Adrienne Sipe (L) and Brooke Gilliam of Washington D.C. leap off a snow podium they made near the U.S. Capitol in Washington February 13, 2014. A deadly and intensifying winter storm packing heavy snow, sleet and rain pelted a huge swath of the U.S. East Coast on Thursday, grounding flights and shuttering schools and government offices. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

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)

An Indian woman wrapped in a shawl travels with others on a bullock cart on a cold day at Jhansi district, in Bundelkhand, India, Monday, December 29, 2014. Most parts of north India Monday continued to shiver under biting cold with the mercury dipping several notches. (Photo by Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo)

A boy jumps from a swing during sunset in Valras-Plage, southern France December 29, 2014. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

An animal rights activist washes herself with red dye to mimic blood during a protest against the testing of shampoo on animals in Barcelona. April 24, 2012. (Photo by Raul Albaledo/AFP Photo)

Vivian Odhiambo, 24, frys samosas in the trading centre of Kogelo, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi, July 14, 2015. Odhiambo said, “Obama is our hero and we wait to welcome him back home again. We in Kogelo have witnessed general growth and we are proud of being associated with the Obamas”, she added. As U.S. President Barack Obama visits Kenya, a personal connection to his father's birthplace of Kogelo dominates a trip that Kenyans view as a native son returning home. Residents from a herdsman to a housewife share their views on what Obama has achieved and what they would like to see next. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

Behaviour: Mammals category. Giant Gathering by Tony Wu, USA. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast, stacked as far down as Tony could see. This was a congregation of dozens of social units, like a gathering of the clans. Aggregations like this could be a critical part of the whales’ rich social lives but are rarely reported. Some two thirds of the population was wiped out before commercial whaling was banned in 1986. This kind of major gathering could be “a sign that populations are recovering”, says Tony. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017)

A young Bengal tiger cub smuggled into the US and seized at the Mexico border is displayed for the media during Operation Jungle Book at the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Torrance, California on October 20, 2017. Operation Jungle Book, a law enforcement initiative led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service that targeted wildlife smuggling, resulting in federal criminal charges against defendants who allegedly participated in the illegal importation and/ or transportation of numerous animal species – including a tiger, monitor lizards, cobras, Asian “lucky” fish, exotic songbirds and several coral species. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP Photo)