Hwang Bo-young (L), a North Korean defector who was a member of the North Korean National female ice hockey team, prepares for practice with South Korean teammates on March 13, 2006 in Seoul, South Korea. Young, 27-years-old, became a captain of the South Korean National Female Ice Hockey Team. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Amphibious assault vehicles of the South Korean Marine Corps throw smoke bombs as they move to land on shore during a U.S.-South Korea joint landing operation drill in Pohang March 31, 2014. The drill is part of the two countries' annual military training called Foal Eagle, which began on February 24 and runs until April 18. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

Live octopus is a delicacy in South Korea but is a known choking hazard, since the still-moving suction cups can cause tentacle pieces to stick in a person's throat. A baby octopus is often consumed whole, while larger varieties are cut up and the still-wriggling tentacles eaten with a splash of sesame oil. Photo: A South Korean man and a woman eat a live octopus during an event to promote a local food festival in Seoul on September 12, 2013. (Photo by Jung Yeon-Je/AFP Photo)

Deftly he finished with a birdie that they fly so low?

Chantel Sydnor participates in the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, August 4, 2015. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the rally expected to draw hundreds of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts from around the world for events throughout the week-long festival, according to organizers. (Photo by Kristina Barker/Reuters)

Conservation staff members move the eight-years-old White Rhino Seha into a truck in Johannesburg, South Africa, 28 July 2017. Seha is the only survivor after five rhinos where poached on the same game farm. South Africa has the world's largest population of Rhinos in the world. (Photo by Kim Ludbrook/EPA/EFE)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

On July 7, Chinese archaeologists from the Academy of Social Sciences announced that they have reconstituted a 5,300-year-old Mongolion pottery statue found at a relic site in North China, according to Xinhua news agency.