Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

In this January 12, 2016 photo, an abandoned boat lies on the dried up lake bed of Lake Poopo, on the outskirts of Untavi, Bolivia. Drought caused by the recurrent El Nino meteorological phenomenon is considered the main driver of the lake's demise. Along with glacial melting, authorities say another factor is the diversion of water from Poopo's tributaries, mostly for mining but also for agriculture. (Photo by Juan Karita/AP Photo)

Visitors take photos of a child dressed in a traditional costume before a folk performance in Panyu, Guangdong province, China on April 20, 2018. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

Communist supporters hold portraits of Soviet leader Josef Stalin as they queue to lay flowers at the grave of Stalin to mark the 139th anniversary of his birth, in Moscow's Red Square, Russia, Friday, December 21, 2018. (Photo by Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)

Pedestrians look at a Maurician oil tanker Tresta Star stranded on Tremblet coast in Saint-Philippe, south-east of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, on February 4, 2022 after the passage of the tropical cyclone Batsirai as the island was placed under a cyclonic red alert. (Photo by Richard Bouhet/AFP Photo)

Danab Brigade commandos and other first responders rush to evacuate passengers from a Jubba Airlines aircraft that crash-landed on July 18, 2022, at Mogadishu International Airport, Mogadishu, Somalia. (Photo by Maj. Cain Claxton/U.S. Army via AP Photo)

American TikTok star Charli D'Amelio in the second decade of August 2022 turned heads in her latest Instagram pic, wearing a strapless red latex dress with a sultry updo and glam makeup. (Photo by charlidamelio/Instagram)

A dead fish lies on the bank of Oder River on the German-Polish border, in Brieskow-Finkenheerd, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, August 11, 2022. Authorities are looking into the cause of the mysterious fish deaths. (Photo by Annegret Hilse/Reuters)