These adorable rat portraits were taken by a committed photographer who’s made it her mission to remove the stigma attached to the creatures. Diane Ozdamar’s vibrant images feature rodents cutely cuddling flowers, eating fruit, playing with bubbles, and lovingly interacting with each other. The 32-year-old photographer, who lives in Montreal, Canada, shot her «Fancy Rats» series over a number of years. (Photo by Diane Ozdamar/Caters News)

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)

Ukrainians jump over a fire in Kiev, Ukraine, 06 July 2017, as they celebrate the traditional pagan holiday of Ivana Kupala. Ivana Kupala is celebrated, during the summer solstice, on the shortest night of the year, marking the beginning of summer and is celebrated in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Russia on the night of 06 July. People sing and dance around bonfires, play games and perform traditional rituals. Young people jump over bonfires in order to test their bravery. Couples holding hands jump over the flames to test their love. If the couple does not succeed it is predicted to split up. Traditionally, children and young unmarried women wear wreaths of wild flowers on their heads to symbolize purity. (Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA)

This image is NGC 6543 known as the Cat's Eye Nebula as it appears to the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Telescope. A planetary nebula is a phase of stellar evolution that the sun should experience several billion years from now, when it expands to become a red giant and then sheds most of its outer layers, leaving behind a hot core that contracts to form a dense white dwarf star. This image was released October 10, 2012. (Photo by J. Kastner/NASA/CXC/RIT)

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole. In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon. Photo: The spinning vortex of Saturn's north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

A giant size figure of the United States' goalkeeper Tim Howard is displayed outside a shopping mall in Hong Kong, Thursday, June 12, 2014, to promote the upcoming 2014 World Cup in Brazil. A total of seven 3.5 meters to 4 meters (11 feet 6 inch to 13 feet one inch) tall figures of famous players attract many soccer fans. (Photo by Vincent Yu/AP Photo)

Supporters of Lebanese President Michel Aoun hold up a giant Lebanese flag as he delivers a speech outside the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, October 30, 2022. Aoun left Lebanon's presidential palace Sunday marking the end of his six-year term without a replacement, leaving the small nation in a political vacuum that is likely to worsen its historic economic meltdown. (Photo by Bilal Hussein/AP Photo)

Joshua Patino stands on a ladder to put finishing touches on a giant dinosaur exhibit at PAX East in the Boston Convention and Expo Center, Thursday, April 21, 2016, in Boston. PAX East, an annual celebration of gaming culture, is expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors Friday through Sunday. It's a place where serious gamers can preview unreleased video games and devices, compete in tournaments, hear live music and meet others for whom gaming is a way of life. (Photo by Elise Amendola/AP Photo)