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)

American soldiers leaping from an armoured personnel carrier during exercises in Korea, 17th March 1954. (Photo by Three Lions)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.

A Brazilian drug gang member nicknamed Pilintra, 26, poses with a gun atop a hill overlooking a slum in Salvador, Bahia State, April 11, 2013. One of Brazil's main tourist destinations and a 2014 World Cup host city, Salvador suffers from an unprecedented wave of violence with an increase of over 250% in the murder rate, according to the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies (CEBELA). (Photo by Lunae Parracho/Reuters)

Garbage men race on their tricycles along the track during the garbage men bicycle race at Ban Jelacic square in Zagreb, Croatia, 19 August 2020. Zagreb's authorities organised a street festival named “Cest is the best” despite the coronavirus pandemic in Croatia with some 219 infected people. (Photo by Antonio Bat/EPA/EFE)

People dance during a heavy metal concert at Omni Space in Beijing, China, August 14, 2020. China boasts a small but buoyant heavy metal scene, where bands mix genre standards with Chinese elements. Black metal is a sub-genre that creates a dark, moody atmosphere layering heavily distorted guitars and high-pitched vocals. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

People out in Manchester town centre, United Kingdom on September 20, 2020. The latest Public Health England data shows that 672 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the city in the seven days to September 17. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)

Police officers in action during the eviction of the “Liebig 34” squat, at Friedrichshain district in Berlin, Germany, 09 October 2020. A local court ruled in favor of the eviction of the self-declared “anarcha-queer feminist” house project at Liebig street 34 in June 2020. The house project is considered a stronghold of the left-wing scene in the German capital. (Photo by Filip Singer/EPA/EFE)