Latest news with #NatGeoImageCollection
National Geographic
4 days ago
- National Geographic
Forget the road trip—these national parks are best visited by train
Driving to and through the most popular U.S. national parks can be a hassle—from parking to long lines at the entrance gates. For many parks, train travel may be the stress-free answer for parkgoers who don't want to drive. Locomotives can move hundreds of people along a rail bed less than 5 feet wide, which can drastically reduce traffic woes. Riders can enter these parks without a coveted vehicle reservation while enjoying vistas often inaccessible by road. Beyond logistics, there's an enduring romance to riding the rails, and while Amtrak may not be a perfect option, riding the national train system has far more fans than many realize. In 2024, a historic 32.8 million people rode Amtrak. While many are commuters, others appreciate the ability to haul up to 125 pounds of luggage per person for free, eat meals in a dining car, sip a coffee in the observation lounge, and avoid arguing about who is driving. "It's the rejection of hustle culture," says Sojourner White, train travel expert and educator, "You can relax and take a digital detox." Parkgoers can now slow it down and see "America's Best Idea" with a ride on the rails to these popular parks. (A practical guide to riding the rails in the US, from train passes to delays.) Glacier National Park, Montana Spring is a perfect time to see fields of wildflowers in bloom as far as the eye can see at Glacier National Park, Mont. Photograph by Ben Horton, Nat Geo Image Collection Encompassing the Rocky Mountains of northern Montana, Glacier National Park protects some of the nation's most dramatic alpine terrain, including crenulated peaks, deep valleys, rare inland temperate rainforests, and the namesake glaciers. Over three million annual visitors come to the "Crown of the Continent" to travel the stunning Going-to-the-Sun Road, a less than 50-mile stretch over the Continental Divide that is only passable from late June to October. The park introduced a highly competitive vehicle reservation program in 2021, alleviating debilitating congestion while leaving several disappointed without options. Trains have brought tourists to Glacier National Park since 1892, with the Great Northern Railway playing a significant role in the park's designation in 1910. Today's train riders have a loophole: via shuttle, they can enter without a vehicle reservation. Getting there and around: The Empire Builder, Amtrak's daily route traveling between Chicago and Seattle, makes several stops. The complimentary lodge van connects to the park's East Side Shuttle and St. Mary Visitor Center from East Glacier Park Station. A similar shuttle system connects guests at the West Glacier Park Station to the Apgar Visitor Center. Glacier's free shuttles take hikers and sightseers from the center along Going-to-the-Sun road, the only east-west traverse in the park. Tour companies, like Red Bus Tours and Sun Tours, will also pick up visitors. (See America's parks with the Indigenous peoples who first called them home.) Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona A mule train ascends South Kaibab Trail in Grand Canyon National Park. Photograph by Eric Kruszewski, Nat Geo Image Collection Grand Canyon National Park, a gaping geological time capsule, spans over 1.2 million acres and features miles of rugged trails, river rafting, and surprisingly diverse climates. Despite its vastness, most of the nearly 5 million annual visitors funnel through a single entrance on the South Rim. The park has avoided timed entry reservations, yet those stuck in two-hour waits at the gates crave another solution. The answer arrives with a fanfare of train whistles in the park's village: the Grand Canyon Railway. The staged robbery at the train's start in Williams, Ariz., adds a bit of whimsy, but this traverse is no gimmick—the route has connected visitors to the canyon since 1901. Those aboard this 65-mile railway roll through high desert ravines and stands of ponderosa pines before the engine pulls up near the South Rim. Getting there and around: Amtrak's Southwest Chief stops at Williams on daily runs between Los Angeles and Chicago. Travelers can also make the 45-minute drive to Williams from Flagstaff, skipping the entrance lines they'd hit if they drove straight to the Grand Canyon. Once in the Grand Canyon, the park's shuttles provide access to the trailheads and vistas along the rim's 7-mile circuit. (How to take amazing photos of the Grand Canyon.) Yosemite National Park, California This photo captures an incredible view of Starlink satellites streaking over Bridalveil Fall and Cathedral Rock in Yosemite National Park. Photograph by Babak Tafreshi, Nat Geo Image Collection Any route into Yosemite National Park climbs up through the Sierra Nevada foothills before reaching the landscapes that inspired Ansel Adams' photography and conservation. Yet as the anticipation rises along with elevation, so does the traffic, with hours of waiting after the parking lots fill early on summer mornings. Cut the headaches, as