Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

French twins Thomas and Vincent (L) Seris take the tram in Bordeaux, November 12, 2014. Born with Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), the twins cannot be exposed to the sun and its ultraviolet (UV) light, which could provoke precocious cancers due to an autosomal recessive genetic disorder of DNA repair. Colloquially referred to as Children of the Night (Les Enfants de la Lune) the Seris twins are among 70 to 80 people in France who suffer from the genetic defect. The French association “Les Enfants de la Lune” reports that there are between five and ten thousand such cases in the world. Thomas and Vincent have been testing a new protective mask for the last year which is transparent and ventilated and developed by several hospitals in France. (Photo by Regis Duvignau/Reuters)

Dynam employees say a greeting message as they receive customer-care training ahead of the grand opening of the company's pachinko parlour in Fukaya, north of Tokyo July 29, 2014. Japan's once-booming pachinko industry, grappling with a greying customer base and the threat of new competition from casinos, is adopting a softer touch and smoke-free zones to lure a new generation of players, particularly women. Pachinko, a modified version of pinball, is a fading national obsession, with about 12,000 parlours nation-wide and one in thirteen people playing the game. But that figure is declining as the population shrinks and younger people prefer games on their mobile phones. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

The British Wildlife Photography Awards winners have been revealed, with Lee Acaster from Suffolk taking home the top prize for his shot of a Graylag Goose in London. Acaster, who received £5,000, photographed the animal against an ominous London skyline, with The Shard clearly visible in the background. Here: “Urban Tourist (Graylag Goose)”. Urban category and overall winner. (Photo by Lee Acaster/British Wildlife Photography Awards 2014)

A British woman plays a piano designed especially for people who are confined to bed. Date: 1935. (Photo by Mary Evans Picture Library/Caters News)

Carriers of the Great God Power brotherhood unload Virgen del Carmen statue after its journey on July 15, 2014 at Puerto de la Cruz dock on the Canary island of Tenerife, Spain. Since 1921, the statue of the Virgen del Carmen, patron saint of fishermen, has been carried with great fanfare annually as part of July Festivities to the Puerto de la Cruz dock where, at the end of its procession, it is hoisted aboard a decorated boat. Weather permitting, the boat carrying the statue, accompanied by a flotilla of other boats, makes a short journey along the island coast before returning to the harbour. In recent years, attendance at the event has numbered more than 35,000 people. (Photo by Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images)

“The most serious health problem in the U.S. today is obesity.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But that pronouncement about obesity’s primacy in the hierarchy of national health problems is not new. Rather, it’s the opening line to a remarkable article published 60 years ago in LIFE magazine. This photographs made by Martha Holmes to illustrate that March 1954 article, titled “The Plague of Overweight.” Photo: Dorothy Bradley (left), photographed for LIFE magazine article on obesity, 1949. (Photo by Martha Holmes/Time & Life Pictures)

A man walks past an advertisement sign promoting a bank in Seoul in this September 3, 2009 file photo. South Korea is expected to release GDP dara this week. (Photo by Lee Jae-Won/Reuters)