Filipino informal settlers react during a demolition raid at a shanty town in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines, 01 August 2024. (Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA)

Australian surfer Sally Fitzgibbons rides a wave during the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games at the El Tunco beach in El Salvador on June 6, 2023. (Photo by Marvin Recinos/AFP Photo)

“Unexpected humour”. The Dog and the Faucet, in Kolkata, India on January 2017. (Photo by Pau Buscató/The Guardian)

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)

Sea lion “Jay” paints a Chinese character reading “the Serpent” at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on January 3, 2013. The event, marking the forthcoming Chinese lunar calender year of the snake was held as part of a New Year's attraction. (Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP Photo)

Female of pygmy hippopotamus called Malaya from Netherlands in zoo in Dvur Kralove nad Labem, Czech Republic, February 22, 2016. (Photo by David Tanecek/CTK via ZUMA Press)

Indigenous Sahrawi girls play on an improvised see-saw at a refugee camp of Boudjdour in Tindouf, southern Algeria March 3, 2016. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to visit the Sahrawi refugees in south-west Algeria's Tindouf region. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

A woman waters the plants outside her house in an alley at a slum in Mumbai October 28, 2014. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)