This Monday, September 15, 2014 photo shows glazed bricks displayed at the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad. The Islamic State militants seek to purge society of all influences that don't conform with their strict, puritanical version of Islam. That means destroying not only relics seen as pagan but also Muslim sites they see as contradicting their ideology, particularly Sunni Muslim shrines they see as idolatrous as well as mosques used by Shiites, a branch of Islam they consider heretical. (Photo by Hadi Mizban/AP Photo)

An employee feeds a one-week-old coati cub with a bottle of milk at the Royev Ruchey zoo in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, October 10, 2014. The mother of three cubs refused to nurse them, according to zoo employees. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

People watch on from Marks Park as a thunderstorm gathers off Bondi Beach on November 13, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a number of severe weather alerts for the region today, with a high risk of thunderstorms and hail. (Photo by Brook Mitchell/Getty Images)

Giant panda Meng Meng plays on a tree at a Siberian tiger-breeding base in Changchun, China on December 10, 2015. (Photo by Xu Chang/Xinhua Press/Corbis)

“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)

Battersea Power Station. The chimney rims are thinner on top than you might expect. (Photo by Bradley L. Garrett)

Activists stage a protest outside the Louvre pyramid, calling the museum to cancel its contracts with French oil giant Total and Italian oil company Eni, in Paris, France, December 9, 2015, as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues at Le Bourget near the French capital. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

People enjoy the beach as they look at a forest fire in La Croix-Valmer, near Saint-Tropez, on July 25, 2017. Firefighters battle blazes that have consumed swathes of land in southeastern France for a second day, with one inferno out of control near the chic resort of Saint-Tropez, emergency services say. (Photo by Valery Hache/AFP Photo)