分类 必应美图 下的文章

马卡雷纳山脉中的卡诺克里斯塔尔斯河，哥伦比亚 The Caño Cristales river in the Serranía de la Macarena mountains of Colombia (© Jorge Iván Vásquez Cuartas/Getty Images)

Go with the rainbow flow

Today's photo brings us to the banks of Caño Cristales, the 'liquid rainbow' that cuts a prismatic path through the heart of Colombia. From June through November, when the clear water is low, the abundant underwater plants that cover the riverbed show off their red, yellow, green, and blue hues. The star of the show—especially in this photo—is Macarenia clavigera, a riverweed that ranges from bright red to deep crimson or purple depending on its intake of sun rays. In August and September, when the florid flora are at their peak, it's a coveted nature excursion: Because the river's ecosystem is so fragile, visits are limited to guided tours.

格里姆瑟尔山口Totesee山地湖中倒映出的星星，瑞士伯尔尼 Stars reflecting in Totensee, a mountain lake at Grimsel Pass, Kanton Bern, Switzerland (© magodevita/Getty Images)

Reflections of the night sky

We're featuring this video of the whirling Milky Way over the Totensee, a small natural lake in Switzerland, to remind you that August is a fantastic time for stargazing. In the Northern Hemisphere, the nights are still long and remain warm, so if you're lucky you can catch the always thrilling sight of a falling star. Tonight would be a good night to look for one because we're at the tail end of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Like most predictable meteor showers, it occurs when the Earth's orbit intersects with the long elliptical path of one of the millions of comets that orbit the Sun. It is called the Perseid meteor shower because the bulk of the meteors will appear to originate out of the constellation Perseus. So, turn out the lights, head outside, and look up!

苏格兰高地上的厄克特城堡和内斯湖 Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands (© AWL Images/Danita Delimont)

A monster view in Scotland

People love a good mystery. Maybe that's why we've been fascinated by mythical creatures like the Loch Ness monster for nearly 1,500 years. We're looking at Urquhart Castle, a ruin founded in the 13th century, with Loch Ness behind it. As the legend goes, on August 22, 565, an Irish priest named Columba confronted 'Nessie' and commanded the 'water beast' away. Since then, people have claimed to spot, or even photograph the Loch Ness monster, as well as Bigfoot, the chupacabra, the yeti, and other creatures around the world. This subculture practices cryptozoology—the study of hidden animals. Are any of these beasts real? Probably not, but why spoil the fun?

巴伐利亚州Schrecksee湖的全景图，德国 (© wingmar/E+/Getty Images)

冰岛高地 The Highlands of Iceland (© Kevin Krautgartner/Offset by Shutterstock)

Up in the Highlands

There's a good chance that occupants of that car you can see in this photo, winding along a remote highway in the Highlands of Iceland, won't encounter any other visitors to this desolate region. Accessible only during the summertime, the Icelandic Highlands is a volcanic desert. Frequent volcanic activity in the area creates a porous topsoil full of chemical compounds that aren't conducive to plant growth. Besides, much of the rainfall is quickly absorbed so plant life only appears alongside glacial rivers. Despite this seemingly unwelcome environment, adventurous travelers come to the Highlands every summer to see firsthand an ecosystem so unearthly that NASA conducted training missions here for some of its Apollo astronauts.

鸟瞰兰萨罗特岛的La Geria葡萄园，西班牙加那利群岛 Aerial view of La Geria vineyards, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain (© Orbon Alija/Getty Images)

Volcanic vineyards

What you can see today in our picture is a bird view of La Geria vineyards, in the Canary island of Lanzarote. They have been there since 18th century and are cultivated following a very special technique, because the vines are planted under the volcanic lapilli, a blanket of ash about two and a half meters thick that covers the land since Timanfaya volcano erupted in 1730 transforming the landscape forever.

To reach the fertile soil, farmers first dig a cone-shaped hole and then build a small stone wall to protect the vines from the trade winds. And since the volcanic ash on the surface prevents rainwater evaporation and captures environmental moisture, plants do not even need added watering.

The variety the most cultivated in this place is volcanic Malvasia, a very special and also very delicate white grape allowing both dry and sweet wines. Due to its unique characteristics, La Geria has also been a protected area since 1987, just as the neighbour Timanfaya National Park, where you can see up to 25 volcanoes concentrated in 51 square kilometers.

中爪哇省的婆罗浮屠，印度尼西亚 Borobudur in Central Java, Indonesia (© Oleh Slobodeniuk/Getty Images)

A giant relic in Java

This photo shows the quiet, mist-shrouded wilderness surrounding the Buddhist temple known as Borobudur. The site is among the most-visited attractions on the island of Java, with devout practitioners making pilgrimages to the holy site and curious tourists coming to see the grandeur of the structure. With 504 Buddha statues and 2,672 sculpted relief panels, Borobudur was likely constructed in the 9th century and abandoned in the 14th as much of the Indonesian population converted from Buddhism and Hinduism to Islam.