Yosemite offers one of the most exceptional park shuttle services in the country, accessible via a combination of rail and bus tickets. Even though the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) bus can't avoid the wait at the gate, dedicated bus-only lanes within the park cut out the standing traffic. You will be gazing up at El Capitan or camping in Tuolumne Meadows with far less stress. Getting there and around: Amtrak's San Joaquins routes from San Francisco, Sacramento, or Los Angeles drop rail passengers in Merced, California. From there, catch a reserved spot on the YARTS bus line. The train ticket includes bus and park entry. (10 places to stay while you're at Yosemite National Park.) New River Gorge National Park, West Virginia Parkgoers may consider a fall train trip to witness the bursts of fall colors found along the banks of the New River Gorge in the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, W. Va. Photograph by Daniel Wilson, Alamy Designated in 2020, West Virginia's national park is one of the nation's newest additions. Yet, just 300 miles from Washington D.C., New River Gorge National Park has seen a surge of visitors at a rate even higher than the park system's. With hiking, rock climbing, and river rafting opportunities ranging from mild to wild, the New River Gorge is known for a jolt of approachable yet adrenaline-fueled adventure in the eastern United States. The park's ties to the railway run deep; still-active stations like Thurmond were booming communities during the area's coal mining days. Today, Amtrak riders get a view no one else does. "There is no road that goes all the way through the gorge," says Eve West, the park's Chief of Interpretation and Education. "You'll get a great view of the New River Gorge Bridge and feel what it was like to live down in these smaller villages that are still visible from the train." Getting there and around: Amtrak's Cardinal runs between Washington D.C. and Chicago three times a week. Stops in the park include the small towns of Thurmond, Hinton, and Prince. Local whitewater outfitters run previously scheduled shuttle pickups. (The essential guide to visiting West Virginia.) Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio Goose Beaver Marsh is one of Cuyahoga Valley National Park's most popular destinations for birdwatching and spotting wildlife like turtles, beavers, and northern cardinals. Photograph by Prisma/Heeb Christian, Alamy While Cuyahoga Valley National Park may not be as recognizable as some of its older park peers, this greenway sandwiched between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, is quietly becoming one of the most popular in the country. It's a day-trippers' delight with waterfalls shielded by dense forests, pock-marked sandstone outcrops, and placid wetlands that feel hours away from the adjacent metropolis. The Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail is the park's backbone along the Cuyahoga River. No longer a transportation system for goods, hikers, and bikers enjoy the juxtaposition of historic river locks and industrial mill remnants within the revitalized forest. The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad (CVSR) transports riders in vintage railcars from the 1940s to the 1960s along the path, allowing recreationists to take a scenic ride on the non-profit railway to their trailheads. Getting there and around: Amtrak's Floridian stops daily in Cleveland on the route between Miami and Chicago. Once in Cleveland, the CVSR has eight stations through the park and allows bikes. (It was a toxic wasteland. Now it's a national park.) Denali National Park, Alaska Caribou graze amongst the fall foliage on a ridge in Denali National Park, Ala. Photograph by Barrett Hedges, Nat Geo Image Collection The state-run Alaska Railroad connects Anchorage to North America's highest peak, Denali National Park, in less than a day's ride from Anchorage. Domed observation cars leave no angle ignored as the train hurtles through the protected wilderness towards Fairbanks, Alaska. Denali restricts vehicles from the park's 90-mile single road year-round, protecting the subarctic wilderness. The park's shuttles are the most reliable way to journey into the backcountry, stopping for a hike or offering a chance to see the often-hidden mountain. For those who prefer to take their chances spotting Denali by air, the train stops in Talkeetna, where small planes offer quick tours, weather permitting. Getting there and around: The Alaska Railroad runs most routes, including the Denali Star, daily from May through September. For a bonus park, travel south from Anchorage on the Coastal Classic to the port of Seward. From there, catch the wildlife-spotting day cruise to Kenai Fjords National Park, one of the continent's largest ice fields. (Go with Nat Geo: Alaska: Denali to Kenai Fjords Expedition.) Rebecca Toy is a Kansas City-based writer who covers travel, history, and culture. Find her on Instagram.
National Geographic
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
The Golden Records tell the story of Earth. Will alien worlds ever find them?
