A captive elephant is made to swim for visitors at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand on September 15, 2024. (Photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP 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)

Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilizations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing. Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery. While no recent national statistics on sterilizations are available, doctors and health workers say demand for the procedure is growing. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

A wildlife ranger strokes a northern white rhino, only three of its kind left in the world, ahead of the Giant Club Summit of African leaders and others on tackling poaching of elephants and rhinos, Ol Pejeta conservancy near the town of Nanyuki, Laikipia County, Kenya, April 28, 2016. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

Due to the influence of Sci-Fi movies, many of us have an obsession with giant robots. How cool would it be to ride a gigantic robotic dinosaur or elephant? It would be even cooler to control one! Regretfully, the modern technologies are not yet sophisticated enough to fulfill this dream. Pierre Orefice and François Delarozière, however, came very close. These two artists have made it their goal to turn Nantes, France, into a hot tourist destination spot for people who love robots. In their project of Machines de l'île in Nantes, they have created a whole park of robotic monstrosities, ranging from a giant 3 story high elephant to a 2 meter long centipede crawling on a rail track.

Maja, a 40-year-old elephant, extends her trunk into a bakery as a customer buys a newspaper while Maja took a stroll through the neighborhood with her minders from a nearby circus on July 1, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Cows belonging to Samburu tribesmen walk around the carcass of an elephant killed by armed cattle herders in Mugui Conservancy, Kenya February 11, 2017. Kenya has declared the ongoing drought affecting many parts of the country a national disaster, calling for aid to counter the situation which is posing a major risk to people, livestock and wildlife. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

An artist gets ready backstage to perform an Indian art form of dance called “Ottamthullal” at the annual eight-day long Vrischikolsavam festival, which features a colourful procession of decorated elephants along with drum and trumpets concerts, at Sree Poornathrayeesa temple in Kochi, India, December 7, 2018. (Photo by Sivaram V/Reuters)