[size=14pt]Photo of the Day: Best of March 2011[/size]
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Kung Fu Master, China
Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann, National Geographic
Buddhist monk and kung fu master Shi Dejian (above) and his disciples hauled bags of cement and roof tiles up steep mountain paths to build an isolated retreat (in background) away from the tourist crowds at the Shaolin Temple.
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Hang En Cave, Vietnam
Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic
Going underground, expedition members enter Hang En, a cave tunneled out by the Rao Thuong River. Dwindling to a series of ponds during the dry months, the river can rise almost 300 feet (91 meters) during the flood season, covering the rocks where cavers stand.
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Catacombs, Paris
Photograph by Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic
In a sandy chamber known as the "beach," a wave rolls across a wall painted (and repainted) by cataphiles in the style of Japanese printmaker Hokusai. Such works can take hundreds of hours—the painting but also the carrying in of supplies.
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Sunken Ship, Key Largo
Photograph by David Doubilet, National Geographic
Upholstered with luminous sponges and corals, the bridge of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Duane attracts schools of smallmouth grunts—and divers. The ship was intentionally sunk in 1987 off Key Largo to create an artificial reef 120 feet (36 meters) deep.
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Kogershin Village, Kazakhstan
Photograph by Vincent J. Musi, National Geographic
A woman milks a mare in the village of Kogershin in southern Kazakhstan. Recent archaeological studies have shown that the Botai people of the Eurasian steppes were the first to actively domesticate horses, 5,500 years ago.
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Machu Picchu
Photograph by Robert Clark, National Geographic
Perched high in the Peruvian Andes, the royal retreat of Machu Picchu testifies to the Inca's masterful building skills with its precision-cut stones and perfectly placed cascades of terraces.
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Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, Alaska
Photograph by Michael Melford, National Geographic
In the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes a stream carves a canyon through rock formed during the 1912 eruption of nearby Novarupta Volcano. The snowcapped peaks are Mount Griggs and Mount Katmai (far right), part of an active system of ten volcanoes surrounding the valley, a hundred miles south of the proposed Pebble mine.
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Diprotodon Tracks, Australia
Photograph by Amy Toensing, National Geographic
On a drying lake bed in Victoria, a farmer in 2007 alerted scientists to a major find: well-preserved tracks of a Diprotodon. The slow-moving behemoth had been crossing a volcanic plain 100,000 years ago, when megafauna still walked tall.
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Pagoda Forest, China
Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann, National Geographic
"Gained merit in battle" reads the epitaph of two of the 231 eminent Shaolin monks honored with shrines in the Pagoda Forest. The number of layers in a shrine reflects a monk's virtue; his bones, and often those of disciples, are buried below.
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Bristol Bay, Alaska
Photograph by Michael Melford, National Geographic
"We love our fish!" says Ina Bouker, a Yupik native and teacher from Dillingham who opposes the mine. "The salmon always run. But if their habitat is destroyed, they will not come back."