In three minutes, Port Royal was gone
| Wednesday, August 3, 2022 | |
 | | DELAWARE ART MUSEUM/HOWARD PYLE COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN | | For a few decades, the Caribbean port was riding high, swollen with trading, pirates, and vice galore. The rollicking Yo-Ho-Ho YOLO years, which prompted the Catholic Church to call Port Royal the “wickedest town in Christendom,” ended abruptly one June morning in 1692.
“The land split open, swallowing crowds of people and homes in one gulp and then sealing closed,” Nat Geo quotes a written account by one survivor. “The sky darkened to red, mountains crumbled in the distance, and geysers of water exploded from the seams ripped in the earth.”
Then came a “great wall of seawater swelling high above the town.” In three minutes, the earthquake and tsunami dealt Port Royal, in present-day Jamaica, a blow from which it would never recover. Researchers are still pulling the pieces together.
Read our full story here.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY WILLIS D. VAUGHN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION | | Pictured at top, a depiction of pirates dividing their loot. Above, parts of a centuries-old brass pocket watch pulled from the depths off Port Royal in 1959. Read more.
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| How to save your back: The two Japanese farmers pictured above are using exoskeleton muscle suits while harvesting Japanese leeks. They started using the suits in February 2021, says Imiko, shown at right with her husband, Kiyotaka. The suits help when they carry bundles of the leeks—as much as 45 tons each year—or squat for a long time, she tells photographer Noriko Hayashi, on assignment for Nat Geo.
Related: How a robot uses living muscles to move
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY MENAHEM KAHANA, AFP/GETTY IMAGES | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCUS HARLAND-DUNAWAY | | In the dark? Yes, experiments are underway to grow plants in the dark. The NASA-backed project may be designed to help feed astronauts on long space travel, but breakthroughs could also be adapted to help feed an ever-more-crowded world. So far only algae, edible yeast, and fungi can grow without light or photosynthesis, but scientists are testing conditions for canola seedlings (above), Nat Geo reports.
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 | ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW FAZEKAS
| | The bright blue star: Tonight the waxing crescent moon will pair up with bright blue Spica (at right in the illustration above), the lead star of the constellation Virgo. The two celestial bodies will dominate the low western sky soon after darkness falls. With the moon setting before midnight, stargazers can try spotting the Milky Way band stretching up from the southern horizon. Our views this week are perfectly timed as Astronomers Without Borders celebrates our home galaxy and the role the Milky Way has played in culture, science, and art. By Saturday evening the moon will be posing with the super-bright orange star Antares, which represents the eye of the constellation Scorpius. The view of this part of the sky is awesome, particularly away from light-polluted cities. Here are more stunning images.— Andrew Fazekas
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 | | It is often not what we do with time and energy that is most important, but the conviction with which we do it. | | | Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya
| | Biologist and Nat Geo Explorer working to protect the Andean bears of Peru | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY UTOPIA_88, GETTY IMAGES | | One roaring success: The 13 nations with wild tigers have each pledged to double their numbers. Only one nation has succeeded—and that country, Nepal, has counted triple the number of tigers than it did in 2009. How did Nepal do it? “Strong government buy-in” for tiger conservation and enforcement of strict anti-poaching policies, says Abishek Harihar of the conservation group Panthera. Read more. (Pictured above, a Bengal tiger in Nepal’s Bardia National Park.)
Related:
In this dense Indian forest, tigers and leopards are thriving
5 things you may not know about tigers
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| This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Heather Kim, Jen Tse, and Anne Kim-Dannibale. Have an idea? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com. Miss yesterday’s newsletter? Find it here. | |
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