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Other groups are also trying to bring different animals back from extinction through breeding. In South Africa, scientists are attempting to recreate the quagga, an extinct subspecies of the zebra, and in the U.S., breeders are trying to bring back a giant Galápagos tortoise that was killed off in the 1800s - a process that could take close to a century. (See "Dinosaur-Era Crocodiles Found in Sahara...
...sleek surfboards. One is 9 ft. 8 in. and curved like a bow. More maneuverable, it will let him slash his turns across the face of the monstrous 40 ft. waves that he and 23 other top big-wave riders will confront on Saturday, Feb. 13. But if the giant waves "wall out" - imagine free-falling down the glassy side of a four-story building that suddenly explodes - then Banner reckons that a longer, straighter surfboard might give him a chance to outrace his destruction...
Preparing for the waves, Banner tries to center himself, to push aside thoughts that a giant wave could grind him against the spiky reef that a surfer described to me as being "like an underwater Manhattan, with all its skyscrapers." Says Banner: "Being mentally prepared is not having that stuff mess with you." He adds, "You need to feel lots of air in your body, light." He will wait on his choice of surfboard until the morning of the contest, when he sees the size and direction of the massive Pacific swells calved from a storm off northern Japan...
Surfers speak of Mavericks with awe and dread. The surf break was discovered in the 1970s, when a few intrepid teenage surfers from Half Moon Bay, led by Jeff Clark, thought it might be possible to ride the giant waves without ending up on the rocks. They survived. "It isn't like Hawaii, where you just ride it straight down to the foam. At Mavericks, you have a long ride - over a minute - and you find yourself dancing with the massive power of nature," says Clark, now 52. For years, Clark tried to spread the word that Mavericks existed...
...eerie fields of pumpkins. Advertisers figured out swiftly that nothing sells better to the youth market than the heroic (and rebellious) image of a lone surfer eluding an awful pounding by nature at her nastiest. This year's contest is sponsored by, among others, a whiskey distiller, a telecommunications giant and a private-equity fund - enterprises that, on the surface, have little to do with either water or sports. Clark has since broken with the contest organizers, explaining to TIME, "I don't want to lose the whole reason why we surf. It's not for the paycheck...