In 1977, NASA launched two 12-inch gold-plated copper disks filled with the sounds of children's laughter, heartbeats, and bird calls. Is their time in space running out? The Golden Record carried by Voyager 1 and 2. Photographs of Jupiter by Voyager 1 on March 24, 1979 and Uranus by Voyager 2 on January 24, 1986. Photo Illustration by Jesse Barber, National Geographic; Image Sources from Nat Geo Image Collection, NASA/JPL In 1977, NASA launched Voyagers 1 and 2 from Cape Canaveral, Florida into space to embark on a grand tour of the far reaches of our solar system. Mounted on board each probe was a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk—a cosmic 'message in a bottle' engraved with sights, sounds, and depictions of life on Earth, collectively known as the Golden Records—on the slim chance some far-off alien civilization might discover them. And in Disney and Pixar's animated film Elio, in theaters June 20, that's exactly what happens when main character Elio encounters aliens who believe he is Earth's leader. 'It's meant to be a sort of a letter of introduction to any culture who might find the probe,' says Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology and a 2013 National Geographic Emerging Explorer, of the real-life Golden Records. Though these gilded greetings were partly intended for an alien audience, they mostly served as a message to humans and our tiny blue marble planet. 'It's a love letter to Earth and all that we have come through to get to the point where we could send these probes to understand our solar system.' But where are the Golden Records now—and how much longer are they intended to last in space? We spoke to the experts, including Ehlmann, to find out. When tasked with figuring out what to include in the intergalactic mixtape aboard the Voyager probes, renowned astronomer Carl Sagan assembled a team of scientists, artists, and engineers. For a true depiction of life on Earth aboard humankind's most distant physical emissary, the team included a variety of sounds associated with daily life and nature, like bird calls, humpback whale songs, children's laughter, footsteps, heartbeats, brain wave scans, and a kiss. There are also 90 minutes of music contained on the disk, including Western classical compositions from Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Stravinsky, Senegalese percussion music, Australian Aboriginal songs, and Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B. Goode.' (The close of cosmos, and golden voices in the stars.) The carefully thought-out record, designed to endure space travel for billions of years, also consists of spoken greetings in 55 modern and ancient languages, as well as 115 analog-encoded photographs of Earth and its inhabitants. Engraved on the cover of these records is a map to help find one's way to Earth relative to nearby known, flashing, dense cores of stars called pulsars. There are etched diagrams of a hydrogen atom—the most common element in the universe—and instructions for playing each record. Each disk is enclosed in a protective, gold-plated aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle to play it. "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space," Sagan, leader of the Voyager Golden Record project, wrote. "But the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet." (Dear Voyagers: How your billion-year journey carries true love.) A far-out cosmic road trip Over the years, the Voyager probes flew by the solar system's most distant four planets at a rate of 35,000 miles per hour, sending back detailed views of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their moons. Voyager 2 flying by Uranus and Neptune is the only time humanity has seen these worlds up close. After completing their primary missions to collectively fly by all four outer planets in 1989, the twin probes kept chugging along through the vast outer reaches of the solar system. Voyager 1 and 2 exited the solar system and entered interstellar space in 2012 and 2018, respectively. At more than 15 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 has become the most distant human-made object in space. Voyager 2, in second place, is now about 13 billion miles away. The interstellar environment they're in contains a stew of cosmic gas, dust, and rays. The twin Voyager probes are equipped with radiation-resistant parts, but the onslaught of charged particles in their current neck of the woods still pose a threat to their aging electronics. Both Voyager spacecrafts are still collecting and sending back data, updating humans on their intergalactic adventures, albeit slowly—it takes nearly 20 hours for these signals to reach Earth, given the immense distance they need to travel. We're now reaching the end of the Voyager missions, as the twin probes' plutonium power supplies are running out of juice. The Voyager team is attempting to extend their lifetime for as long as they can by shutting down non-essential instruments like heaters to conserve power. 'More than 47 years into the mission, there's very little power left,' says Suzanne "Suzy" Dodd, the current project manager for the Voyager missions. 'The goal of the mission is to get it to 50 years.' Even after the probe's science mission ends, though, the Golden Records will keep quietly drifting further and further into the cosmic abyss, likely for millions and even billions of years.'Long after we've lost communications with the spacecraft, it'll still be traveling with this record—a time capsule,' Dodd says. She remarks that it's exciting 'to think about a little piece of us, a little piece of what Earth and humanity is all about, traveling around the center of our galaxy to be found by whatever being might be out there.' But, as Dodd points out, there are enormous physical and chronological distances involved. It's going to take around 40,000 years for the probes to drift into the vicinity of any other star system, when Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445. Around the same time, Voyager 2 will be within 1.7 light-years of the star Ross 248. The legacy of the Golden Records The Golden Records have left a huge cosmic impact. According to Ehlmann, most spacecrafts that followed the Voyager mission included some sort of message from our Earthly abode. 'People sometimes think of science as a cold and calculating endeavor, but really it's the expression of curiosity and awe,' she says. 'It's an ability to leave your mark in the universe.' And almost fifty years after they first took flight, our pair of plucky robot emissaries to the stars continues embarking on the deepest journey ever into space. 'Who knows? The Voyager probes, a million years from now, may end up in some alien museum,' Ehlmann says. 'It's exciting to imagine.' Disney and Pixar's "Elio" is in theaters June 20, 2025. Get tickets now.
