星空迷

两名山地车骑手在白缘公路上沿着谢福小道的转弯处骑行，犹他州峡谷地国家公园 Two mountain bike riders make their way down the Shafer Trail switchbacks on White Rim Road in Canyonlands National Park, Utah (© Grant Ordelheide/Tandem Stills + Motion)

For the love of bikes

In honor of World Bicycle Day, we share a bird’s-eye view of two mountain bikers traveling on the Shafer Trail switchbacks of White Rim Road in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. In 2018, the UN officially recognized 'the uniqueness, longevity and versatility of the Bicycle, which has been in use for two centuries, and that it is a simple, affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation.'

German Karl von Drais is credited with creating the first version of a bike in 1817; it was a heavy wooden contraption that the rider pushed forward with his or her feet. It had many names—the 'draisine,' velocipede, and dandy horse--and it was a fad for a few years, but eventually the bike was banned because it was too dangerous (no brakes!).

The bicycle has gone through many iterations since then, from the less-than-comfortable 'boneshaker' in the 1860s, followed by the 'penny-farthing' with its huge front wheel, to today’s popular fatbikes and e-bikes. During one of America’s biking booms, in the 1970s, more bikes were sold than cars. Today bicycles remain as popular as ever, so whether it’s for recreation or transportation, the bicycle is here to stay.

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辛华达瀑布，加拿大贾斯珀国家公园 Sunwapta Falls in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada (© Schroptschop/Getty Images)

Falling for the Canadian Rockies

Sunwapta Falls is one of several waterfalls in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, formed by hanging valleys. These valleys were created 8,000 years ago when glacier ice receded. Sunwapta Falls is actually a pair of waterfalls, a lower and upper one. Their water comes from the Athabasca Glacier, so volumes are higher in the summer due to seasonal glacial melting. Jasper National Park is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, with more than 4,000 square miles for camping, hiking, water sports, and other activities. Wildlife in the park includes elk, grizzly bears, moose, bighorn sheep, and caribou.

大堡礁，澳大利亚昆士兰 Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia (© AWL Images/Danita Delimont)

The largest living organism on Earth

Today marks the second ever World Reef Day, an observance created to help focus global attention on the deteriorating health of on our planet's vital reef systems, and also to help marshal efforts to help them recover. Why should you care about the health of ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef, seen in this photo? Because reefs are an easy indicator of how healthy our oceans are. And right now, reefs aren’t doing too well. What can you do? Learn about reefs—not just the dangers that put healthy reefs at risk, but why reefs are such a critical part of Earth's greater ecosystems.

圣克鲁斯河，阿根廷巴塔哥尼亚 Santa Cruz River, Patagonia, Argentina (© Coolbiere Photograph/Getty Images)

Meandering through Patagonia

Squiggling east from the Andes mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, the mighty Santa Cruz river in Argentina's Patagonia region flows over some of South America's sparsest terrain. Over the centuries, some of history's most notable explorers have been drawn to the winding waterway: Ferdinand Magellan's 1520 expedition discovered its coastal delta, and Charles Darwin (on the same voyage that took him to the Galápagos Islands) studied the area's ecosystem during a grueling 1834 side-trip up the river. Even now, very few settlements exist along the 240-mile course of the Santa Cruz, considered the last major free-flowing river in Patagonia.

The river's many U-shaped bends, called meanders, are carved out gradually: When flow pressure isn't equal on both banks of a river, erosion tends to warp small bends into dramatic, sweeping curves over long periods of time. But the prospect of much swifter change looms over the Santa Cruz: A controversial hydroelectric dam project already underway downstream will potentially have a drastic impact on the entire river's hydrology and ecosystem.

百慕大马利海滩鸟瞰图 Aerial view of Marley Beach, Bermuda (© Paul Zizka/plainpicture)

It's Bermuda's big day

We're gazing down at Marley Beach on the southwest coast of Bermuda in honor of Bermuda Day, a public holiday celebrated near the end of May. The event was first established on this British island territory in 1902, to honor the late Queen Victoria's birthday, but it has evolved into a celebration of the culture. Since 2018, it's been observed on the last Friday of May. Locals celebrate the end of winter on this day with a swim or boat ride. Today's holiday also marks the date when islanders transition to a summer wardrobe at work. For the next several months, Bermuda shorts, which hit just above the knee, will be considered appropriate business attire for the island's most dapper gentlemen.

