Team Spain performs during the finalsduring the Singapore 2025 World Aquatics Championships at World Aquatics Championships Arena on July 20, 2025 in Singapore. (Photo by Hollie Adams/Reuters)

A dog attends the Annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade in New York City, U.S., October 19, 2025. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

Kelsea Ballerini performs at the 59th Annual Country Music Association Awards in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., November 19, 2025. (Photo by Seth Herald/Reuters)

Thai Buddhist monks wear face shields to protect themselves from new coronavirus as they walk to collect alms from devotees in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. (Photo by Sakchai Lalit/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 cosplayer dressed as Domino attends 2019 Comic-Con International on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Quinn P. Smith/Getty Images)

The Northern Lights glow green in a spectacular light show above a field of trees frozen solid with snow. (Photo by Jaak Sarv/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A dead body is seen on the ground after violence erupted in the Independence Square in Kiev February 20, 2014. Ukrainian protesters seized back Kiev's Independence Square in fresh clashes with riot police on Thursday that left several injured and possibly two demonstrators dead. (Photo by David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters)