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)

Runners gather at the start line for the annual “Santa Speedo Run”, a charity race through the streets of the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. (Photo by Gretchen Ertl/Reuters)

Old Heidelberg, Dog with Pipe, 1905. (Photo by Detroit Publishing Company)

The original costumes for Star Wars character Darth Vader stand on display at “Star Wars: The Exhibition” at County hall on May 04, 2007 in London, England. (Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images)

A Wiesel combat vehicle of the German Bundeswehr armed forces takes part in a demonstration for visitors prior to military exercises on September 28, 2011 near Munster, Germany. The Bundeswehr has instituted far-reaching changes in recent years, including an end to compulsory military service. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Kaitlin, 28, from the United States is suspended from hooks pierced through her skin by the professional body artist Dino Helvida in Zagreb, Croatia June 7, 2016. (Photo by Antonio Bronic/Reuters)

A migrant holds a placard which reads “No Forced Deportations” as he rides his bicycle at the makeshift camp called “The New Jungle” in Calais, France, September 18, 2015. Around 3,500 migrants and refugees are camped in Calais, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia and now living in the jungle. Most of them are hoping to make the crossing to England. (Photo by Regis Duvignau/Reuters)