish marriage contract and passed civil documents a faded registry from Buenos Aires, and he began to tell me the family story from mateon. We mostly read the Historia Antigua together so that Abueo could explain the parts I didn't understand, names and places, words and phrases

in Spanish and Arabic and Hebrew. We discussed language identity and history. We drew and re drew family trees, and reviewed the names and back stories of ancestors as though they be coming over at any moment. These conversations drifted completely into Spanish. It was easier for Albueto to talk about his life, especially his childhood and Buenos Aires, in his native language. For me, it lent a sense of excitement and even mystery to the conversation, sort of like

unlocking a new world. As both a grandson and a journalist, I tried to ask questions that brought color and nuance to these histories. Since the Historia Antigua already covered the basics, the what, where, and when of my family's story, at least in broad strokes, I could focus on the why and the how to paint a portrait of our wandering family. Why did my Jewish great grandparents leave Damascus in such a hurry at the start of the twentieth century bound

for Argentina. Why did my great grandfather decide to work as a traveling salesman with a horse drawn cart in the remote and these mountains? And how did he go about his journeys? How did Aboilo and Abuia spend the days of their childhood in the working class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. And why did our family end up migrating again, this time to the US and across the Americas. Though it might be hard to believe that Abueido hadn't shared

these stories with me before, I wasn't necessarily surprised. Our grandfather was never one to launch into a family tale unprompted. But then again, I hadn't ever taken the time to ask. Whenever I told friends and others about our conversations, this last sentiment was repeated back to me. It's amazing that you took the time to ask, people said, lamenting that they hadn't yet done the same, or didn't think to

until it was too late. Recently I began leading family history workshops and traveling in the country to discuss a book I wrote about my search across Argentina for traces of Obuido's father, that Syrian Jewish traveling salesmen in the Andes Mountains. What I've realized by talking with others is that time and inertia remain our biggest barriers to hearing

our own stories. By the time the guardians of the answers are gone, we are more likely to be left with heaps of documents to sort through birth certificates, DNA results, unlabeled photographs, rather than hours of stories the where and when, but not the how and why. For those of us still in the lucky position to do so, we must ask questions of our parents and grandparents now before it's

too late. Keep journals, write letters, make lists of sensory details, Ask about otherwise ordinary objects around the house that can contained clues about the past. Record and transcoscribe kitchen table conversations, or, if those conversations aren't happening, naturally organized talk show style interviews between older and younger relatives with the rest of the family as the audience. If you are of an

older generation, it is your turn to speak. Think about how you can make these stories come alive in your own families, and what sorts of tools like a Boido's Thick Mysterious Hystoria Antigua you can use to light sparks of interest among your young your relatives as well as yourself. Family stories are currency for survival. They are embedded within the traditions we pick up along the journeys of our lives. They are the identities we create in world's foreign and familiar,

remembered now but forever at risk of being forgotten. A while after Abuido and I began discussing the Hystoria Antigua, Abueida revealed her own secret collection of stories, short fictions inspired by her childhood, which she'd filed away in the back of a recipe binder. Now, as a family, we often read and discuss those two next. Pretty and Pink gone for a century, Wild flamingoes are making it come

back in the Sunshine State. Florida's avian icon has been largely missing since the early nineteen hundreds after hunters targeted the native population of flamingoes to satisfy a craze for

extravagant feathered cats. While one colony was reintroduced in Miami in the nineteen thirties and Caribbean storms have occasionally brought wild flamigos to parts of the United States, the birds hadn't really stuck around until about a hundred accidental tourists blown in to Florida by last year's Hurricane Idalia decided

to do just that. Five of the fresh arrivals had tags indicating that they had hailed from Mexico's Yucatan for islel decades of conservation efforts there and elsewhere in the Caribbean have restored large colonies and boosted the wild population of American flamingos from twenty one thousand in the nearly nineteen fifties to an estimated two hundred sixty thousand to

three hundred thirty thousand to day. Now. Coastal restoration, especially in the Everglays, combined with cooler temperatures than in the tropics, could be enticing the birds back to the edge of their historic range, says Jerry Lorenz Audubon, Florida's research director. Meanwhile, biologists are searching for signs of a serious, long term commitment. Nests by Kelsey Nowakowski. Color code pink pigments from foods such as brine, shrimp, and algae are absorbed by body

fat and deposited in feathers. Social bonds. Individuals have unique personalities and often formed cliques with like mannered colony numbers. Breeding pairs are monogamous, typically producing one egg a year. Filling the bill. Flo Mingos sweep their heads from side to side under water using their tongues to pump water into their bills, where they trap prey in comb like structures. Legwork. What looks like a backward bending knee is actually an

ankle joint. Knees are hidden by feathers to stay stable while resting or sleeping. Flo Mingoes often stand on one locked leg. The Forever Home thens in Arizona. The Cause are highly social birds that live an average of forty to sixty years and often exhibit stressed behavior and captivity. This makes them challenging pets, so many end up in the Oasis Sanctuary, which provides permanent care for eight hundred parents,

including the Cause. Deep Knowledge Yogini pri Province Gabon in Bongolo Cave, researchers joined by a bat work to create a record of past rainfall by analyzing stalagmites calcium carbonate formations created by water dripping over thousands of years onto the cave floor. The Western African Paleo Climate Project's goal is to understand the climate threats to agriculture across the region.

A century's old love Song, Springfield, Illinois. Periodical chiccadas spend thirteen or seventeen years in the ground, emerging only to reproduce last May and June for the first time in two hundred twenty one years. Brewed XIII thirteen with a seventeen year cycle and Brewed XIX with a thirteen year cycle emerged simultaneously in the Midwest and Southeastern United States, respectively, filling the air with vibrations as they called out to vates.

Liquid fuel from the sun Junich, Germany made using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. This solar synthetic fluid has the potential to replace fossil fuels. It could be used to power trucks, ships and planes without retrofitting. In June, Swiss company Sindhilion opened the world's first industrial scale plant to

produce the energy alternative atomic Aftermath Chacha, India. For almost a decade, Chinki Shupla has been documenting the impact of underground nuclear tests that India conducted in nineteen seventy four and nineteen ninety eight. Sisters Shahida Sabira and Kamo Khatan were preparing food at home when they felt the blast in the nineties. Today, they support their families as daily laborers on nearby farms of Muslim faith. They choose to

cover their faces with their shawls. This concludes readings from National Geographic Magazine for today. Your reader has been Marsha. If you've enjoyed hearing this content, please give us a call at eight five nine four two six three nine zero. Thank you for listening, and have a great day.