A group of young men use a selfie stick to take a picture of themselves in shallow waters known as the first cataract of the River Nile outside Khartoum, Sudan, in this May 22, 2015 file photo. 
 
 A man sits on a railing to take a 'selfie' picture, overlooking the partially frozen Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois, in this January 5, 2015 file photo. 
 
 A man takes a selfie by a crashing wave on Beirut's Corniche, a seaside promenade, as high winds sweep through Lebanon during a storm in this February 11, 2015 file photo. 
 
 SYDNEY The rise of selfie photography in some of the world's most beautiful, and dangerous, places is sparking a range of interventions aimed at combating risk-taking that has resulted in a string of gruesome deaths worldwide. 
 
 The act of taking a picture of oneself with a mobile phone, placing the subject center-stage, has exploded in popularity in recent years, with everyone from Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to U.S. President Barack Obama joining in. 
 
 But the selfie has also inspired a spate of risk taking and offensive public behavior, pushing the boundaries of safety and decorum, whether by dangling from a skyscraper or posing with live explosives. 
 
 Several governments and regulatory bodies have now begun treating the selfie as a serious threat to public safety, leading them to launch public education campaigns reminiscent of those against smoking and binge drinking. 
 
 Dozens of grisly selfie-related deaths and injuries in early 2015 led Russia's Interior Ministry to launch a campaign warning avid mobile phone snappers about the danger of, among other things, posing for a selfie with a lion. 
 
 In June, two men in the Ural Mountains died after posing pulling the pin from a hand grenade; in May a woman survived shooting herself in the head in her Moscow office; a month later a 21-year-old university graduate plunged 40 feet (12 meters) to her death while posing hanging from a Moscow bridge. 
 
 "A cool selfie could cost you your life," reads a poster from the campaign, which includes safety videos and information booklets. 
 
 Despite Russia's diplomatic isolation over its support for separatist rebels in Ukraine, on the issue of dangerous selfies the Kremlin finds itself in accord with the European Union and the United States. 
 
 In Texas on Wednesday, a 19-year-old father of two died after shooting himself in the neck during a selfie. In Yellowstone National Park exasperated officials issued warnings after five separate selfie takers were gored this summer while standing too near bison. 
 
 The European Union in June proposed a law to criminalize social media posts containing pictures of landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Rome's Trevi Fountain. And in India this week officials said they were implementing a "no selfie zone" at the Hindu Kumbh Mela festival over fears they may cause stampedes. 
 
 ALL ABOUT ME 
 
 Yet despite the risks, selfies are more popular than ever, according to data from Google Trends. Searches for the term were up eight times in 2014 over the previous year, leading the Internet search giant to dub it "The Year of the Selfie". 
 
 Selfies tend to attract a type of person already more likely to push the boundaries of normal behavior, says Jesse Fox, an assistant professor of communications at Ohio State University. 
 
 Her research says people exhibiting the so-called Dark Triad of personality traits - narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy - are likely to pursue selfie glory regardless of who gets hurt in the process. 
 
 "It's all about me. It's putting me in the frame. I'm getting attention and when I post that to social media, I'm getting the confirmation that I need from other people that I'm awesome," Fox told Reuters. 
 
 "You don't care about the tourist attraction you're destroying; you don't care about annoying people in your social media feed ... you're not even thinking about the consequences of your actions, so who cares if you're dangling off the side of the Eiffel Tower?" 
 
 That has not stopped some countries trying to capitalize on the trend's popularity. 
 
 Tourism Australia this week launched a campaign promising an opportunity to take the "World's Largest Selfie", aimed at selfie-mad Japan. 
 
 They have installed several so-called GigaSelfie platforms in some of the country's most breathtaking environs from which, with an associated app, visitors can capture an ultra hi-resolution shot taken by a far away camera. 
 
 (Editing by Lincoln Feast and Robert Birsel) 

 Russian police have launched a campaign urging people to take safer selfies after about 100 were injured and dozens died this year in gruesome accidents while striking high-risk poses. 
 
 Tuesday’s warning comes after a 21-year-old woman in Moscow accidentally shot herself in the head in May while taking a selfie while holding a pistol. She suffered head injuries but survived. 
 
 That was just one in a string of recent selfie-related accidents. 
 
 "A cool selfie could cost you your life," the interior ministry warned in a new leaflet packed with tips such as "a selfie with a weapon kills". 
 
 In January, two young men blew themselves up in the Ural Mountains while taking a selfie holding a hand grenade with the pin pulled out. The mobile phone with the selfie survived as a record. 
 
 In May, a teenager in the Ryazan region died while attempting to take a selfie as he climbed on a railway bridge and accidentally came into contact with live wires. 
 
 "Unfortunately we have noted recently that the number of accidents caused by lovers of self-photography is constantly increasing," said Yelena Alexeyeva, an aide to the interior minister. 
 
 "Since the beginning of the year we are talking about some hundred cases of injuries for sure." 
 
 Selfies have also led to "dozens of deadly accidents," Alexeyeva added. 
 
