A female Chinese People's Liberation Army soldier looks at members of an honor guard preparing for a welcome ceremony for visiting German President Joachim Gauck, outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Monday, March 21, 2016. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)

A vervet monkey passes in front of a woman on the shores of lake Naivasha, Kenya January 24, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Floating on clear deep water and reflections near the cave entrance. Visitors can either bring their own kayaks or rent boats from the local community to paddle deep inside the cave and marvel at its wonders on March 2015 at Tham Khoun Ex, Laos. Tham Khoun Xe, commonly known as the Xe Bang Fai River Cave, in Laos, has over 15km of passages filled with awe-inspiring views and wide expanses of water. Photographer, John Spies, 59, captured scenes from the entrances of the huge underground river passages, intricate cave formations and views from a passage high above the water. The cave is formed by the Xe Bang Fai river, a major tributary of the Mekong and in the dry season can be traversed using inflatable kayaks. (Photo by John Spies/Barcroft Media/ABACAPress)

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)

October winner. “A burst of the aurora borealis over Kirkjufell, taken in September 2016. This shot has been a holy grail for me and was finally captured after many trips”. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: Iceland is a hotspot for aurora photography and this composition of the symmetric, free-standing Kirkjufell and the trident waterfall is much-sought after. If you can time your visit when the aurora “kp” index is high and know the settings for nighttime aurora images, you may end up with a beautiful photograph like this. (Photo by DВ/The Guardian)

A man looks at a photograph by French photographer Robert Doisneau entitled “The Fate Line: Pablo Picasso at Vallauris, 1952” during the presentation of the photo-exhibition “Picasso, photographer's gaze”, on June 5, 2019 at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. (Photo by Lluis Gene/AFP Photo)

Iraqi teenagers swim in waste water from the nearby Tuweitha nuclear facility near Baghdad, Iraq on May 28, 2003. Iraqis are consuming contaminated water unaware of the dangerous pollutants that can cause severe ill health. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

A demonstrator uses a slingshot during a protest against Chile's government in Santiago, Chile, November 14, 2019. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)