People wearing costumes attend the annual water-splashing festival to mark the New Year of the Dai minority in Jinghong, Yunnan province, April 13, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

“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)

Lazar and his sister Andjelka sit by a candle in their home in the eastern Serbian town of Majdanpek, December 4, 2014. Electricity workers in Serbia struggled through snow, ice and treacherous terrain on Thursday to restore electricity to an eastern town left shivering without power, heating or running water for a fourth day. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station experiences months of darkness. The sun dips below the horizon on March 21, after which follows several weeks of twilight before complete darkness results. Photo taken on June 25, 2009. (National Science Foundation/Jeremy Johnson)

Dave Woods, 47, waits on an overpass in support for trucks driving in a convoy bound for the nation's capital to protest against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine mandates, in Wabash Township, Illinois, U.S. March 1, 2022. (Photo by Cheney Orr/Reuters)

A mannequin depicting Superman is placed upside down next to the door of the parliament session hall hosting a no confidence vote agains Romanian Prime Minister Florin Citu's government in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday, October 5, 2021. Romania's government fell after 281 lawmakers of the 234 required voted in favor of the no-confidence vote. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

A Maasai woman arrives with collected firewoods at a village nearby Selenkay Conservancy, a community-owned conservation area running by a private company, in Amboseli, Kenya, on June 22, 2022. The camp's ten luxurious tents see tourists flocking again, after the shutdown linked to Covid-19. They observe in small groups elephants, giraffes, antelopes or lions on 5,000 hectares, located on the edge of Amboseli National Park, in the south of the country, and have a glimpse of the life of the Masai, the owners of the land. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

A man arrested for protesting over human rights abuses makes a court appearance in leg irons at the magistrates courts in Harare, Monday, September 14, 2020. Human rights defenders say it appears the government is using restrictions imposed to combat COVID-19 to suppress political criticism. Opposition officials, human rights groups and some analysts accuse Mnangagwa of abusing the rights of critics, using tactics as harsh as his predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe. (Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP Photo)