Kirill Vselensky perches on a cornice in Moscow as Dima Balashov gets the shot. The 24-year-olds, risktakers known as rooftoppers, celebrate their feats on Instagram.
This photo was originally published in “Why Many Young Russians See a Hero in Putin,” in December 2016.
As an evening storm lights up the sky near Wood River, Nebraska, about 413,000 sandhill cranes arrive to roost in the shallows of the Platte River.
This photo was originally published in “What Happens to the U.S. Midwest When the Water’s Gone?,” in August 2016.
Ye Ye, a 16-year-old giant panda, lounges in a wild enclosure at a conservation center in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve.
This photo was originally published in “Pandas Get to Know Their Wild Side,” in August 2016.
Tempted by the fruit of a strangler fig, a Bornean orangutan climbs 100 feet into the canopy. With males weighing as much as 200 pounds, orangutans are the world’s largest tree-dwelling animals.
This photo was originally published in “Inside the Private Lives of Orangutans,” in December 2016.
In Flint, Michigan, siblings Julie, Antonio, and India Abram collect their daily allowance of bottled water from Fire Station #3, their local water resource site.
This photo was originally published in “Intimate Portraits of Flint Show Frustration, Fear, Perseverance,” in February 2016.
Russia’s Bovanenkovo natural gas field, on the Yamal Peninsula, was deemed too expensive to develop until President Vladimir Putin made it a priority.
This photo was originally published in “In the Arctic’s Cold Rush, There Are No Easy Profits,” in March 2016.
The colors of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone come from thermophiles: microbes that thrive in scalding water.
This photo was originally published in “Learning to Let the Wild Be Wild in Yellowstone,” in May 2016.
Steven Donovan, flipping into a pool, took a seasonal job at Glacier National Park to sharpen his photography skills.
This photo was originally published in “Can the Selfie Generation Unplug and Get Into Parks?” in October 2016.
Kirk Odom was convicted of rape after an expert testified that a hair on the victim’s nightgown matched his. He spent years in prison before DNA tests proved his innocence.
This photo was originally published in “How Science Is Putting a New Face on Crime Solving,” in July 2016.
In Alaska, a mother grizzly and her cubs cause a “bear jam” on Denali’s 92-mile-long Park Road, open to private vehicles only five days each summer.
This photo was originally published in “How Can 6 Million Acres at Denali Still Not Be Enough?” in February 2016.
On a mountainside in Yosemite National Park, photographer Stephen Wilkes took 1,036 images over 26 hours to create this day-to-night composite.
This photo was originally published in “How National Parks Tell Our Story—and Show Who We Are,” in January 2016.
Dressed for Mars, space engineer Pablo de León tests a prototype space suit at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where fine soil and fans simulate conditions on the red planet.
This photo was originally published in “Mars: Inside the High-Risk, High-Stakes Race to the Red Planet,” in November 2016.
Villagers in Bagaran, Armenia, sing of cultural endurance and survival while picnicking at night beneath apricot trees—and a giant cross that shines defiantly into Turkey.
This photo was originally published in “A Century Later, Slaughter Still Haunts Turkey and Armenia,” in April 2016.
These rhinos on a South African ranch have recently had their horns trimmed. Unlike elephant ivory, rhino horn grows back when cut properly. The rancher is stockpiling the horn in hopes that selling it will soon be legal.
This photo was originally published in “Special Investigation: Inside the Deadly Rhino Horn Trade,” in October 2016.
On their first migration to their summer range in southeastern Yellowstone, three-week-old calves of the Cody elk herd follow their mothers up a 4,600-foot slope.
This photo was originally published in “The Yellowstone We Don’t See: A Struggle of Life and Death,” in May 2016.
Summer attracts sunbathers—clothed and otherwise—to the grassy banks of Munich’s Schwabinger Bach. The meadows here have been popular with nudists since the 1970s.
This photo was originally published in “How Urban Parks Are Bringing Nature Close to Home,” in April 2016.
A panda keeper in China uses a stuffed leopard to train young pandas to fear their biggest wild foe. A cub’s reactions help determine if the bear is ready to survive on its own.
This photo was originally published in “Pandas Get to Know Their Wild Side,” in August 2016.
Lounging in inches of warm water, blacktip reef sharks wait for the tide to refill the lagoon at Seychelles’ Aldabra Atoll.
This photo was originally published in “In the Seychelles, Taking Aim at Nature’s Bullies,” in March 2016.