National Geographic
13-06-2025
- Business
- National Geographic
China is building the world's largest national parks system
China plans to overtake the United States by building the world's largest national park system, a network of wilderness bigger than Texas. Although China only created its first national park four years ago—some 149 years after the US did the same—it claims that by 2035 it will have 49 parks covering 272 million acres, triple the size of the U.S. National Park System. China has already opened five national parks, totaling 57 million acres. Collectively, the parks span alpine peaks, tropical rainforests, remote glaciers, vast deserts, and high-altitude wetlands. They also protect rare animals like the Giant Panda, Siberian Tiger, and Asian Elephant. According to the Chinese Government, these parks are also preserving cultural heritage, boosting local economies, and enticing tourists to experience the country's diverse landscapes. While domestic tourists flock to China's wilderness destinations, few foreigners follow suit, says Jun Wen, associate professor of tourism at Macau University of Science and Technology. Instead, most international visitors focus on China's giant, historic cities, like Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi'an. However, Wen believes that will change as China expands its park system; the country will become world-renowned for nature-based tourism. (Our ancestors walked these trails hundreds of years ago. Now you can too.) China aims to upstage the U.S. China's national park system will eclipse the US version, says Mei Zhang, CEO of Wild China, one of the country's biggest tour companies. Being launched so recently gives it the advantage of learning from the mistakes of other park systems. 'While the United States pioneered the Yellowstone model—preserving vast wilderness areas—it also made significant missteps,' Zhang says. 'Such as enclosing land and forcefully displacing Indigenous communities to create an image of 'pristine' wilderness. In contrast, China has the chance to chart its own course. By fostering a symbiotic relationship between local communities and wildlife conservation, China can create a national park system that integrates cultural vitality with ecological stewardship.' That is a lofty goal, but then again, so is building the world's biggest national park system, from scratch in 14 years. China has a history of record-breaking mega-projects, from the world's largest dam to the planet's longest bridge, and an unrivalled high-speed rail network. Now China is channeling its vast wealth, ambition, and capability into protecting and showcasing its extraordinary, yet overlooked natural scenery. Here's a look at five national parks in China worth visiting now. 5 must-see national parks in China 1. Giant Panda National Park: China's iconic Giant Panda has a park Kindergarten children visit a Giant Panda cub at the Dujiangyan Panda Base. Photograph by Ami Vitale, Nat Geo Image Collection Wen recommends visiting Giant Panda National Park, which covers 6.6 million acres of mountainous land in Central China's Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu Provinces. It protects the habitats of most of the country's 1,900 wild Giant Pandas; a species found only in China. The best time to see this park is between April and October when the weather is warmest, vegetation is thickest, and Giant Pandas are most active. All year round, parkgoers can see pandas and learn about these unique creatures at the park's panda research centers at Wolong and Dujiangyan. 'Visitors have the opportunity to explore panda habitats on foot and even volunteer to assist panda caretakers,' Wen says. 'They can observe the daily activities of pandas, including climbing trees, playing, eating, and tumbling.' Good to know: Giant Panda National Park can be reached by flying into Chengdu and then heading two hours north by bus. The park is quite isolated; so, it is most easily explored on a guided tour booked with a Chinese tour company. 2. Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park: Saving big cats from extinction In addition to Giant Pandas, China's national parks aim to save rare animal species from extinction. Zhou says the endangered Amur leopards and Amur tigers are now protected in the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park. Located in northeast China, this national park covers 3.5 million acres along the borders with Russia and North Korea, and it eclipses the size of any national park in the lower 48 States of the U.S. 'Through removing fencing in forest zones, reconnecting fragmented habitats, and implementing ecological translocation, the park has restored essential migration and reproduction corridors for these species,' Zhou says. Good to know: Visitors can observe some of these scientific projects up close by booking guided tours of this national park with Chinese tour operators like Benchmark. The isolated park can be reached by flying from Beijing or Shanghai into Yanji, followed by a three-to-four-hour bus ride. (China just had a museum building spree. Here are 6 of the best.) 3. Sanjiangyuan National Park: A national park bigger than Florida In northwest China's Qinghai Province, Sanjiangyuan National Park is 47 million acres and larger than Florida, making it China's largest park. The editor of Travel China Guide tour company, Catherine He says Sanjiangyuan is very diverse geographically. Dramatic mountains loom above glaciers, high-altitude wetlands, grassland meadows, desert plateaus, and mirrored lakes. Sanjiangyuan is called 'China's Water Tower' because it is the source region of the Yangtze, Mekong, and Yellow rivers, says He. While exploring its pristine wilderness, visitors may spot unique snow leopards and Tibetan antelopes. According to the Chinese Government, this new park is why the antelope's population has soared to 70,000. Good to know: Enter this vast park by flying into Xining or Golmud from big Chinese cities Xi'an, Shanghai, or Chengdu, and then take a relatively short bus or taxi ride. By visiting during the warmer months from May to September, visitors can hike its many trails in comfort, witness the park's grasslands in bloom, and increase their chances of seeing wildlife. 4. Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park: China's version of Hawaii The Yanoda Rainforest Cultural Tourism Zone is known for its lush rainforest, waterfalls, and cultural experiences. It is part of the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park on Hainan Island, China. Photograph by Dmitrii Melnikov, Alamy The new Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park is also impressive, according to Aliana Leong, Hospitality Professor from Macau University of Science and Technology. It envelops 1 million acres of Hainan, China's southernmost province. Sometimes called the 'Hawaii of China', Hainan is a picturesque island fringed by pretty beaches and with a hilly, verdant interior. Forest rangers patrol the Bawangling area of Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park in south China's Hainan Province. Photograph by Zhang Liyun, Xinhua/Alamy 'This new national park has China's most diverse, best preserved, and largest contiguous area of tropical rainforest,' Leong says. Within its lush expanse lives 33 percent of China's reptile species, 38 percent of its bird species, 20 percent of its mammal species, and more than 3,500 plant species. Leong adds, 'It is the only habitat for the Hainan gibbon and a treasure trove of tropical biodiversity.' Good to know: This park is quickly reached by bus or taxi from either of Hainan's two international airports. Embrace its untamed vibe by joining a whitewater rafting tour through the commanding Wuzhishan Grand Canyon. (China's other great wall is impressive, too—and steeped in history.) 5. Wuyi Mountain National Park: Insta-worthy landscapes Researchers walk through Zhongshan meadow in Wuyishan National Park, southeast China's Fujian Province. Wuyi Mountain has a comprehensive forest ecosystem representative of the mid-subtropical zone. It boasts diverse groups of plants due to its varying altitudes. Photograph by Jiang Kehong, Xinhua/Alamy If you're on social media, then you may have seen eye-catching images and videos of Wuyi Mountain National Park. Covering 316,000 acres of mountainous terrain in Fujian and Jiangxi Provinces, it is known for its unusual Danxia landscapes, where red stone cliffs, gorges, and peaks contrast sharply against dense, green forests. This park encompasses the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Mount Wuyi, one of China's prettiest and most revered mountains, says Catherine He. Good to know: Visitors can follow spectacular hiking trails, go bamboo rafting on Jiuqu Stream, wander splendid tea tree groves, or admire historic mountainside temples and monasteries, she recommends. China's new environmental focus China already has thousands of protected nature reserves, says Ralf Buckley, emeritus professor of ecotourism at Australia's Griffith University. However, unlike most of the world's top national parks, those reserves don't qualify as national parks under the stringent system of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). So China designed its new national parks to meet the IUCN criteria by making them 'mainly for conservation, with limited tourism under strict regulation, and no residential housing'. China's national park system is already improving wildlife preservation, says Bin Zhou, a tourism professor at China's Ningbo University. 'China is among the most biodiverse countries in the world, while also facing significant threats to its ecosystems,' Zhou says. Wearing a panda suit as camouflage, a panda keeper does a health check on a panda cub in Wolong, home to the Wolong National Nature Reserve and part of the Giant Panda National Park in China. Photograph by Ami Vitale, Nat Geo Image Collection 'The (park system) enables the designation of high-level protection zones in key ecological function areas, critical habitats, and ecological security barriers. Ensuring the long-term survival of flagship species such as the giant panda, Amur tiger and leopard, and Asian elephant, along with their habitats.' The new parks have helped increase China's populations of 200 species of rare animals and about 100 endangered plant species, announced in May 2025. (21 photos of China's best UNESCO World Heritage sites.) Cultural and social benefits of national parks China's national park system is also motivated by cultural heritage preservation, economic development, and public education, says Aliana Leong, a tourism professor at Macau University of Science and Technology. 'Many of China's national parks are rich in cultural and historical significance, so expanding the national park system helps protect ancient villages, traditional cultures, and historical sites,' she says. 'National parks also drive local economic growth through tourism. They create job opportunities, increase revenue, and promote sustainable development in rural and remote areas. (Finally) they serve as outdoor classrooms, raising public awareness of environmental protection and cultural heritage.' Andrew Nelson is the author of National Geographic's recently published travel book Here Not There. Follow him on Instagram.
