A pupil arrives on the first day of school at Yas American Academy in Abu Dhabi in the last decade of August 2025. (Photo by Victor Besa/The National)

“Kids of Sapa”. Four little beautiful Hmong girls from Lao Chai Village, near Sapa, Vietnam. (Photo and caption by Felipe Hanower/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

“Super Enerji”. Taken on my road trip through Turkey. (Photo and caption by Michelle Brandemuehl/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

“Locusts & Men”. Oppression, interaction, collaboration. In the life cycle of nature nothing is lost, but the coexistence of different species is sometimes difficult. In Madagascar periodically returns the archaic antagonism between man and the migratory locust, in a circle of life where the two species are looking for space and food for their survival. At the end of the day a man walks home carrying on his shoulders the heavy bag which contains the locusts captured during the day. The insects provide nutritious meals for the man and his family. Photo location: Madagascar, 2013. (Photo and caption by Michele Martinelli/National Geographic Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

Two women look at a mobile phone as they stand on Tiananmen Square during a sand storm in heavily polluted weather in Beijing on February 28, 2013. Beijing residents were urged to stay indoors as pollution levels soared before a sandstorm brought further misery to China's capital. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

In this November 28, 1966 file photo, one of the 10 beagles involved in the first test of the Veterans Administration Hospital in East Orange, N.J. smokes a cigarette through a machine linked to its windpipe by a plastic tube to test any link between smoking and emphysema. (Photo by AP Photo)

China’s new tallest building has received unexpected publicity thanks to Russian free climbers Vadim Makhorov and Vitaly Raskalov. The pair took two hours to climb 650 metres up the unfinished Shanghai Tower. They did not use safety equipment on their ascent to the top of a crane attached to the tower, from where they took these extraordinary pictures of Shanghai. Photo: Vitaly Raskalov's feet dangle from the top of the Shanghai Tower, high above the Shanghai World Financial Centre. (Photo by Vitaly Raskalov/Caters News Agency)