 "The problem really exists and leads to very unfortunate consequences." 
 
 The new campaign includes leaflets, a video and online advice on the ministry's website. 
 
 "Before taking a selfie, everyone should think about the fact that racing after a high number of 'likes' could lead him on a journey to death and his last extreme photo could turn out to be posthumous," Alexeyeva warned. 

 Your selfie game might be strong, but you're ruining it for everyone else. 
 
 That's the case for some visitors to Waterton Canyon in Denver, Colorado, anyway. In fact, the overabundance of selfies with bears at the park has caused officials to shut it down for the foreseeable future. 
 
 See also: Visitors in Lake Tahoe are taking too many bear selfies 
 
 "The current situation is not conducive for the safety of our visitors or the well-being of the wildlife," Brandon Ransom, recreation manager for Denver Water (which manages Waterton Canyon's recreation area) wrote in a blog post earlier this month. 
 
 "We've actually seen people using selfie sticks to try and get as close to the bears as possible, sometimes within 10 feet of wild bears." 
 
 In the interest of safety, the park managers have closed the park until bear activity subsides. According to The Denver Channel, the closure first went into effect on Aug. 28 because two mother bears — each with twin cubs — along with other bears, were using the canyon to forage for food. However, with the abundant selfie-taking and apparent ignorance of safety measures, the closure has been extended until further notice. 
 
 "It is a poor choice from our perspective, A) to get that close to wildlife and B) to turn your back, particularly on bears," said Matt Robbins, a spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife told The Denver Channel. 
 
 #hellomrbear #bearselfie A photo posted by @jentwen on Jul 19, 2014 at 2:28pm PDT 
 
 Personal safety takes a backseat to the selfie game all too often — the U.S. Forest Service had to issue a request for visitors to keep their distance from wild bears in Lake Tahoe last year when too many visitors charged up closer to bears to get a photo in front of them. 
 
 Earlier this summer at Yellowstone National Park, a woman was flipped by a bison after she posed for a selfie with it. She survived, with minor injuries. 
 
 Here's hoping the Waterton Canyon's closure is a reminder that no matter how great the selfie opportunity may seem, it's never worth it to ignore the conventional wisdom of keeping your distance from a wild animal. 

 A 66-year-old Japanese tourist has died, and his travel companion has been injured, after falling down stairs while attempting to take a selfie at the Taj Mahal. 
 
 The man's death raises the selfie-related death toll this year — to 12. To put that in perspective, in 2015 there have so far been eight deaths caused by shark attacks. 
 
 Image: Donte Neal, Mashable 
 
 It sounds like a joke, but unfortunately it isn't: The deaths are a tragic reminder to travelers that focusing on a phone screen instead of unfamiliar surroundings is not safe. 
 
 Four of the selfie deaths this year, like the tourist, identified as Hideto Ueda, were caused by falling. 
 
 The next leading cause of deaths involving selfies was being hit or injured by trains, either because the individual was taking trying to get a photo with a train or because the photo they wanted involved getting on dangerous equipment. 
 
 It's not clear if the number of daredevil selfies is increasing, but more and more tourists are making headlines because of their dangerous attempts at a memorable photo. Parks have closed because visitors keep trying to take selfies with bears, bull runs — an already dangerous activity — have had to expressly outlaw selfie-taking, and even Tour de France cyclists are concerned about selfie danger. 
 
 With no idea how far some people will go for a great selfie, many landmarks have begun banning selfies — or at least selfie sticks. As Conde Nast Traveler pointed out in their article on selfies vs. sharks, in July the Russian Interior Ministry released a brochure, warning about cool selfies that "could cost you your life." Selfie-takers are urged to take precaution with weapons, ledges, dangerous animals, trains and live wires. 
 
 "Before taking a selfie, everyone should think about the fact that racing after a high number of 'likes' could lead him on a journey to death and his last extreme photo could turn out to be posthumous," an aide to Russia's interior minister told Al Jazeera.
– With the recent death of a tourist at the Taj Mahal, 2015's selfie-related death toll sits at 12—compared to just eight people who have been killed by sharks this year, Mashable reports. "It sounds like a joke, but unfortunately it isn't," writes Cailey Rizzo. The two main ways selfie-takers were killed this year: falling or getting hit by a train. Among the consequences of the daredevil selfie craze: landmarks and events have started banning selfie sticks or selfies entirely, a park shut down because of people taking selfies with bears, and, as Conde Nast reports, the European Union even proposed making certain types of selfies (those containing a landmark) a crime. Russia's Interior Ministry even instituted a campaign warning of the danger of selfies, Reuters reported earlier this month. Al Jazeera has a picture of the ministry's leaflet, which actually includes the lines "A cool selfie could cost you your life" and "A selfie with a weapon kills." Says an aide to the interior minister, "Before taking a selfie, everyone should think about the fact that racing after a high number of 'likes' could lead him on a journey to death and his last extreme photo could turn out to be posthumous."