A Kevo smart lock is demonstrated during the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada January 4, 2015. The lock, which opens with a smart phone App and a touch, is smart enough to know what side of the door you are on and won't accidentally unlock the door when you are inside. A new subscription service offers unlimited e-keys and other benefits, a representative said. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Reuters)

Seehund “Bruno” looks out of his transport box before making his way to the water on the beach of the island of Juist, Germany on August 14, 2013. Four young seals were released after six weeks of recovery at a rescue station in Norden-Norddeich. (Photo by Carmen Jaspersen/AFP Photo/DPA)

“The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) has released the largest-ever three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes, which will help astronomers explain the mysterious “dark matter” and “dark energy” that scientists know makes up 96 percent of the Universe”. – SDSS-III

In this Tuesday, February 28, 2017 photo, 3-month-old Junior Alexis Patino, son of FARC rebel Deisy Garcia, sleeps next to his mother's weapon at a rebel camp in a demobilization zone in La Carmelita, in Colombia's southwestern Putumayo state. Amid the makeshift tents and communal kitchens where Colombia's largest rebel army is preparing to lay down its weapons, a new sound is emerging: the cries of babies. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

An Indian Sikh Nihang, or warrior, performs Gatka martial arts skills during a procession at the Golden Temple in Amritsar on January 6, 2014, as part of birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Gobind Singh. The birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh guru, is marked on January 6. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

Nine year old girl Barsati reacts while walking on a tightrope in Mumbai on February 11, 2014. Barsati, and her younger brother Rajababu, (4) earn an average of around 2000 rupees (32 dollars) per day from pedestrians and tourists performing various acts on the tightrope near the city's iconic landmark Gateway of India. (Photo by Indranil Mukherjee/AFP Photo)

People walk by a car destroyed by a tree which fell during a storm and strong winds, in Limoges, on May 21, 2014. High winds upto 120 km/h and storms have caused at least one death and cut off some 42 000 homes from electricity today in the Midi-Pyrenees region of France. (Photo by Pascal Lachenaud/AFP Photo)