An Afghan burqa-clad woman with children ride a donkey in Kishim district of Badakhshan province on October 12, 2023. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

Debbie Barton from Blufton, South Carolina, asks supporters of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump to sign a petition calling for one day of voting and the eradication of voting machines, ahead of a “Team Trump” event in Beaufort, South Carolina, U.S. February 21, 2024. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/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)

Racegoers have their temperatures checked as they make their way into the course as a pilot scheme for the return of crowds to sporting events is expected to bring in 2500 spectators during day one of the William Hill St Leger Festival at Doncaster Racecourse, England on September 9, 2020. (Photo by BackGrid/The Sun)

Police officers take cover as they clash with protesters after an officer shot and killed a black man in Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 11,2021. Protests broke out April 11, 2021 night after US police fatally shot a young Black man in a suburb of Minneapolis – where a former police officer is currently on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Hundreds of people gathered outside the police station in Brooklyn Center, northwest of Minneapolis. Police fired teargas and flash bangs at the demonstrators, according to an AFP videojournalist at the scene. (Photo by Kerem Yucel/AFP Photo)

Festival crowd enjoying the weather on Day 1 of Reading Festival on August 25, 2017 in Reading, England. (Photo by Dean Fardell/Barcroft Images)

Women dancing at the disco club Xenon in New York City, USA in 1978. Xenon was a popular disco in Manhattan in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was the only nightclub popular enough to compete with Studio 54. (Photo by Waring Abbott/Getty Images)

A hint of Spring Fever is evidenced by this passerby tipping his hat to a store fixture mannequin on a State St. sidewalk in downtown Chicago on March 23, 1978. The mannequin was awaiting pickup to be transported. (Photo by AP Photo)