大沼泽地国家公园鸟瞰图 Aerial view of Everglades National Park, Florida (© Tetra Images/Getty Images)

Clouds over the 'River of Grass'

It's the beginning of the wet season in the Everglades, where it's typically hot and humid from May through November. Afternoon thunderstorms are common, bringing heavy rainfalls that subside quickly. The largest subtropical wilderness in the US, the Florida Everglades is essentially a slow-moving river, 60 miles wide and over 100 miles long. The water flows during the wet season from Lake Okeechobee southward across a limestone shelf to the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula. The complex ecosystem here is not found anywhere else on the planet.

Nicknamed the 'River of Grass' by conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the Everglades are full of sawgrass marshes, cypress swamps, and mangrove forests. In the early 20th century, water flow from Lake Okeechobee was increasingly diverted to support the development of South Florida, and it became clear that the Everglades were quickly vanishing. To help protect the fragile ecosystem, Everglades National Park was established in 1934, preserving about 20 percent of the original wetlands. While rising water levels can make it challenging to spot wildlife during the wet season, it's a critical season for the birds, crocodiles, manatees, and many more beautiful creatures that call the 'River of Grass' home.

郁金香田鸟瞰图，德国萨克森-安哈尔特 Aerial view of tulip fields, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany (© Anke Scheibe/Westend61/offset by shutterstock)

Colorful flowers

Are these tulips from Amsterdam? The Netherlands is the world's largest tulip producer with a share of over 80 percent, but our picture today shows a tulip field in Saxony-Anhalt. In this country too, the popular flowers are grown in large fields in neat rows and bright colors.

Let's get lost

Beannachtaí ó from Greenan Maze in Ireland! (That first part is 'Welcome to' in traditional Irish.) This family farm in Greenan, a small village in the countryside of County Wicklow, has a hedge maze and a meditative labyrinth path, both in the 'celtic maze' style. Celtic mazes are a common artistic motif in artifacts from ancient Celtic settlements. Historians suggest the Celtic maze was linked to spiritual practices, often associated with the journey of the dead into the afterlife. And in modern life, they can be an inspiration for creative hedge mazes. Are you rethinking your backyard landscaping, or is that just us?

The scene of a literary crime

Remarkable enough in itself, this 800-foot mountain waterfall is also the site of one of fiction's most enduring showdowns between good and evil. Just outside Meiringen, Switzerland, the Reichenbach Falls are the backdrop for 'The Final Problem'—the 1893 Sherlock Holmes story where, on a precipice near the falls (which in the 19th century gushed with far more power than our recent image shows), the genius detective enters a death duel with the criminal Professor Moriarty. In the end, both men plummet to their presumable doom.

Though the action in 'The Final Problem' was set on May 4th, it's May 22 that's celebrated as Sherlock Holmes Day since it's author Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday. The doctor-turned-author created Holmes with 'A Study in Scarlet' in 1887 and intended to kill off his famous protagonist with 'The Final Problem' to move on with his literary life. Nonetheless, pressure from Doyle's anguished, sleuth-starved public led him to 'resurrect' Holmes (but not Moriarty) a decade later with 'The Adventure of the Empty House.' In all, Doyle issued four novels and over 50 short stories starring Holmes over four decades—and they've inspired countless other books, plays, radio dramas, movies, TV shows, comics, and video games that feature the super-sleuth.

A visionary artist paints his own garden view

If you're seeing brightly colored flowers against a multihued backdrop, you're experiencing something the painter of today's Bing homepage image hasn't fully seen since he was a young boy after a brain tumor damaged his optic nerve. Today, Jeff Hanson is a successful visually impaired artist who only vaguely sees shapes and colors. Although legally blind, he's developed a unique tactile process that helps him feel his compositions by first plastering the canvas with a thick plastic goop. Once that hardens, he uses the plastic ridges to navigate a piece, lending the composition form so he can add his signature vibrant color. He playfully calls each painting 'a sight for sore eyes,' selling his art to appreciators like Warren Buffett, Elton John, and other collectors. Yet, one of the most creative aspects of Hanson's life is the way he's had to develop assistive methods to paint.

The methods Hanson uses are not unlike the wheelchairs, head pointers, closed captions, voice trackers, and a growing number of assistive technologies that empower other people with disabilities. On Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we're featuring Hanson's painting to observe the ongoing work to make technology accessible for more people around the world. (One way to appreciate this need is to take our quiz without the use of your mouse.)

星空迷

两名山地车骑手在白缘公路上沿着谢福小道的转弯处骑行，犹他州峡谷地国家公园 (© Grant Ordelheide/Tandem Stills + Motion)