Carrying a third of the world’s shipping, these waters are churned by the competing territorial claims of border nations. By Tracy Dahlby. Photographs by Michael Yamashita.

Unearthed from the wind-scoured landscape of Patagonia, exquisitely preserved eggs of plant-eating sauropods yield first ever fossils of embryonic dinosaur skin. By Luis Chiappe. Photographs by Brooks Walker. Art by Mick Ellison.

A mixture of common sense and refreshing lunacy has turned this Spanish city into an economic powerhouse and international showcase—a model for a peaceful and prosperous Europe.
By T. D. Allman. Photographs by David Alan Harvey.

Map Supplement: Spain and Portugal.

On icebound peaks that rise above the glaciers of Canada’s Yukon Territory, flowers and insects flourish, lost migrating birds perish, and furry pikas survive by scavenging the dead. By Kevin Krajick. Photographs by Robert Clark.

Big-spending collectors are snapping up the masterpieces of this American artist whose subjects ran the gamut of national life, from schoolyard games to the Civil War.
By Robert M. Poole. Photographs by Sam Abell.

You’ve got company—and plenty of it. Mites make their home in your eyelash follicles, bacteria colonize your skin, and fleas and lice drop by for blood meals. By Richard Conniff. Photographs by Darlyne A. Murawski.

Read our question-and-answer essay and offer your insights on the sociological effects of lice infestations on communities.

Read the complete NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC story.

Like smoke from a Bedouin campfire, a haunting sense of antiquity hangs over these immense carved ruins in the Jordanian desert. By Don Belt. Photographs by Annie Griffiths Belt.

Coral Eden; Coral in Peril; Lawrence of Arabia; Tracking the Anaconda; Baffin Island First Ascent; Research Committee; Ravens; Popocatépetl.