“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)

Xie Guobiao (C), 11, tied to a pillar with a rope, cries as his grandmother (L) and younger sister look on at his home in Daohui village of Lishui, Zhejiang province May 7, 2014. Xie was diagnosed as mentally handicapped when he was young, but the family was not able to provide him with sufficient medical treatment because of poverty. At the age of six, Xie started to sneak out of his home when others were not looking, climbing on top of houses and smashing windows. Xie's family had to pay over 10,000 yuan ($1,606) in compensation to others for the damage he caused. Since then, the family has had to tie Xie up with a rope both at home and in public, they said. (Photo by William Hong/Reuters)

Workers prepare Koshary, a popular Egyptian dish, in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the world's biggest plate of Koshary, at a general garden in Zamalek, Cairo, January 17, 2015. Koshary is a traditional Egyptian dish dating to the 19th century in which rice, pasta and lentils are mixed together in one plate with a topping of spicey tomato sauce and some crispy fried onions. With a huge plate of koshary measuring 10 metres long and in width and of 1.2 metres in height, the plate weighed 7 tonnes, or about 7,000 kg. About 6,000 attendees turned up to the festival, earning it a place in the world record books. (Photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)

A dog walks past a handmade replica of Lamborghini Diablo outside a garage rented by Wang Yu and Li Lintao on the outskirts of Beijing, August 21, 2014. Chinese race car enthusiasts Wang Yu and Li Lintao, both in their 30s, have finished designing and making two replicas of the Lamborghini Diablo, which can reach the top speed of 310km/h, and are currently working on a replica of the T-Rex motorcycle. They spent approximately 5 million yuan (around USD 811,899) to buy parts and hire workers, and about 6 years to assemble them with the knowledge they gained from studying mechanology for nearly a decade abroad. Wang and Li went popular after showing their first handmade replica of Lamborghini Diablo at the Beijing International Automobile Exhibition in 2012, and sold their second Lamborghini replica to Alibaba as a collection. (Photo by Petar Kujundzic/Reuters)

These are the amazing panoramic photographs that look like little planets. They were taken by photographer Dan Arkle, 34, from Sheffield, UK. He said: “On a sharp summit, you feel literally on top of the world, with dramatic views in all directions, including straight down. I tried using conventional photography to capture this feeling, but even with a wide angle lens I couldnt get all the view in the image”. Here: “Taken at the tiny summit of Cima Piccola in the the Tre Cima group in the Dolomites, Italy. The large peak is Cima Grande Some remote peaks have a summit register, and my climbing partner Steve can be seen signing this in the bottom of the picture”. (“Little Planets” Project. Photo and comment by Dan Arkle)

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is seen in an aerial view on February 20, 2014 in the Mojave Desert in California near Primm, Nevada. The largest solar thermal power-tower system in the world, owned by NRG Energy, Google and BrightSource Energy, opened last week in the Ivanpah Dry Lake and uses 347,000 computer-controlled mirrors to focus sunlight onto boilers on top of three 459-foot towers, where water is heated to produce steam to power turbines providing power to more than 140,000 California homes. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Construction continues on One World Trade Center (TALLEST BUILDING AT LOWER LEFT) as the memorial footprints of the twin towers are seen (BOTTOM C) on August 12, 2011 in New York City. Upon completion, One World Trade Center will be New York's tallest skyscraper, topping out at a symbolic 1,776 feet, with 3 million square feet of office space. More than 2,700 people were killed when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked U.S. passenger jets and flew them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Nearly ten years after the crippling attacks on Lower Manhattan, business, tourism and new construction like One World Trade Center have rejuvenated the formerly devastated cityscape.(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A sign advising to pray for rain hangs above an exhibit area at the 47th Annual World Ag Expo in Tulare, February 12, 2014. About a hundred years ago, when urban water systems were being developed throughout the state, the city of Sacramento wrote protections from metering into its charter, vowing that residents would always have the right to use as much water as they needed. But on Tuesday, the state's top water regulators released a framework for enforcing California's first statewide mandatory restrictions on urban water use – cuts of 25 percent for non-agricultural users ordered last week by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown as a devastating drought enters its fourth year. (Photo by David McNew/Reuters)