The room darkens, and Stephanie Sinclair’s photographs flash on the screen. For months she has been photographing members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the FLDS. Its members are known to most of us because they believe in polygamy, but Stephanie’s photographs tell a deeper, broader story. They are able to do so because FLDS members trust her.

An Asian vine with flowers that smell like grape drink, kudzu enticed Americans at a Philadelphia exhibition in 1876. In the 1930s Southerners started planting it to halt soil erosion. They stopped in the ’50s, when they realized that the hardy perennial, which can spread up to 60 feet a year, was out of control. Since then, the vine has swallowed 150,000 acres a year—eight million U.S. acres total. Eliminating it would require a constant war waged by scythes, grazing cattle, and potent herbicides. That’s not likely to happen.

Designing a graphic is like writing a story. You can't include all your material, nor can you present it with uniform emphasis. To engage readers, you have to selectively edit and then order your information into a narrative. In other words, what is most important for people to see and in what order?

Not every reader will agree with our choices. Our health care graphic from the January issue (left, click to enlarge) has provoked a healthy debate around the blogosphere. Some people love it; others loathe it. The issue isn't just premiums or public options. Many bloggers are talking about our process.

The plump neck on mummy Meresamun (above) made scientists think she had a goiter. Then they examined her with a high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scan and learned the truth: Her mummifiers had inserted a bit of stuffing to enlarge the Theban priestess’ neck.

At 3 p.m. on this dim, socked-in afternoon, the Nathaniel B. Palmer reached its rendezvous point—63.7658 degrees south, 56.8273 degrees west—an unremarkable patch of water littered with scraps of sea ice. Ten months earlier a treasure had been dropped into the sea at this spot and anchored to the muddy bottom, 2,112 feet below, by a lead weight. On this day Craig Smith, a marine ecologist from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was returning on the Palmer to reclaim his treasure. His prospects looked grim.

Rough weather this morning. We’re just under halfway across the Drake Passage, which separates South America from Antarctica, and the sea is handing us a whipping. Winds up to 55 knots and gusts up to 100 have piled the sea into an endless stampede of rolling swells. 

As I step out of bed, my bare feet slide across the tilting floor—right, then left, then right again. I resort to sitting on the floor as I gather my things. Showering while holding on white-knuckled with one hand, lathering with the other, and bracing both feet evokes a feeling of absurdity—an attempt to maintain normalcy when things are in fact far from normal, like awakening into an episode of Laverne & Shirley or I Love Lucy. Except in this case the hanging on isn’t just funny; it’s all that separates me from serious injury.

 54.17 degrees South latitude
 70.90 degrees West longitude

Welcome to the town of Punta Arenas, Chile, at the southern tip of South America. At the pier sits the Nathaniel B. Palmer, a 308-foot icebreaker and research vessel operated by the United States Antarctic Program. 

We’ll soon head south on this ship across the Drake Passage, and sail along the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula, a finger of land that reaches up from the main part of Antarctica and tickles the dangling nubbin of South America. On board the Palmer are roughly two dozen scientists and several dozen crew—plus a trio of journalists on assignment with National Geographic: Maria Stenzel, photographer; Sarah Park, videographer; and myself, Douglas Fox, the writer.

Our voyage will last 59 days; we plan to return to port on March 2 or so. The purpose of the trip is to study how Antarctica is responding to rising temperatures—and no better place to do it than the Antarctic Peninsula, where average temperatures have risen 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 50 years—nearly five times as quickly as in most other parts of the planet. The ice in this part of Antarctica has seen some dramatic, in some cases even catastrophic, changes. More on that in a minute.

