Imagine a film about a chimpanzee extracting termites from their nest, or photographs of exotic birds in a Brazilian rainforest, or even a map of the trails at the base of Mt. Everest. Photographs and films produced by the National Geographic Society are so well-known that picturing such scenes from nature isn't that difficult for most people, be they armchair explorers, amateur anthropologists or just the casual reader curious about unknown and little-traveled parts of the world.