In the age of Instagram, a good holiday is often measured by the quality of its photos. A study from the University of Georgia shows that social media appeal plays a powerful role in holiday destination decisions, and that the anticipation of online attention can predict where people will want to go.

Meitu started off as a photo-editing app to create the perfect selfie, but has since evolved to let users to make themselves (and others) look wackily, disarmingly adorable. With social media fuelling an obsession for aesthetic perfection, what’s got people altering their appearance to the extreme?

Mascots have long been used to front brands in Japan, but Gudetama – a lazy anthropomorphic egg – is a far cry from the cutesy characters typically seen. It now appears on around 1,700 items, boasting its own Twitter feed and pop-up cafés, but how has it won the hearts of people nationwide?

The bilby is an endangered but beloved Australian marsupial, and it's moving to dethrone the rabbit as Easter’s mascot Down Under. As Australia shifts towards secularism, religious traditions are being repurposed to suit contemporary values, like the fight to keep the bilby from extinction.