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)

A participant, surrounded by red chilli peppers, takes part in a chilli-eating competition at a hot spring in Yichun, Jiangxi province, China on December 9, 2018. (Photo by Chen Fei/China News Service via Reuters)

A mannequin depicting Superman is placed upside down next to the door of the parliament session hall hosting a no confidence vote agains Romanian Prime Minister Florin Citu's government in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday, October 5, 2021. Romania's government fell after 281 lawmakers of the 234 required voted in favor of the no-confidence vote. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

Young women pose for photos in a Christmas-themed tunnel lit-up with decorations outside a shopping mall in Bangkok on December 4, 2020. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

A girl holds a blossom in her mouth while posing for photos under cherry blossom trees at Wuhan University on March 11, 2021 in Wuhan, China. Tourists come to view cherry blossoms at the university during the spring. Wuhan University, first founded in 1893, is widely known as one of the most beautiful universities in China. (Photo by Getty Images/China Stringer Network)

Camera trapper Xavier Hubert-Brierre put this large mirror on the side of a road through the jungle in Gabon and left a camera there to record how the animals would respond to their own reflections. A silverback gorilla thought it was seeing another silverback and responded by trying to scare off the potential challenger… (Photo by Xavier Hubert-Brierre/Johns Hopkins University Press)

NASAs Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert RATS) team members practice with a Moon rover prototype for future Artemis missions at the Black Point Lava Flow near Flagstaff, Arizona, on October 24, 2022. (Photo by Olivier Touron/AFP Photo)