Search Results for: National Geographic

Who Invented Skiing?

“Serik describes a hunt when Tursen skied down on a bounding deer, leaped on its back, grabbed its antlers, and wrestled it down into the snow, the animal kicking and biting. It is a scene that has been repeated for thousands of years in these mountains. Within the Altay, a handful of petroglyphs have been discovered depicting archaic skiing scenes, including one of a human figure on skis chasing an ibex. Since petroglyphs are notoriously hard to date, it remains a controversial clue in the debate over where skiing was born. Chinese archaeologists contend it was carved 5,000 years ago. Others say it is probably only 3,000 years old. The oldest written record that alludes to skiing, a Chinese text, also points to the Altay but dates to the Western Han dynasty, which began in 206 B.C.

“Norwegian archaeologists also have found ski petroglyphs, and in Russia, what appears to be a ski tip, carbon-dated to 8,000 years ago, was excavated from a peat bog. Each nation stakes its own claim to the first skiers. What is widely accepted, however, is that whoever first strapped on a pair of skis likely did so to hunt animals.”

– In National Geographic, Mark Jenkins travels to the Chinese Altay Mountains to join a semi nomadic hunting party who may be descendants of the first skiers. Read more stories from National Geographic.

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Photo: Sheffield Tiger

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Longreads Guest Pick: Leigh Cowart on David Quammen's 'The Short Happy Life of a Serengeti Lion'

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Leigh Cowart is the Sex and Science Editor at NSFWCORP. She exists solely on rage and strange cheeses.

Telling you how good David Quammen’s “The Short Happy Life of a Serengeti Lion” is feels like a spoiler. No, I’d much rather slide my copy of National Geographic across the table and let you discover, for yourself, one lion’s brutal, ceaseless struggle for sovereignty. With prose visceral enough to implant memories, and devoid of any anthropomorphic dilution, Quammen has delivered a true feat of intimacy. Simply put, to read his words is to know lions.

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Longreads Best of 2012: Jodi Ettenberg

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Jodi Ettenberg is the founder of Legal Nomads, a contributing editor to Longreads and Travelreads, and the author of The Food Traveler’s Handbook.

It is always hard to narrow down my favourites from a full 12 months of longreading, so here are five—but certainly not all—of the standouts from the last year. They’re food-themed, mainly because my last year has also been focused on writing and learning about food. 

1. ”The Cosmopolitan Condiment,” Dan Jurafsky, Slate 

I’ve sent this article to more people than I can count, and love the responses I’ve received “Ketchup comes from China?!” The full piece is worth reading, in part because what makes food so fascinating is not only where it is eaten but also where it came from, and how it is what it is today. Ketchup, once a fermented fish sauce from China, is now a sweet tomato condiment we all know and many of us love. You’ll never look at a bottle the same way again once you read this great piece. 

2. “Adjika: Sauce of Glory, Pride of Abhazia,” Oliver Bullough, Roads & Kingdoms

Adjika holds a special place in my heart, having brightened up many a meal and been a source of great conversation on the road. A red and fiery condiment from the Caucuses, adija is brought to life beautifully in this Roads & Kingdoms piece.

It was like the sun had risen in my mouth. Instead of the cold lumpiness of wood pulp, there was a spreading glow of summer: garlic, chilli, salt, and a dozen other spices I could not identify. I looked up in amazement and picked up the little dish of red sauce to smell it. The old woman smiled again.
“That’s adjika,” she said.

Worth a read for anyone who likes food and travel.

3. “Manufacturing Taste,” Sasha Chapman, The Walrus

As a Canadian, I grew up referring to Kraft Macaroni & Cheese as “KD”, and had no idea this was not a worldwide phenomenon until midway through 2010, and I was appalled to hear that my American friends did not adopt this affectionate nickname. I’m not the only one.  As author Sasha Chapman notes: ”The point is, it’s nearly impossible to live in Canada without forming an opinion about one of the world’s first and most successful convenience foods. In 1997, sixty years after the first box promised ‘dinner in seven minutes — no baking required,’ we celebrated by making Kraft Dinner the top-selling grocery item in the country.” 

The Walrus investigates the history and current state Canada’s strange love for KD.

4. “Bread of Beirut,” Annia Ciezadlo, Granta

A beautiful piece about communal bakeries in the Middle East and how these centuries-old traditions become new again during times of war. 

5. “A Fish Story,” Alison Fairbrother, The Washington Monthly

A must-read about a tiny silvery fish called the menhaden and how crucial it is to the ecosystem of our oceans. 

Bonus non-food longreads:
• “Another Night to Remember,” Bryan Burrough, Vanity Fair
• “Ivory Worship,” Bryan Christy, National Geographic 
• “The Soul of a City,” Matt Goulding, Roads & Kingdoms

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Read more guest picks from Longreads Best of 2012.

A reporter spends a winter in Cuba and takes a look at life in a post-Fidel era, which is changing gradually for some, but not fast enough for others who are still looking to escape to the U.S.:

‘Viva Cuba Libre,’ Eduardo muttered, mimicking a revolutionary exhortation we’d seen emblazoned high on an outdoor wall. Long live free Cuba. ‘Free from both of them,’ he said. ‘That’s when there might be real change.’