National Geographic
13-06-2025
- General
- National Geographic
How the potato went from banned to beloved
Potatoes were once so despised they were linked to leprosy. What changed? It's a tale of propaganda, survival, and ordinary people's resilience. The potato's journey from despised and feared to dinner-table staple reveals how this simple root reshaped economies and cultures. This history of the potato, like the spud itself, has been baked into folklore, mashed into politics, and fried into a thousand origin myths. However, the tuber's rise to global stardom wasn't a simple matter of hunger meets harvest—it was a slow-cooked saga of stigma, spin, and sheer necessity. What started as sacred Indigenous knowledge of the potato was swiftly rebranded as salvation. Monarchs, scientists, and opportunistic propagandists all took turns serving the spud as miracle, menace, or national mascot. Still, the potato's real ascent sprouted far from palace gates. While elites thought they were handing down deliverance, it was the people on the ground—farmers, foragers, and famine survivors—who really made the potato take root. This is the story of how this unlikely outsider made it to the center of the plate, and how optics, politics, and the people who had no choice but to eat it transformed the potato from a rejected root to a revolutionary staple. A ceremony performed after harvest to bring the spirit of the potato. In Incan civilization, the potato was considered sacred. Photograph by Jim Richardson, Nat Geo Image Collection Before it became comfort food, the potato was considered sacrosanct. High in the Andes, some 8,000 years ago, the Incas and their ancestors cultivated the crop not just as food, but as fortune. Nutrient-dense, cold-resistant, and capable of growing in thin, rocky soil, the potato thrived where little else could and sustained sprawling pre-Columbian civilizations for centuries. The Spanish conquistadors introduced the potato to Europe in the 1500s, smuggling it among the spoils of colonization alongside maize, cacao, and tobacco. But while the stolen gold and chocolate dazzled, the potato did not. It was fast-growing but unfamiliar, ugly, and covered in dirt like something best left unearthed. Though it had divine roots in South America, the strange tuber had to dig its way to respectability in the West. Potato propaganda By the 18th century, most French recipes were rooted in religion, so while orchard fruits and game birds were celebrated, anything dug from the 'devil's dirt'—like onions, carrots, and especially potatoes—was deemed fit only for peasants and swine. People believed the potato was akinto the deadly nightshade and linked to leprosy due to its spotted skin; it was deemed un-Christian, and its cultivation for human use was banned. Bulgaria's cultural capital France was facing a famine by the late 1700s and starving—literally and figuratively—for a solution. Due to dreadful weather and poor farming techniques, wheat fields lay fallow, bread was scarce, and bellies were empty. Portrait of Antoine Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), French military pharmacist and agronomist. Photograph by Stefano Bianchetti/Bridgeman Images But Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist who survived on potatoes as a prisoner in Prussia, rose to become a staunch spokesperson for the spud. To sway the scientific community, he penned pro-potato pamphlets, won scientific accolades for using potatoes to treat dysentery and replace flour, and hosted glamorous, starch-studded soirées for Parisians and international elites. He also gave the tuber the royal treatment by gifting potato blossoms for Marie Antoinette's wigs and the king's lapels to debut exotic potato couture at court. Still, convincing the aristocracy to enjoy and advertise the potato wasn't enough. Parmentier had to win over the working class,who had long been taught to despise the spuds. Proving potatoes were edible meant staging the oldest marketing trick in the book: exclusivity. When Louis XVI granted Parmentier 54 acres of land near Paris, he had his potato plants guarded by day and left unprotected at night, tempting locals to 'steal' the coveted crop and plant it themselves. The stunt turned curiosity into cultivation. The redemption of the potato gave working-class families not just energy but also agency, and perhaps a little dignity on their dinner plates. Photograph by Bridgeman Images In 1772, the Paris Faculty of Medicine finally stamped the spud 'food safe,' sowing seeds of survival that France would soon be forced to reap when its wheat failed. Later in 1789, just as the French Revolution boiled over, Parmentier published a royal-backed murphy manifesto. By the century's end, potatoes had gone mainstream:Madame Mérigot's La Cuisinière Républicaine became the first potato cookbook, pitching the tuber as 'the petrol of the poor,' according to Rebecca Earle, food historian and professor at the University of Warwick. The potato's rise beyond Western Europe While Parmentier was staging tuber tactics in France, potato propaganda was planting roots across the globe. In Prussia, Frederick the Great saw political promise in the crop and ordered peasants to grow it. When they resisted, he threatened to cut off their ears and tongues, then used Parmentier-esque reverse psychology, declaring the potato a 'dish fit for a king,' essentially transforming it from pig food to royal fare. By the 19th century, the potato had evolved into palatable patriotism, driven by rulers, reformers, andscientists who knew that controlling food was a form of power. Peasants come to steal the potatoes grown by Antoine Augustin Parmentier, French agronomist (1737-1813). Photograph by Bridgeman