Sunday Stills: One World in Motion

READ: Big Bang Mystery View in web browser. Sunday Stills ISSUE 26 Sunday, October 12, 2014 Proof One World in Motion George Orwell once wrote that the loss of a person equals the loss of an entire perspective: “One mind less, one world less.” Gemma Green-Hope echoes Orwell’s sentiments when talking about her poetic stop-motion piece and explaining why she made a film tribute for her grandmother Gan-Gan. “Everyone has such interesting lives and stories, and it seems sad that all that history often disappears with them. It’s impossible to sum up someone’s whole life in two minutes, but I wanted to capture a little piece of her marvellous character and share it with others so she wouldn’t be forgotten.” WATCH In Focus Context Is King: A Fresh Look at the Vikings Photograph by JOHAN BAVMAN, INSTITUTE The Vikings gave no quarter when they stormed the French city of Nantes in June 843, not even to the monks barricaded in the city’s cathedral. “The heathens mowed down the entire multitude of priest, clerics, and laity,” according to one witness account. To modern readers the attack seems monstrous, even by the standards of medieval warfare. But the witness account contains more than a touch of hyperbole, writes Anders Winroth, a Yale history professor and author of The Age of the Vikings. “There is this general idea of the Vikings as being exciting and other, as something that we can’t understand from our point of view—which is simply continuing the story line of the victims in their own time,” Winroth says. “One starts to think of them in storybook terms, which is deeply unfair.” READ Proof Found Favorites PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA From strong body language to seamless horizons, National Geographic photo editor Janna Dotschkal reveals some of her favorite finds after over a year of curating the Found Tumblr. READ Your Shot Embracing Serendipity Photograph by B. Yen National Geographic photographer Randy Olsen wants to be surprised. He’s made a career out of capturing made-by-chance moments, and now he’s challenging Your Shot members to do the same. “Being open to the world and letting it present itself to you is a difficult place for many photographers,” he writes. “The best way I can address being open to serendipity, to surprises, is to just take in the world as it is. Don’t layer your preconceptions on top of it. People will always do way more interesting stuff than anything you tell them to do.” SEE THE EXPLORERS PROJECT Robots Inspired by Nature Robert Wood is working on entirely new classes of robots that may one day transform space exploration, agriculture, and search-and-rescue operations. What differentiates his work is that his goal is not to create a single, perfect machine. He credits nature for inspiring his approach, which includes creating a fleet of tiny, robotic bees. “[Bees] are small, they’re not very capable, they can’t fly for very long,” Wood says. “So what do you do? The answer in nature is you work together.” Using that concept, he uses simple, often inexpensive materials to build “not-so-perfect” robots. “The idea is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” WATCH Show Your Support: SHOP DONATE SUBSCRIBE TRAVEL BECOME A MEMBER You are receiving this email because bpi.hgmp.jusgein@blogger.com is signed up to receive National Geographic communications. If you prefer not to receive emails from us, please unsubscribe. To ensure that you receive your National Geographic emails, please add ngs@e.nationalgeographic.com to your address book now. Learn how. Contact Us | Privacy Policy | About Us | Customer Service National Geographic | 1145 17th Street N.W. | Washington, D.C. 20036 Copyright © 2014 National Geographic Society. All Rights Reserved.