1、BlindnessWINNING THE FIGHT TO SEESEPTEMBER 2016?The Pacific CoastFREE POSTER INSIDEThe National Geographic Channel series America s National Parks visits the Grand Canyon,on August 23 at 9/8cInside the Fur TradeGrand Canyon for SaleThe End of Professional drivers on closed course.Do not attempt.Prot
2、otypes shown with options.Production models will vary.2016 Toyota Motor Sales,U.S.A.,Inc.“MY WISH IS TO RACE MY BROTHER IN MONACO.”OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETYLost Empire of the MayaThe Snake kings ruled a large and powerful kingdomand then they lost it.By Erik Vance Photograp
3、hs by David Coventry76140 Proof|Backstage at the Big Top For Vietnamese circus performers,daily life means focus,hard work,and dedication.Story and Photographs by Christian RodriguezOn the Cover Thirty-nine million peopleabout one in 200are blind,but scientists are working to help them see.Photo by
4、David LiittschwagerCorrections and Clarifications Go to jade funerary mask,with matching earrings,comes from Calakmul,the Snake dynastys capital.september 2016 vol.230 no.330 A Cure in SightMedical advances offer an end to blindness for some,yet many still suffer from preventable loss of sight.By Da
5、vid Dobbs Photographs by Brent Stirton54 Heat WaveWas the Pacifics deadly warm water just part of a natural cycle or a sign of a bigger change?By Craig Welch Photographs by Paul Nicklen96 Back in FashionFur is popu lar again,but humane treatment of the animals remains a challenge.By Richard Conniff
6、Photographs by Paolo Marchetti114 Losing the CanyonAn attempt to hike the length of the Grand Canyon reveals the commercial interests threatening it.By Kevin Fedarko Photographs by Pete McBrideSpecial Poster:Pacific Coast,British ColumbiaCONACULTA,INAH;PHOTOGRAPHED AT NATIONAL PALACE,MEXICO CITYFROM
7、 THE EDITORSusan Goldberg,Editor in Chief PHOTO:BRENT STIRTONScience and SightSanford Greenberg(left)with his former college roommate,Art Garfunkel,who helped Greenberg get around after he lost his sight.He Put a Bounty on BlindnessFifty-five years ago Sanford Greenberg was 20,newly blind through ba
8、d luck and misdiagnosis,and rightly angry at the world when he made a vow from his hospital bed.“No one should have to go blind,”he thought.“It was a promise I made not just to myself but to God.”It was,and remains,an enormous aspirational pledge.Around the world 39 million peopleroughly one out of
9、200are blind,as writer David Dobbs and photographer Brent Stirton reveal in this months cover story.Another 246 million are moderately or severely visually im-paired.The human costs are staggering,both for those with vision loss and for the hundreds of millions of people who assist them.Greenberg is
10、 one of the fortunate ones.In 1961 he ignored the social worker who suggested he go home to Buffalo,New York,and make cane-backed chairs in a program for the blind.Instead,with the aid of the college roommate who read textbooks to him and helped him get around campus,Greenberg finished his bachelors
11、 degree at Columbia.He earned a doctorate at Harvard.He worked at the White House.He helped create a device that made listening to recorded speech more convenient for blind peopleand made him financially independent in the process.He serves on boards and commissions too numerous to name.He married S
12、ue,whom hed loved since sixth grade;they are married still.And he remains close friends with that Columbia roommate,who studied architecture but pursued a career in music:Art Garfunkel,of Simon&Garfunkel fame.This brings us to the Sanford and Susan Greenberg Prize to End Blind-ness by 20/20a reward
13、of three million dollars in gold to the person or persons who contribute most to ending blindness by 2020.(Learn more at .)“Clinical relief of blindness?appears to stand at a point rather similar to that of the nascent American program of space exploration in the 1950s and early 1960s,”Greenberg say
14、s.“Practically waiting.”Worldwide,half of all blind people lose their sight to cataractsroutinely fixed in the developed world but a tragically common cause of blindness in the developing one.Meanwhile other approaches are advancing rapidly,as our coverage explains:gene and stem cell therapies,bioni
15、c implants.How does Greenberg regard all this?“My determination has not faltered,”he says.“Blindness is an injusticeunfair,we say in our plainspoken Amer-ican way.We must act to end it.”The National Geographic Society is a global nonprofit membership organization committed to exploring and protectin
16、g our planet.EDITOR IN CHIEF Susan GoldbergDEPUTY EDITOR IN CHIEF:Jamie Shreeve.MANAGING EDITOR:David Brindley.EXECUTIVE EDITOR DIGITAL:Dan Gilgoff.DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY:Sarah Leen.EXECUTIVE EDITOR NEWS AND FEATURES:David Lindsey.CREATIVE DIRECTOR:Emmet SmithNEWS/FEATURES SHORT-FORM DIRECTOR:Patricia Edmonds.DEPUTY NEWS DIRECTOR:Gabe Bullard.EDITORS:Marla Cone,Christine DellAmore,Peter Gwin,John Hoeffel,Victoria Jaggard,Robert Kunzig,Glenn Oeland,Oliver Payne.WRITERS:Jeremy Berlin,Eve Conant,M