Earth may get more moon rocks in 2018, when NASA plans a manned lunar landing. Until then, as scientists and collectors know, supply and demand are worlds apart. The only sources? Rare lunar meteorites, soil from Soviet probes, and the 842 pounds of rubble carted back by Apollo astronauts from 1969 to 1972. NASA keeps most of its 1,500-rock cache in Houston, lending out 400 samples a year for research and display. Presidents Nixon and Ford gave pea-size “goodwill” slivers to 134 countries, 50 states, and Puerto Rico. For other interested parties, auctions can be a legal option—if the rock for sale isn’t U.S. government property. At Sotheby’s in 1993, a Soviet sample fetched $442,500. On eBay, a meteorite cut can go for $40 to $100,000, depending on size, quality, and authentication. Then there’s the black market. Joseph Gutheinz, a former NASA investigator, says Apollo rocks that have vanished over the years can turn up with five-million-dollar tags. “They simply mean more and more as the years go by.” —Jeremy Berlin

Photograph by Tyrone Turner

Here at Pop Omnivore, Top Chef gives us lots to discuss. Sustainability? That’s in our wheelhouse. Regional cuisine? We eat that up! So it was with great interest that we followed finalist and pig-lover (note his tattoo) Kevin Gillespie this season as he talked about southern cooking and environmentally-minded eating. The twenty-five-year-old owner and executive chef of Atlanta’s Woodfire Grill spoke to us about those things—and about pork, of course.

Majesty alone can’t save them. The world’s top felines—including lions, cheetahs, and leopards—are slipping toward extinction. But an emergency effort to fund on-the-ground conservation projects may help put them back on their feet.

The audience explores the lush landscape through the eyes of Jake Scully, a mercenary flying in from an eco-devastated Earth now devoid of everything green. After a journey of five years, nine months, and 22 days, Jake and a troop of jarheads arrive in Pandora to help a soulless intergalactic company claw a rare mineral, unobtainium, from the ground. A glimpse of the strip-mining pit shows what’s at stake. If the company has its way, this alien world will become a hellish dustbowl just like Jake’s home planet.

Click to enlarge graphic.

The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system—paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn’t reliably improve a patient’s health. Says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies health insurance worldwide, “More care does not necessarily mean better care.”  —Michelle Andrews 

Four years ago an automobile accident robbed Amanda Kitts of her arm and the ability to do things most of us take for granted, like making a sandwich. “I felt lost,” the teacher from Knoxville, Tennessee, tells writer Josh Fischman in this month’s cover story on bionics.

The perfect sign would have no words and be easy to grasp. “The rational thing is to create standard symbols everybody understands,” says David Gibson, author of The Wayfinding Handbook. He’s one of many designers the world over who work toward uniformity and understandability.

Yet the unconventional sign has undeniable allure. Doug Lansky curated “Signspotting,” an exhibit that drew crowds in Stockholm and Edinburgh and is traveling to other cities. In his show and in public places, signs can entertain with overkill  and fanciful images. They also let travelers see the world through another culture’s eyes. One sign instructs squat-toilet users in Western bathroom etiquette. Says Lansky: “Now I understand why I see footprints on the toilet in an international airport.” —Marc Silver

• Guess the meaning of these signs in our quiz.

In Veracruz, Mexico, the sound of the harp is part of the sound of the town. Players pluck a 36-string wooden instrument on street corners, in restaurants, and during Catholic Masses. Known as the Veracruz harp, it came to the New World in the 1500s from Spain. In the 2000s the harp is entering the vocabulary of American popular music. The California-based group Rey Fresco—Spanish for “king cool”—incorporates the assertive Veracruz pluck in its reggae-Caribbean-Latin fusion music.

The group’s harpist is Xocoyotzin Moraza, 28, who grew up in Ventura, California. Xocoyotzin is an Aztec name meaning “first born son,” “extension of a father,” and “something new or fresh.” In Moraza’s case, the definitions are all true. His dad, Antonio, made the harp. And Xocoyotzin is bringing its sound into a new musical environment via Rey Fresco, whose debut album, The People, was released this fall. (Although the name has its downside. “The first day of school was interesting,” says Xocoyotzin, who always had to explain how to say his name: sho-ko-yo-tsen. Maybe that’s why his nickname is Xoco (pronounced sho-ko.)