Beautiful, strange and occasionally alarming pictures from the shortlist for this year’s Wellcome image awards – which celebrate the very best in science photography and imaging – from an x-ray of a bat to a micrograph of a kidney stone. The exhibition opens on 12 March at three science centres and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Photo: Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, also commonly known as thale cress. Some of the anthers are open, revealing pollen grains ready for dispersal. Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced and is widely used as a model organism in molecular and plant biology. Horizontal width of image is 1200 microns. Magnification 100x. (Photo by Stefan Eberhard/Wellcome Images)

Hungarian pilot and European champion Zoltan Veres flies under the oldest Hungarian bridge, the “Lanchid” (Chain Bridge) with his “MXS” type plane on May 1, 2014 during a Red Bull flying and car show around the Danube River of Budapest downtown. (Photo by Attila Kisbenedek/AFP Photo)

Mr. Zhong Hua, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, took this image of the peripheral nerves (those outside of the brain) in an 11.5-day-old mouse embryo, magnified five times. (Photo by Zhong Hua)

Football Soccer, England vs Wales, EURO 2016, Group B, Stade Bollaert-Delelis, Lens, France on June 16, 2016. Soccer fan Laura Woods from England fixes her makeup near riot police near the Lens stadium before the England vs Wales game. (Photo by Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)

Robert Galvan, who is on death row for murder, speaks to members of the media at the Adjustment Center yard during a media tour of California's Death Row at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California December 29, 2015. America's most populous state, which has not carried out an execution in a decade, begins 2016 at a pivotal juncture, as legal developments hasten the march toward resuming executions, while opponents seek to end the death penalty at the ballot box. (Photo by Stephen Lam/Reuters)

A Belarussian border guard checks a passenger's passport in a train after it arrived from Lithuania, at the railway station Gudogai, Belarus, November 22, 2016. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

In this April 4, 2017 photo keeper German Alonso straps a leg prothesis to on the left leg of secretarybird Soeckchen (Sagittarius seprentarius) at the bird park in Walsrode, northern Germany. The prothesis was made in a 3D-printer after his left leg was amputated. (Photo by Philipp Schulze/DPA via AP Photo)

A tourist experiences bungee jumping at the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon scenic area on July 12, 2021 in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province of China. (Photo by Wu Yongbing/VCG via Getty Images)