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September 2008

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Features

Yellow and blueback fusiliers

Victory at Sea

The world's largest protected area, established this year in the remote Pacific, points the way to restoring marine ecosystems

Fish in Key West

Our Imperiled Oceans: Seeing Is Believing

Photographs and other historical records testify to the former abundance of the sea

Lincoln-Douglas debate

Face the Nation

Abraham Lincoln's debates with Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate in 1858 turned the backwoods rail-splitter into presidential timber

Tillya Tepe Crown

Lost & Found

Ancient gold artifacts from Afghanistan, hidden for more than a decade, dazzle in a new exhibition

Photobooth photo

Four for a Quarter

Photographer Nakki Goranin shows how the once ubiquitous photobooth captured the many faces of 20th-century America

Macau skyline

Macau Hits the Jackpot

In just four years, this 11-square-mile outpost on the coast of China eclipsed Las Vegas as gambling's world capital

Departments

Indelible Images

Day of the Iguanas

On a morning in a Oaxacan market, photographer Graciela Iturbide made one of the most enduring images of Zapotec life

My Kind of Town

Northwest Passage

He arrived unsure of what to expect—but the prolific author quickly embraced Seattle's energizing diversity

Digs

Washington's Boyhood Home

Archaeologists have finally pinpointed the Virginia house where our first president came of age

Presence of Mind

Clan-Do Spirit

A genealogical surprise led the author to ask: What does it take to be one of the family?

From the Editor

Newcomers

Two new key additions to our staff

Letters to the Editor

Letters

Readers Respond to the July Issue

Wild Things

Wild Things

Life As We Know It

This Month in History

September Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

From the Castle

Deep Science

Around the Mall

Spirit of the Sea

Tlingit artisans craft a canoe that embodies their culture's oceangoing past

Around the Mall

Jukebox

Moment of Discovery

The Object at Hand

True to Form

An exact replica represents a particular North Atlantic whale

Q&A

Nancy Knowlton

The renowned coral reef biologist leads Smithsonian's effort to foster a greater public understanding of the world's oceans

Around the Mall

Most Likely To

A quick guide to the standouts of the National Museum of Natural History's "Ocean Hall Class of 2008"

What's Up

What's Up

The Last Page

The Bugs Who Flew Too Much

This invasion would have driven even Alfred Hitchcock psycho