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)

A student falls asleep as she holds a book containing a portrait of China's late chairman Mao Zedong during a lesson at the Democracy Elementary and Middle School in Sitong town, Henan province December 3, 2013. In a remote part of central China, the day starts at the Democracy Elementary and Middle School with a pre-dawn jog, some revolutionary songs and then an activity long since forgotten at other schools: reciting quotations from Mao Zedong's famed “Little Red Book”. While the ruling Communist Party that Mao led continues to hold him in esteem as the leader of the Communist Revolution, his radical policies and teachings have been largely shelved since his death in 1976 in favour of a pro-market approach that has turned China from a backwater into the world's second biggest economy. The 120th anniversary of Mao's birth is on December 26, 2013. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Chinese women wear protective masks as they are dressed in traditional clothing from the Qing Dynasty era outside a park on March 29, 2020 in Beijing, China. A limited section of the iconic tourist site was re-opened to the public this week allowing a smaller number of visitors to reserve tickets online in advance and to enter after passing health screening. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A dragon crew team performs at a shopping mall to welcome the Lunar new year in Taoyuan, Taiwan on February 1, 2022. (Photo by Ann Wang/Reuters)

People walk past part of an outdoor display as preparations continue for the upcoming pop culture convention Comic Con in San Diego, California, U.S., July 17, 2018. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Costumed attendees participate in the Dragon Con Parade, during the annual science fiction, pop culture and fantasy convention in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 02 September 2023. Thousands of attendees, some costumed, crowd downtown Atlanta for the annual Labor Day Weekend gathering. (Photo by Erik S. Lesser/EPA/EFE)

Netherlands' Joosje Burg, left, reacts after Argentina's Agustina Gorzelany's stick catches her on the face during the women's semifinal field hockey match between Argentina and Netherlands at the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, August 7, 2024, in Colombes, France. (Photo by Aijaz Rahi/AP Photo)

A baby rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) looks up as it plays with a tiger cub at a zoo in Hefei, Anhui province, August 2, 2012. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)