[2015.01] National Geographic Magazine.pdf

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J
ANUAR
Y
2015
JANUARY
2
015
U
A
UA
UAR
AMERICAN
The Firsts Issue
THE FIRST
ARTISTS
THE FIRST
YEAR OF LIFE
THE FIRST
CITY OF AFRICA
THE FIRST
GLIMPSE OF THE
HIDDEN COSMOS
THE
FIRST
HOW A TINY
12,000-YEAR-
OLD TEENAGER
BECAME
JANUARY 2015 • VOL. 227 • NO. 1
The wedding of
Gbenga Adeoti and his
bride, Funmi Olojede,
featured traditional
customs and attire of
the Yoruba, Lagos’s
main ethnic group.
78
Africa’s First City
By Robert Draper
In Lagos, Nigeria, a boom economy widens the rift between the wealthy and the poor.
Photographs by Robin Hammond
32
The First Artists
Credit them with a piv-
otal innovation in human
history: the invention of
symbolic expression.
By Chip Walter
Photographs by Stephen
Alvarez
58
The First Year
In the incredible
learning machine that
is a baby’s brain,
development depends
on loving caretakers.
By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
Photographs by Lynn Johnson
108
A First Glimpse of the
Hidden Cosmos
As scientists map the
universe, what they can’t
see—dark energy and
dark matter—is key.
By Timothy Ferris
Photographs by Robert Clark
124
Tracking the
First Americans
Genetic data and
new archaeological
discoveries offer clues
to the mystery of early
Americans’ origin.
By Glenn Hodges
138
Proof
|
First Bird
The bald eagle may be a majestic national
symbol—but it’s also one tough bird.
By Klaus Nigge
On the Cover
Geneticists say that Native Americans’ ancestors
were Asians who separated from other Asian populations and
remained isolated for about 10,000 years.
Art by Tomer Hanuka
Corrections and Clarifications
Go to
ngm.com/more.
O F F I C I A L J O U R NA L O F T H E NAT I O NA L G E O G R A P H I C S O C I E T Y
FROM THE EDITOR
Firsts
Looking
Ahead
This issue of
National Geographic
is built
around the idea of “firsts”—discoveries,
innovations, and actions that changed
the world. As a first, it’s hard to top the
bravery of Ruby Bridges, who tells us in
our 3 Questions feature what it was like
to be the first child to desegregate an
American public elementary school in the
South. We also use the term less formally,
as in a photo essay on America’s “first”
bird (the bald eagle) or a vibrant story on
Africa’s “first” city (Lagos, Nigeria’s com-
mercial center, which is driving the biggest
economy on the continent).
So in an issue of firsts, how do we forecast
what comes next? What will be the next
“firsts” that will change us, our families,
our communities, and our planet?
In an attempt to answer some of those
questions, we went to the experts and
futurists who contemplate coming changes
both prosaic and profound. Take Paul
Saffo, a Silicon Valley seer who, in 1994
(four years before the founding of Google),
predicted that the future belonged to
“those who control the filtering, search,
and sensemaking tools we will rely on to
navigate through the banal expanses of
cyberspace.” Indeed.
Whether it’s about the anticipated
demise of the combustion engine or a de-
crease in divorce, we hope you’ll find these
experts’ ideas thought provoking as we en-
ter 2015. One cautionary note: No predictor
is always right. In what he calls his “worst
forecast,” Saffo wrote in 1993 that “cyber-
punks are to the 1990s what the beatniks
were to the ’60s—harbingers of a mass
movement waiting in the wings.” That’s one
mass movement we still await. Onward to
the next firsts—and Happy New Year!
WITHIN 5 TO 10 YEARS
HOW WE WILL LIVE
Paul Saffo,
Technology Forecaster
Driverless cars will share roadways with conventional cars.
This will happen in urban areas first and will take a decade
to fully diffuse. In the long run, people won’t own cars at all.
When you need to go somewhere, you’ll have a subscrip-
tion to an auto service, and it will show up at your door.
We’re moving away from a purchase economy. We will
subscribe to access rather than pay money for possessions
such as smartphones. We won’t buy software anymore;
we’ll subscribe to it.
A new religion could emerge in the next decade or two,
perhaps based around the environment. Digital technology
is the solvent leaching the glue out of our global structure—
including shaking our belief systems to the core.
WITHIN 10 TO 20 YEARS
HOW WE WILL LOVE
Pepper Schwartz
Professor, University of Washington
Divorce may decrease after the baby boomers, who have
a high divorce rate, age into their 50s and 60s.
We will also see more people who are in love but do not
share a domicile. Though definitely couples, these people
are tied to different places because of a job or family, or be-
cause they love where they live. Maybe we will see people
going back and forth between assisted living facilities.
Susan Goldberg,
Editor in Chief
WITHIN 10 TO 20 YEARS
Bertalan Meskó
Medical Futurist
Author of
The Guide to
the Future of Medicine
HOW WE WILL HEAL
HOW WE WILL AGE
The next decades of medicine and
health care will be about using
technologies and keeping the hu-
man touch in practicing medicine.
Everyone’s genomes will be se-
quenced to access personalized
treatments.
We’ll measure almost any health
parameters at home with diagnos-
tic devices and smartphones.
The 3-D printing revolution will
produce affordable exoskeletons
and prosthetic devices.
WITHIN 20 YEARS
Byron Reese,
Tech Entrepreneur
Author of
Infinite Progress: How the Internet and Technology Will End
Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War
Since technology grows exponentially, not in a linear way, we will see
dramatic improvements in our way of life in just a few years. Though it
took us 4,000 years to get from the abacus to the iPad, in 20 years we will
have something as far ahead of the iPad as it is ahead of the abacus. This
means that soon we will be able to solve all problems that are fundamen-
tally technical. These problems include disease, poverty, hunger, energy,
and scarcity. If you can live a few years more, there is a real chance you
will never die, since mortality may be just a technical problem we solve. All
these advances will usher in a new golden age, freed from the scourges
that have plagued humanity throughout our history.
“THERE IS A REAL CHANCE YOU WILL NEVER DIE,
SINCE MORTALITY MAY BE JUST A TECHNICAL
PROBLEM WE SOLVE.”
—Byron Reese
WITHIN 50 YEARS
HOW WE WILL BE POWERED
Michael Brune,
Executive Director, the Sierra Club
Author of
Coming Clean: Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal
Within 50 years the world should be able to achieve a 100 percent clean
energy economy. Within the next couple of decades, every time you turn
on a light or power up your computer, every bit of that electricity will come
from clean, renewable, carbon-free sources. Soon after that, solar and
wind will displace nuclear as well, at which point we’ll be getting 100 per-
cent of our electricity from renewables. By 2030 we should be able to cut
transportation oil use in half and then cut it in half again a decade later.
Once we’re finally fossil-fuel free, we’ll not only see our climate stabilize but
we’ll also rest secure knowing that we can get all our power from sources
that are safe, secure, and sustainable. It’s already within our grasp.
ART: OLIVER MUNDAY

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