Over time it became engulfed by the jungle, and only locals knew of its existence. In the early 1800s, the occupying British administration learned of the temple and sent a Dutch engineer and 200 workers to cut down trees, burn vegetation, and dig away the earth to reveal the monument. Borobudur was eventually restored and given preservation status under UNESCO guidelines.

Life in the nearby town of Muntilan and other Indonesian locales will be even more active than usual on August 17, as that date is Indonesia's Independence Day. The nation of islands at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific oceans declared independence in 1945 and made the date a national holiday eight years later. The people of Indonesia were freeing themselves from three centuries of Dutch rule.

芬迪湾低潮时的洞穴及海岸地貌 ，加拿大新不伦瑞克 Caves and coastal features at low tide on the Bay of Fundy, near St. Martins, New Brunswick, Canada (© Jamie Roach/Shutterstock)

It's National Acadian Day

In honor of Canada's National Acadian Day, we're on the shores of New Brunswick as the ocean recedes to reveal the Bay of Fundy's massive intertidal zone. The tide is a big deal at the bay—more than five times bigger than in most places. Typical tides around the world have a range of 3 to 6 feet, but these waters drop as far as 50 feet from high to low tide.

National Acadian Day celebrates the legacy of the Acadians, Canada's first permanent French residents. The agrarian Acadians first settled what's now Nova Scotia in 1605 and spread to nearby areas, like this one, over that century, developing an identity distinct from the rest of New France. This unfortunately didn't shield them from Old World conflicts as France's longtime enemy, Britain, occupied and tried to conquer Acadia multiple times, finally succeeding in 1710. The British ultimately expelled the Acadians four decades later, a forced relocation to other British colonies where Acadians were often pressed into servitude—or to France, the mother country many Acadians never knew, and to which many wouldn't survive the voyage.

But that tragic chapter is far from the end of the Acadians' story. Some of them eventually returned to Acadia, and their culture still permeates Canada's Maritime provinces—as well as another unlikely locale. Thanks to France's friendly 18th-century relations with Spain, many exiled Acadians were able to settle the then-Spanish-controlled bayous of Louisiana—where 'Acadian' eventually morphed into 'Cajun.'

从亨茨梅萨俯瞰纪念碑谷，亚利桑那州与犹他州之间纳瓦霍族保留地 A view of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park from Hunts Mesa, Navajo Nation, between Arizona and Utah (© AWL Images/Danita Delimont)

A monumental view of 'Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii'

This expansive and iconic view, taken from Hunts Mesa in the Navajo Nation, is none other than Monument Valley, also known as the Valley of the Rocks when translated from the Navajo language (Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii). The red sandstone formations are synonymous with the American Southwest and have stunned moviegoers for nearly a century. The largest of American Indian territories, Navajo Nation covers more than 27,000 square miles and reaches into portions of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.

During World War II, an elite team of Navajos left their homes to join the US Marine Corps and solve a communications challenge. In the Pacific, many of the US combat codes had been cracked by the Japanese army and navy, leaving US troops vulnerable to attack by Axis forces. But in 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits helped develop a new undecipherable code. They used common words and phrases from their tribal language to convey some messages and created special codes to describe military terms; for instance, various weapons of war were assigned Navajo bird names. Code Talkers could encode, send, and decode a three-line English message text—without error—in roughly 20 to 150 seconds. It took machines of the day at least 30 minutes, sometimes longer, to do the same thing.

Some say the US would not have prevailed at the fiercely fought Battle of Iwo Jima had it not been for the Navajo Code Talkers' contributions. And yet, their contributions would go unknown until the program was finally declassified in 1968. Navajo Code Talkers Day was established on August 14, 1982 to commemorate the elite team as well as other Native Americans and First Nations people who had developed codes used in other conflicts. It's a fascinating history that you can learn more about by taking our quiz.

彩岩国家湖滨区的岩洞，密歇根 Cavern in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Lake Superior, Michigan (© Kenneth Keifer/Getty Images)

At the shore of an inland sea

We're looking out from a cavern at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The area's named for its colorful sandstone cliffs, which stretch for 15 miles along the shores of the largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. As groundwater leaches out of the rocks, it carries minerals such as iron, manganese, and copper that paint the cliffs in shades of red, pink, black, green, and other colors. The park itself, which is roughly the size of five Manhattans, boasts waterfalls, beaches, and rock formations—some resembling human profiles and castle turrets—carved over time by the relentless waves and unforgiving weather of Yooper Country.