This close-up image – of a Holi Festival celebrant in Vrindivan, India, coated in neon-colored powder – was submitted to National Geographic’s Your Shot in the last week of March. On April 1 we published it on our Daily News site, along with seven other bright scenes captured during the Hindu spring Festival of Colors. (Photo by Tinto Alencherry/National Geographic)

Wedges of an orange generate enough current and electrical juice – 3.5 volts – to power an LED. The fruit’s citric acid helps electrons flow from galvanized nails to copper wire in this 14-hour exposure. This image was published in September’s Visions of Earth, a trio of photos that appear in each issue of National Geographic. (Photo by Caleb Charland/National Geographic)

Inside the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia’s Danakil desert, camel caravans are used to carry salt. For centuries, the essential mineral has been mined by the Afar people, known for their ability to withstand extremes. The terrain is rugged, travelers are scarce and so are motor vehicles, where the average annual temperature is the highest in the world, and can rise to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, 50 degrees Celsius. (Photo by Ziv Koren/Polaris)

“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 Colombian anti-narcotics policeman stands guard after burning a cocaine lab, which police said belongs to criminal gangs, in a rural area of Calamar in Guaviare state, Colombia, August 2, 2016. Colombian law enforcement has destroyed 104 cocaine laboratories capable of producing some 100 tonnes of the drug annually, the head of the anti-narcotics police said on Tuesday. (Photo by John Vizcaino/Reuters)

A tourist take a photograph of a sulphur lake in the Danakil Depression on January 23, 2017 near Dallol, Ethiopia. The depression lies 100 metres below sea level and is one of the hottest and most inhospitable places on Earth. Despite the gruelling conditions, Ethiopians continue a centuries old industry of mining salt from the ground by hand in temperatures that average 34.5 degrees centigrade but have risen to over 50 degrees. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Models pose backstage ahead of the Review of Australian Fashion Week show as part of Mercedes Benz Fashion Festival Sydney 2011 at Sydney Town Hall on August 24, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

An aerial view of Lake Salt as teams conduct salt extraction works at lake which is a significant portion of Turkiye's salt need is met in Ankara, Turkiye on August 11, 2022. Salt extraction works lasts for about 3 months and continues with the recession of the waters in Lake Salt. The salt extracted from the lake, where salt is produced with a purity of 99 percent, is sent to more than 60 countries. (Photo by Emin Sansar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)