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THE VANISHING BEAUTY OF BRAZIL’S CERRADO • The world’s largest agricultural boom is transforming a vast savanna of hidden wonders. Here’s what happens when progress outpaces our understanding of what might be worth preserving.

HOW BRAZIL’S CERRADO IS CHANGING • At the edge of the Amazon rainforest Brazil’s lesser known, less protected, and second largest ecosystem, the Cerrado, is rapidly transforming. Its diverse savannas, grassland, and forests house some 5,000 endemic species, whose habitats are vanishing at extreme speed.

REVIVING MEDIEVAL MONSTERS • How modern artisans are honing an age-old style of stonecraft and bringing new beauty to an English cathedral

THE LONG JOURNEY OF CANADA’S LAST REINDEER • A famous herd with a storied past confronts a new kind of future in the high north.

HOW REINDEER GOT TO AMERICA • In the 1890s, the idea of raising domesticated reindeer took root in Alaska, leading to a herd being imported to replace dwindling numbers of free-ranging caribou as a regional food source.

WHERE SPACE AND TIME MERGE • The glow we see from distant galaxies is as old as Earth’s ancient rocks. A dazzling project puts the age of starlight in perspective.

THE WARRIOR WOMEN OF THE VIKING AGE • For centuries, historical accounts of the great Norse fighters focused on men and their remarkable feats in battle. Now, new evidence shows that some Viking women excelled as warriors too—and wielded power far beyond the battlefield.

RAIDERS AND TRADERS • As our understanding of gender roles in Viking society evolves, scientists are discovering that women held critical positions in commercial affairs. Scales, weights, and other items found at women’s grave sites, including those shown below, testify to the work that women performed as Viking groups expanded their reach. At Birka and other Viking sites, about a fifth of traderelated artifacts from voyages to the East were found buried alongside women.

THE POWERFUL MAGIC OF VIKING WOMEN • In addition to new scholarship exploring the role of Viking women on the battlefield, discoveries are shedding light on their place in the spiritual realm. Some were considered mighty sorceresses, or völvas, with the ability to see into the future and cast spells to aid Viking forces. In this depiction of a scene inside Denmark’s Fyrkat fortress, a late 10th-century völva now known as the Fyrkat Seeress commands the room. The body of this aristocratic woman was buried in the fortress along with objects of her craft.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WORLD’S BIGGEST EGGS • Who laid the largest eggs the world has ever seen? It wasn’t the dinosaurs.

NEW YORK’S LOST FLEET OF ELECTRIC TAXIS • The car of our future was all the rage in the late 1800s. So what happened to those EVs?

Hunting for My Father’s BUTTERFLY • A daughter’s epic quest to find one of the world’s rarest butterflies—a species named for her father

The Quest for a Rare Butterfly • The Satyrus effendi butterfly is only found in one of the world’s most inhospitable places: a shrinking habitat in a cluster of peaks between warring Azerbaijan and Armenia. Photographer Rena Effendi plunged into this confluence of obstacles to find the elusive butterfly named for her late father.

A Hike With EXPLOSIVE VIEWS • In Guatemala’s Sierra Madre, a spectacular trek puts you close to one of Central America’s most...