Nic Lamb rides a wave during the third heat of the first round of the Mavericks Invitational big wave surf contest Friday, January 24, 2014, in Half Moon Bay, Calif. (Photo by Eric Risberg/AP Photo)

Krastsvetmet, located beside the beautiful Yensei river in the metropolis of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, is a refinery of all types of precious metals on an industrial scale.

A woman holds an iguana perched on her head at a gathering of a reptile club during a car-free day in central Jakarta, Indonesia February 5, 2017. (Photo by Darren Whiteside/Reuters)

A woman dressed as an angel takes a break from greeting children at a public library in Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on December 23, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya Savilov/AFP Photo)

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire caught on a passenger train, ahead of the general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on January 5, 2024. (Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

Water way to go. These incredible images show the moment two brave adventurers decided to body board down Europes longest glacier. Seen carving their way through the icy rivers of the Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland, the pair are seen risking their lives for an adrenalin rush of a whole new kind. Pictured mounted on their body boards as part of a sport known as hydrospeeding, the daredevils risked being carried away by strong currents and even drowning in hidden crevices to complete the winding seven mile journey. But if that wasnt dangerous enough, the duo also ran the risk of being overwhelmed by collapsing glacial lakes that could be released into the river at any moment. (Photo by David Carlier/Caters News)

“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)

In 2002 photographer Corey Arnold left behind a poor economy in San Francisco and headed up to Alaska to try his luck at his longtime passion of fishing. Arnold, who had worked summers during college on a salmon boat in Alaska, signed onto the f/v Rollo, a crabbing boat that fishes in the dangerous Bering Sea. While working long, strenuous hours on the Rollo, Arnold often stole away with the captain’s permission to grab his camera and photograph the crew and the ship. Arnold eventually put together “Fish Work: Bering Sea”, a documentation of his seven adventurous and dicey crab seasons aboard the Rollo. (Photo by Corey Arnold)