A mechanic examines a Gogoro Smartscooter which is connected to a tablet, in its shop in Taipei, Taiwan, July 6, 2015. Companies such as electric motor scooter firm Gogoro could hold the key to Taiwan's economic growth. In just three years, the start-up raised $150 million to develop the smartphone-synched bike, and a charging network for it. Gogoro's success in creating a home-grown, innovative product is precisely what Taiwan's government wants to foster as it seeks to reduce the export-driven economy's reliance on the island's world-class tech manufacturing sector. (Photo by Pichi Chuang/Reuters)

Actors reenact the famous picture of a sailor kissing a nurse on the 70th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day, near a replica sculpture in New York's Times Square August 14, 2015. The replica is being displayed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the iconic photograph of the most famous kiss in American history that was captured between an American sailor and nurse on August 14, 1945, marking the end of World War Two. The actors are hired by a tour bus company to pose for groups to photograph. (Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Online hostess Xianggong (L) and other hostesses check their pictures as they gather around the photographer while taking part in a football-themed photoshoot at a photography studio in Beijing March 4, 2015. In China's online hostessing world, men find virtual company and the women can find riches. Xianggong is one of more than 10,000 hostesses on the internet site bobo.com, a live broadcasting web platform where anyone can record themselves singing, playing piano, dancing or just chatting. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

At this year’s Venice Bienniale in Italy, the Korean pavilion has a curious exhibit called “Commissions for Utopia”. It includes renderings from North Korea’s top architects and artists (all anonymous), many of whom studied at the Paekho Institute of Architecture, North Korea’s state-run architectural college, and none of whom have ever left the country. They were asked to create a vision of North Korea’s future sustainable architecture for its expanding tourism industry. Their final products are a glimpse into what it would be like to envision the future after being entirely cut off from the present for almost 70 years. (Photo by Nick Bonner/Kyle Vanhemert/Venice Architecture Biennale)

“1955 was a year of change for Marilyn Monroe. After leaving Hollywood for New York, and abandoning her contract with Twentieth Century Fox, Marilyn was no longer “just a dumb blonde”, but a true renegade. In January, Marilyn formed a production company with photographer Milton Greene, and moved into a suite at the Ambassador Hotel”...

Photo: American actress Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) leans over the balcony of the Ambassador Hotel in March 1955 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Ed Feingersh/Michael Ochs Archives)

In this Friday, February 6, 2015 photo, sandhill cranes begin to stir after resting for the night at a roosting location along their winter migration route in Cecilia, Ky. According to counts made by biologists with the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Resources, about 12,000 of the birds have stopped in Cecilia this week during their winter northward migration on their way to their nesting grounds in the Great Lakes region. (Photo by David Stephenson/AP Photo)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

A cat sits in front of a retro car owned by retired mechanic Mikhail Krasinets at an open-air museum of Soviet-era vehicles in the village of Chernousovo, Tula region, Russia on September 27, 2018. In the remote village of Chernousovo, retired mechanic Mikhail Krasinets tends to more than 300 ramshackle, Soviet-era cars, remnants of a once vibrant auto industry that crumbled with the fall of the Soviet Union. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)