A little girl takes a picture of a lion in the zoo in Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday, September 13, 2016. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

American reality show contestant Courtney Stodden is caught kissing a mystery woman on the beach in Santa Monica, CA on September 16, 2016. Courtney and the mystery brunette couldn't keep their hands of each other and didn't seem to care who saw their antics as they frolicked on the sand. (Photo by Canham/Splash News)

Local men help a wounded woman after a mortar attack by the Ukrainian army of the center of Donetsk, Ukraine, 14 August 2014. Reports state that ten local people where wounded and one killed after the mortar attack. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA)

“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 stunning photographic collection featuring portraits of people from 30 countries and the food they eat in one day. In this fascinating study of people and their diets, 80 profiles are organized by the total number of calories each person puts away in a day. Featuring a Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater, and more, these compulsively readable personal stories also include demographic particulars, including age, activity level, height, and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan, and others discuss the implications of our modern diets for our health and for the planet. This compelling blend of photography and investigative reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.

Steamed Chinese-style buns, known locally as salapao, are decorated with faces during the start of the annual 10-day vegetarian festival in Bang Saphan, southern Thailand on October 13, 2015. (Photo by Matthew Richards/Courtesy Image)

A boy crawls under a cow during a religious ceremony celebrating the Tihar festival, also called Diwali, in Kathmandu, October 23, 2014. Hindus all over Nepal are celebrating the festival during which they worship cows, which are considered a maternal figure, and other animals. Also known as the festival of lights, devotees worship the goddess of wealth Laxmi by illuminating and decorating their homes using garlands, oil lamps, candles and colourful light bulbs. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

People look at home-made armoured vehicle look-alikes on a street in Shenyang, Liaoning province, November 12, 2014. A man surnamed Zhang and his friends converted two cars into these two vehicles, for his son, and will be displaying them on show at a local park. The cannons on the vehicles can fire paintballs and smoke shells, local media cited Zhang as saying. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)