Images Outside of Western Europe, Irish fleeing famine brought tubers into the Americas. In Russia, it became the backbone of everyday diets. Once promoted as a strategic food security crop in China, it's now the most widely grown staple and a street food favorite in the country. In Peru, the potato's birthplace, it remains a symbol of cultural pride and biodiversity, with thousands of native varieties still cultivated in the Andes. From Indian aloo gobi to Korean gamja jorim, the potato has managed to slip effortlessly into any cuisine, reinventing itself wherever it takes root and feeding millions along the way. The potato's impact today In modern Western food culture, the potato has faced a new kind of public relations problem. Once celebrated as a symbol of resilience, today it's often cast as a dietary delinquent: too processed and too passé. Much of the demonization of the potato is tied to how it's prepared. 'Most potatoes in the U.S. are eaten as highly processed snack food,' says Earle. 'We've forgotten that a simple boiled potato is a joy.' While it may have fallen out of favor in the U.S., the potato's role on a larger scale is far from fried. In kitchens around the globe, it's still prominent, feeding billions, and in food policy circles, it's gaining new attention as a climate-resilient, nutrient-dense staple. Earle puts it best: 'A potato cooked slowly from cold water, gently boiled and simmered until perfect, is nothing short of revolutionary.' In that humble preparation, class lines fade: anyone can afford it, and anyone can master it. A humble boiled potato becomes a taste of equality, with the power to nourish, unite, and upend the status quo.
National Geographic
11-06-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
Vera Rubin was the GOAT of dark matter
How the pioneering scientist, and namesake of an enormous new telescope, forced astronomers to rethink the universe. Astronomer Vera Rubin spent much of her career at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, D.C. She's best known for convincing the world that dark matter exists. Photograph by Richard Nowitz, Nat Geo Image Collection Vera Rubin had just finished her ice cream when she saw something that would change astronomy forever. It was long past midnight one early morning in the 1960s, and Rubin and her colleague Kent Ford were at Kitt Peak National Observatory in the middle of the Arizona desert. That night they were tracking how hot gas from young stars circled Andromeda, the Milky Way's galactic neighbor. Rubin and Ford would trade off recording the gases' chemical fingerprints or processing photographic plates. While waiting for the plates to develop, Rubin would eat an ice cream cone. Four cones in, Rubin could draw Andromeda's rotation curve—she could plot the distance of gas clouds on an X-axis and their speeds on the Y-axis. At the time, astronomers assumed the stars circling a galaxy would act like the planets circling the sun in our solar system. Stars closer to the galaxy's center would circle quickly, while stars farther out would orbit slowly because core's gravitational pull was weaker out there. The curve, then, should start high and fall the farther the distance from a galaxy's center, astronomers assumed. Rubin never liked assumptions. She'd rather collect data, even if it met expectations. But what Rubin saw in that rotation curve didn't. The close-in and far-out stars seemed to be circling Andromeda at roughly the same speeds. The curve was flat. The ice-cream fueled find, and those that followed, forced astronomers to rethink not only what we know about galaxies but also what we know about the universe. It forced them to reimagine the fabric of the cosmos. They'd ultimately conclude that that fabric included a mysterious substance, an invisible form of matter now known as dark matter, that to this day we don't fully understand. But it wasn't just this Copernican-esque discovery of flat rotation curves that made Rubin a legend. It was the way she discovered it, the way she advocated for equality in astronomy, the way she welcomed new astronomers into the field without hesitation and kept going to the telescope well into her eighties, which is when I got to know her. It was November 2007 when I joined Rubin at Kitt Peak. No photographic plates. No winter ice cream. Just a veteran astronomer, a cub reporter, and a spiral galaxy to observe. It was in her reminiscing during those nights that I came to understand that her dark matter discovery story wasn't one of a cliché lone genius and a eureka moment. Her observations were a fold in the braid that led to dark matter becoming astronomy dogma. And, her decades of discoveries were only part of her legacy, with her outspokenness and moral compass cementing it to memory. It's this layered legacy I see in the new Vera Rubin Observatory, which will deliver its first images this month. (A century ago, this pioneering astronomer discovered what stars are made of.) The immense Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31, is captured in this NASA image. Rubin's observations of Andromeda would change our understanding of the universe. Photograph by NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA Eleven-year-old Vera Rubin—Vera Cooper, then—stared at an imaginary line running down the bed she shared with her sister, Ruth, then rolled over, defeated. She was the younger of the two and was told she couldn't sleep next to the small row of windows that lined the inner wall of the bedroom and fortuitously faced north in their rented townhouse in Washington, D.C. But even from the inside edge, the starlight caught Vera's attention; she was mesmerized. Every night, she'd crawl over her sister Ruth to get a better view of the sky. 