Annabelle Robertson

Honolulu, Hawaii
This island capital earned top marks for the natural beauty of its beaches, volcanoes, and hiking trails. But travelers also praised its shopping and Native Hawaiian traditions.

Shop for flowers before dawn.
Bangkok is one of the most colorful cities in the world, and the vibrant flower market of Pak Khlong Talat makes this evident. Browse stalls full of marigolds, orchids, roses, and more for a brilliant kaleidoscope of colors and the sweet, enveloping scent of thousands of fresh blooms.

Union, New York
Union, which dates back to Revolutionary times, is located in Broome County, in south-central New York, near the Pennsylvania border. The village of Endicott is the birthplace of IBM and the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company, once the world’s largest shoe manufacturer.

O2 Lounge at The Ritz-Carlton, Moscow
Get one of the best views of Moscow at this rooftop lounge and bar. The O2 Lounge overlooks the capital's Red Square with direct views of the Kremlin. And best of all, a glass enclosure ensures that visitors can still have access to the rooftop's views without having to endure the harsh Moscow winter.

White Beach, Boracay, Philippines
Located on the small island of Boracay in the Philippines, the aptly named White Beach is a picture-perfect oasis lined with palm trees, bars, hotels, and more.

“One species that would be incredibly problematic is polar bears. They live in a highly specialised environment, and need to learn the skills to survive in that environment from their mothers. Learning those skills in a pre-release context would be next to impossible,” says Dr Draper. “But other kinds of bears seem to be reasonably successful when released back to the wild. But it depends so much on the individual animal: the age it was captured, whether it was bred in captivity, its experiences in captivity, any kinds of trauma, health, early nutrition. There is just no magic recipe.”

“Emperor Penguins are very dependent on the sea ice and everything that can change the stability and the cycle of the sea ice is a potential threat,” says Dan Zitterbart, of the Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who has studied the species for years. Climate change is one cause, or changes in local oceanographic conditions and the locations of iceberg. For example, if an iceberg is blocking the way to Atka Bay, the penguins struggle to find somewhere to breed.

Do we find pudgy meerkat kittens so appealing because they look like human babies? Very probably. Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz, in 1949, theorised that a large head, round face, podgy body and big eyes are associated in our minds with an infant human baby and triggers care-taking behaviour in us. This ‘Kindchenschema', or baby schema, serves a vital function; we have to fall in love with our babies to ensure their survival. We talk about “melting," “going gooey” or wanting to “eat up” babies and baby animals, which is our attempt to articulate the huge dopamine rush we are programmed to get from the Kindchenschema.

Buildings have also taken inspiration from the natural world. A visually arresting example is the Esplanade building,10 on the shore of Marina Bay in Singapore, which resembles the durian fruit. This was their solution to the conundrum of how to create a glass frontage that allowed a perfect view of the city without making the interior uncomfortable in the hot, humid climate. The ridges on the dome of the building are pyramid-shaped, with each side being a shield that opens or closes depending on the position of the sun, to ensure the interior is always kept cool. And importantly, it doesn't obscure the view!

The female photoris fireflies are the femme fatales of the insect world, luring in male fireflies to murder and eat them.

For fireflies, luminescent flashing (the result of a chemical reaction in fireflies bodies that allows them to light up) is the language of love.8 Chemical ecologists at Cornell discovered that female photuris fireflies mimic the mating flashes of the female Photinus fireflies.9

They do this to attract an unsuspecting male photinus firefly. He draws closer expecting courtship, but instead ends up being eaten. Why? Because by eating the Photinus firefly, the Photoris firefly acquires his toxins, called lucibufagins. Without lucibufagins, Photuris fireflies are eaten by spiders. But with lucibufagins, hungry spiders reject them.

The researchers learnt that there was one particular combination that prompted birds to scan for a predator and then also to approach and harass it. Like human syntax, this combination only worked if the tits’ calls were uttered in a particular order.

"Syntax was considered to have uniquely evolved in humans, but our study demonstrates that it has evolved in a wild bird, too. I think many basic features of language capacity are shared between humans and non-human animals, including birds," says Suzuki. According to Wheatcroft, songbirds such as the Japanese tit may even provide a new model for studying the evolution of syntax.

Scientifically, there’s little to distinguish a frog from a toad, but we tend to think of toads as more terrestrial with drier skin. Toads feed on small insects so beyond a flexible tongue, they don’t have much of a predatory arsenal. Yet, when it comes to self-defence some species really pack a punch. The potency of toads is known to both traditional and modern medicine. In China, toad skin or ‘venom’ is revered for a range of properties, from anaesthetic to aphrodisiac. Many toads defend themselves by secreting toxins through their skin and specialised glands, but the cane toads (Rhinella marina) native to South and Central America (that have become invasive pests in many other locations) are particularly well known for their Bufotoxin. This milky substance is powerful enough to kill animals as big as a dog and make a human severely ill if ingested.