National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Villagers in Bagaran, Armenia, sing of cultural endurance and survival while picnicking in the evening under some apricot trees.  The cross shines so bright that it shines defiantly into Turkey.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Children of a refugee family living amid the rubble that is Ramadi, a city in an ISIS held area of Iraq and an area destroyed by them.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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This is Igor Voronkin after surfacing at the Barentsburg coal mine in Spitsbergen, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. He is one of 400 miners who hail from Ukraine.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Photography Stephen Wilkes made a photo composition of 1,036 images over a 26 hour period of time to create this stunning day-to-night photographic composite.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Athena Pronaia bathes in the twilight in this picture.  Pilgrims to the site would offer sacrifices before consulting Delphi, the oracle.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Antonio and his sisters Julie and India Abram are carrying their daily ration of water in Flint, Michigan.  In 2014 Flint’s water source was changed and due to this change hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to unhealthy levels of lead.  This is a crisis that still continues in July 2017.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Photos and paintings like this, of the Grand Canyon in Yellowstone, are what led to the development of the National Parks Service.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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A Mother and her cubs caused a traffic jam on Denali’s 92-mile-long Park Road, which is only open to the public for transportation purposes 5 days a year.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Eye-care workers use test-lens frames to conduct eye exams in India’s Sundarbans region. Their goal: to help reduce India’s blind population of more than eight million.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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A girl observes, as three Kurdish women pose to have their portrait taken with scarves over their heads to hide their faces.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Pablo de Leon tests a Mars prototype space suit at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.  Fans blow fine particles of dirt and sand to simulate the weather conditions of Mars.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Over 413,000 Sandhill Cranes arrive to the shallows of the Platte River to roost as a late evening storm rages in the distance.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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What was once deemed too expensive, Russia’s Bovanenkovo natural gas field, on the Yamal Peninsula, operates with full funding after Vladimir Putin made it a top priority.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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The nervous system of this common octopus is larger and more complex than most invertebrates’. Can it think? Is it conscious? Researchers wonder if we’ll ever know.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Here, a Bornean organutan is 100 feet up into a tree as it is tempted by the fruit of the strangler fig.  Males reach up to as much as 200 pounds making them the worlds largest tree-dwelling animals.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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This is a Giant Panda named Ye Ye.  She is relaxing in a nature conservatory in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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A baby African white-bellied tree pangolin hitches a ride on its mother at Pangolin Conservation, a nonprofit organization in St. Augustine, Florida.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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The beautiful colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone come from microbes that live in scalding hot water called thermophiles.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Lounging in inches of warm water, blacktip reef sharks wait for the tide to refill the lagoon at Seychelles’ Aldabra Atoll.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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The Norwegian research vessel, Lance, drifted along with sea ice for 5 months in 2015 to track changes to it.  This lasted from Arctic winter into spring.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Native Peruvians farm and hunt in Peru’s Manu forest.  They are different in that they only farm and hunt for self sufficiency and not for trade and commerce.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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A little girl, Yoina Mameria Nontsotega from Matsigenka, takes a swim in the Yomibato River with her pet saddleback tamarian.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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A diver keeps a close watch on a tiger shark in the Bahamas. But the scene may not be as dangerous as it looks: Tigers rely on surprise to hunt prey and are unlikely to attack divers who keep them in sight.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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A group of turtles fight for position under a rare bush to escape the heat of the day.  Failure to do so will result in them cooking right in their shells.

National Geographic recently announced the best photos of 2016.  They are breath taking and tell a story for all to see and read.  This is just a small list of 25, of the best of the very best.

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Virunga Park rangers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo undergo military-style training, including ambush tactics, due to the constant threat from armed groups.