'There was just nothing as interesting in my life,' Rubin once said, 'as watching the stars.' Through her childhood in the 1930s, she would hang out by the window tracing star trails, check out library books about scientists, and build her first telescope with her dad, who worked for the Department of Agriculture. He'd also take her to the local amateur astronomy club where she heard talks by astronomers like Harlow Shapley, then the director of the Harvard Observatory. By the time Vera was in high school, she sought out cosmology books like James Jean's The Universe Around Us and Arthur Eddington's The Internal Constitution of Stars. At Vassar College, she majored in astronomy, taught herself how to observe using the college's telescopes, and took summer positions at the Naval Research Laboratory to gain experience doing science experiments. Around then, her parents introduced her to Robert Rubin. They began dating and were married in August of 1948—what many assumed was the end to Rubin's astronomy career. Vera had gotten accepted to Harvard for her master's degree. But she chose to go to Cornell University, where Bob was working on his Ph.D. in physical chemistry, instead. There were roadblocks, but Rubin found mentors in physicist Richard Feynman and astronomer Martha Star Carpenter, and her husband, who helped her launch a research project see if the universe rotated—all while they started a family. When she presented her results at the 1950 American Astronomical Society meeting in Ithaca, New York, the press was sensational. 'A young mother startled the American Astronomical Society,' the Associated Press reporter wrote. Her work challenged convention, and she would again while working on her Ph.D. at Georgetown University. Vera Rubin (pictured in 1965) and her observing partner Kent Ford also used telescopes at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, to study the rotation curves of galaxies. Photograph by The Washington Times/ZUMA Press/Alamy Stock Photo Despite her research, Rubin often felt like an imposter. She earned her Ph.D. in 1954, and about a year later, took a faculty position at Georgetown. She and Bob were growing their family then, and for the next few years, she took on a variety of research projects, always analyzing others' data. Even then an imposter in her own mind, she'd advocate for her students, threatening to pull a paper from publication because the journal wouldn't print the names of the students who worked on it, for example. But, after nearly a decade, Rubin grew tired of relying on others' work to do her own. Finally, she got a break. Observational astronomers Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, famous for their paper on the origin of chemical elements in the life and death of stars, invited Rubin to work with them. They were also interested in galaxies and taught her the technique to calculate stars' and gas clouds' speeds. A first taste of being a real astronomer, she said. Shortly after, Rubin knew she needed access to a telescope. She went to the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, part of the Carnegie Science Institution and talked with radio astronomers there. Then, she asked for a job. She moved into Kent Ford's office on April Fool's Day in 1965 and never left. A few years later, she and Ford discovered Andromeda's flat rotation curve. Then flat curves in other galaxies. By the early seventies, Princeton theorists Jeremiah Ostriker and Jim Peebles were running computer simulations of galaxies to figure how to get the galaxies to stay together in dizzying spirals like Andromeda. Only when the duo enveloped particles representing galaxies in spherical halos in their simulations would the galaxies cease to fly apart. They needed some extra mass to hold them together. Observations and simulations combined, astronomers knew they needed to rethink how the universe worked, and slowly the idea of dark matter took hold. By the early 1980s, consensus emerged: Dark matter existed, most conceded. (How will the universe end? The answer might surprise you.) While this shift was happening, Rubin was pushing for another—equality in astronomy. She worked on an American Astronomical Society report that highlighted issues such as discrimination in hiring, both "blatant or not", a pay gap between men and women with the same qualifications, and lower pay for married women. And, of course, she placed a cutout of a woman on the door of the historic men's-only bathroom at Palomar Observatory in California. Younger astronomers looked up to Rubin, appreciating her candor on sexism and having it all—career, family, and a loving relationship. 'For many of us, Vera had a personal impact. She demonstrated that a woman who was as cheerful, warm, generous, and down-to-earth as she was could be a successful astronomer,' astronomer Deirdre Hunter wrote not long after Rubin's death in 2016. She fostered a sense of belonging, one I felt too. It's how I, at 22, found myself at Kitt Peak with Rubin, on her final time observing, absorbing her life lessons on her grace, wit and grit. She was humble and a deep thinker. Many say she deserved a Nobel Prize. She questioned if she wanted it. 'It changed your life,' she said, and 'not always in a good way.' While studying her galaxy, I sensed of battle of wills, the tug of homelife and professional life. Her husband was ill and her childhood wonder of the universe unfulfilled. Rubin's wonder lives on in the observatory that will bear her name. It will challenge our assumptions just as she did, and I hope it will remind us that her legacy is more than a telescope. It is a blueprint for humanity—to be curious, never assume, and above all be kind.
