National Geographic Magazine

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FROM the EDITOR

IN FOCUS • JUST IN FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORERS • These contributors have received funding from the National Geographic Society, which is committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world. Learn more about the Society’s support of Explorers at natgeo.com/impact.

Rethinking How the Egyptians Built the Pyramids • A lost diary and a hidden waterway are offering a surprising new origin story for Giza’s ancient wonders

Nothing has captured our imagination quite like the Pyramids of Giza.

Clues From an Ancient Text

A Lost River Revealed

An Eyewitness Account

CONSTRUCTION OF THE KHUFU PYRAMID

The Mystery That (Still) Endures

Saving Stories TRAPPED IN ICE • Can the historical information locked away in polar ice sheets be retrieved before it all melts?

PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2025 • From thousands of images made by our photographers all around the world, we present the ones that moved and inspired us most.

GRAND GREEN AMBITIONS

DINNER ON ICE

A DAY’S WORTH OF DRAMA

TRADITIONS ON THE BRINK

TRACKING TROUBLE to the ENDS OF THE EARTH • Climate change is speeding the spread of global pathogens. To understand how diseases move, ecologist Jane Younger is studying animals on the planet’s most remote continent.

THE FUTURE OF YOUR MEMORY

ARE WE REACHING PHOTO OVERLOAD? • Taking thousands of easy-to-access pictures means never losing a moment—but it’s also complicating how our minds shape our memories.

HOW AI IS UNLOCKING THE MYSTERIES OF MEMORY • We’re flooded by images: Instagram pics, fine art, ads, magazine photos, and more. Why do we remember some and not others? One AI model seems to understand what we don’t.

WHY LEARNING TO FORGET IS AN UNDERRATED SKILL • There are plenty of memories we can do without, and science suggests that letting them go is critical to our well-being. Here’s how great forgetters train to keep their minds uncluttered.

THE OVERLOOKED SCIENCE OF SENSE MEMORY • One whiff of a familiar scent from childhood and you can feel the link between your senses and memory. And with a little conscious focus during big moments, you can reverse-engineer that connection to strengthen a memory for later.

A POWERFUL MEMORY TRICK THAT WORKED FOR THE ANCIENTS • Need to remember your grocery list? Or a few hundred digits of pi? Put them in a “memory palace.”

WHY YOUR MEMORIES WILL SHAPE YOUR FUTURE • A Harvard cognitive psychologist explains how the act of remembering is indelibly linked to how we imagine what comes next.

The Oldest Known CITY MAP IS STARTLINGLY PRECISE • It took decades for archaeologists to realize this 3,500-year-old tablet depicts an ancient city at scale. But how did its creators pull that off?

JANE GOODALL 1934–2025 • Few figures in the history of conservation did more to change our understanding of the natural world. With her passing this year, we celebrate Jane Goodall’s remarkable life and work with images from the National Geographic archives, including some that have never before been published.

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