We feature many award winners in this section but our absolute favourite is the prize for the wildlife photographer of the year. The winners haven’t been announced yet but here is one of the powerful (and sad) entries. This photo captures the dying moments of distress of an elephant hit by a train in Gabon:

Despite the park director’s efforts to get the train company to reduce train speeds, there are still regular wildlife-train collisions in Lopé National Park, including up to 20 incidents with elephants each year. The trains transport manganese from the Moanda Mine, which holds 25% of known reserves. Manganese is a metal used in iron and steel production. 

Sorry, we totally cheated on this sanity break—but we thought this one is important. The Guardian and National History Museum have more entries.