If there is in fact a Cuba under serious transformation—and you can find Cubans all over the country engaging now in their own versions of this same debate—Eduardo is a crucial component of it, although not for the reasons you might think. “Dissident” is the right label for a subset of politically vocal Cubans, notably the bloggers whose critical online missives have gained big followings outside the country, but Eduardo is no sort of dissident. He’s not fleeing persecution by the state. He’s just young, energetic, and frustrated, a description that applies to a great many of his countrymen. Ever since he was a teenager in high school, Eduardo told me, it had been evident to him that adulthood in revolutionary Cuba offered exactly nothing by way of personal advancement and material comfort to anybody except the peces gordos. The big fish. (Well, literally translated, the fat fish—the tap-on-the-shoulder parties.) Nothing works here, Eduardo would cry, pounding the steering wheel of whatever car he’d hustled on loan for the day: The economic model is broken, state employees survive on their tiny salaries only by stealing from the jobsite, the national news outlets are an embarrassment of self-censored boosterism, the government makes people crazy by circulating two national currencies at once.

‘I love my country,’ Eduardo kept saying. ‘But there is no future for me here.’

“Cuba’s New Now.” — Cynthia Gorney, National Geographic

More by Gorney

Top 5 Longreads of the Week: The New York Times Magazine, The Classical, National Geographic, Chicago Reader, The Morning News, fiction, plus a guest pick from Kriston Capps.

A look at the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and how they’ve preserved their identity and customs after more than a 100 years of a tenuous relationship with the U.S.:

Buried deep within the pages of the 2010 Defense appropriations bill, signed by President Barack Obama in December 2009, is an official apology ‘to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.’ The resolution commends those states ‘that have begun reconciliation efforts with recognized Indian tribes,’ but there is no mention of reparations, nor of honoring long-broken treaties.

White Plume lit one of his rolled-up cigarettes and squinted at me through a ribbon of smoke. ‘Do you know what saved me from becoming a cold-blooded murderer? My language saved me. There is no way for me to be hateful in my language. It’s such a beautiful, gentle language. It’s so peaceful.’ Then White Plume started to speak in Lakota, and there was no denying the words came softly.

“In the Shadow of Wounded Knee.” — Alexandra Fuller, National Geographic

More from National Geographic

There are roughly 7,000 languages in the world, but 78 percent of the world’s population only speaks the 85 largest languages. Thousands of languages are on the edge of disappearing.

After dinner Nimasow disappeared for a moment and came back with a soiled white cotton cloth, which he unfolded by the flickering light of the cooking fire. Inside was a small collection of ritual items: a tiger’s jaw, a python’s jaw, the sharp-toothed mandible of a river fish, a quartz crystal, and other objects of a shaman’s sachet. This sachet had belonged to Nimasow’s father until his death in 1991.

‘My father was a priest,’ Nimasow said, ‘and his father was a priest.’ And now? I asked. Was he next in line? Nimasow stared at the talismans and shook his head. He had the kit, but he didn’t know the chants; his father had died before passing them on. Without the words, there was no way to bring the artifacts’ power to life.

“Vanishing Voices.” — Russ Rymer, National Geographic

More from National Geographic

Featured Longreader: Jeannie Mark, traveler and writer. See her story picks from National Geographic, You Are Not So Smart, The Atlantic, plus more.

What happens when a grizzly bear kills a human being in Yellowstone National Park? An examination of a special criminal justice system designed to protect endangered bears, while giving leeway to euthanize bears that kill humans in ways that are deemed “unnatural”:

It’s a squirrely notion, that a team of government biologists might be able to figure out why a bear does the things it does, or whether any bear behavior could truly be described as “unnatural.” But whatever its shortcomings, the grizzly justice system has been mostly successful over the years since it was introduced, and is reasonably popular. People seem to like the fact that a female bear can kill someone while protecting her cubs and be acquitted of the crime. According to a poll conducted by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in 2001, more than 70 percent of Wyoming residents believe that grizzly bears are a benefit to the state and are an important component of the Yellowstone ecosystem. They want grizzlies to have the benefit of the doubt.

“A Death in Yellowstone.” — Jessica Grose, Slate

See also: “Taming the Wild.” — Evan Ratliff, National Geographic, Feb. 18, 2011

Scientists are discovering how chemicals can affect the way memories are formed, paving the way for a future where it could be possible to forget anything we wanted by taking a single pill:

This isn’t Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-style mindwiping. In some ways it’s potentially even more effective and more precise. Because of the compartmentalization of memory in the brain—the storage of different aspects of a memory in different areas—the careful application of PKMzeta synthesis inhibitors and other chemicals that interfere with reconsolidation should allow scientists to selectively delete aspects of a memory. Right now, researchers have to inject their obliviating potions directly into the rodent brain. Future treatments, however, will involve targeted inhibitors, like an advanced version of ZIP, that become active only in particular parts of the cortex and only at the precise time a memory is being recalled. The end result will be a menu of pills capable of erasing different kinds of memories—the scent of a former lover or the awful heartbreak of a failed relationship. These thoughts and feelings can be made to vanish, even as the rest of the memory remains perfectly intact. “Reconsolidation research has shown that we can get very specific about which associations we go after,” LeDoux says. “And that’s a very good thing. Nobody actually wants a totally spotless mind.”

“The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever.” — Jonah Lehrer, Wired

See also: “Remember This.” — Joshua Foer, National Geographic, Nov. 1, 2007