Natsumi Hayashi is a Japanese artist known for her fixation with levitating. Two years, ago, the photographer began posting portraits online of herself floating in mid-air. The magical project – titled “Today's Levitation” – is the subject of a playful survey of her year-long obsession with flying.

“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)

The original first mechatronic E.T. character from Steven Spielberg's 1982 film “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial” on display at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, California on December 12, 2022, ahead of the “Julien's Auctions and TCM Present: Icons & Idols: Hollywood”. The auction will take place in-person and online on December 17 and 18. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP Photo)

Egyptian 26-year-old dancer Nadine El Gharib, dances on the rooftop of her home in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, September 27, 2021. “Dance was crucial when COVID-19 started in terms of taking care of my well-being”, Gharib said. “When restrictions forced us to stop going to the Opera for classes I started online dance and it introduced me to a new world of dance. It was very inspiring”. (Photo by Nariman El-Mofty/AP Photo)

A woman kneels down to pray at a “Pray and swipe right” event organised by online dating app Tinder, with social-distancing stickers featuring its flame logo on the praying ground, a photo booth where people can take profile pictures for their new accounts, and free offering sets, at the Trimuriti shrine on Valentine's Day in Bangkok, Thailand February 14, 2022. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Bloodthirsty by Thomas P. Peschak, Germany/South Africa — winner, Behaviour: birds. When rations run short on Wolf Island, in the remote northern Galápagos, the sharp-beaked ground finches become vampires. Their sitting targets are Nazca boobies and other large birds. The finches rely on a scant diet of seeds and insects, which regularly dries up, so they drink blood to survive. ‘I’ve seen more than half a dozen finches drinking from a single Nazca booby,’ says Tom. Rather than leave their nests the boobies tolerate the vampires, and the blood loss doesn’t seem to cause permanent harm. (Photo by Thomas P. Peschak/2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Vivi Mac, an amazing artist from France who can use virtually any kind of food to create detailed celebrity portraits. Although she has yet to display her ephemeral masterpieces in an proper art gallery, Vivi Mac has already made a name for herself online.

Demonstrators take part in a mass “face-sitting protest” outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on December 12, 2014, as they protest against changes to p*rnography regulations. An amendment to the 2003 Communities Act applies the same strict rules to p*rn bought online as those included in the guidelines set out by the British Board of Film Censors for DVDs. The new laws ban films that feature s*x acts, such as spanking, caning, strangulation, aggressive whipping, humiliation, and face-sitting. Ministers say the rules have been brought in to protect s*x workers. But campaigners say it is an attempt to censor and control the internet. Paid-for videos shot overseas and viewed online in the UK are not affected by the new rules, which were introduced on December 2, 2014. (Photo by Leon Neal/AFP Photo)