Villagers from Jiexi Jiantan village perform a ritual of “Zha Laoye”, or “Cracking local spirits”, in Chaoshan, Guangdong Province, China, 10 February 2019. Jiexi Jiantan Village celebrates the annual custom of “Zha Laoye” where Laoye are local spirits. Every third day of the lunar New Year, statues of local spirits known as the “Thousand-mile Eye” Laoye and “Ear Following the Wind” Laoye are brought out to the village committee to receive incensed tea offered by believers. (Photo by EPA/EFE/ZNSEN)

A family take a souvenir picture next to giant male panda Xiao Liwu, who was born at the San Diego Zoo and will be repatriated to China with his mother Bai Yun, bringing an end to a 23-year-long panda research program in San Diego, California, U.S., April 18, 2019. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A brown capuchin monkey holds a fruit in the Botanic Garden of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 5, 2013. (Photo by Pablo Porciuncula/AFP Photo)

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 African giant pouched rat sniffs for traces of landmine explosives at APOPO's training facility in Morogoro on June 17, 2016. APOPO trains the rats to detect both tuberculosis and landmines at its facility. Every year landmines kill or maim thousands of people worldwide. The trained rats sniff for explosive and so are able to detect the presence of landmines far faster than conventional methods which involve metal detection. (Photo by Carl De Souza/AFP Photo)

A keeper feeds a four-week-old jaguar while presenting it to the media, at a zoo in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, October 14, 2015. (Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

A man holds a girl as she tries to escape when she realised she is to to be married, about 80 km (50 miles) from the town of Marigat in Baringo County, Kenya, December 7, 2014. As Pokot tradition dictates, the future husband arrived to her family home with a group of men to collect the girl. The men arrived with the last settled dowry of livestock for the girl's family. In this case it was 20 goats, three camels and 10 cows, given during a period of several weeks. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

A groundskeeper uses a bamboo broom at Kasumigaike Pond at Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa, Japan on January 12, 2016. The japanese garden, located next to Kanazawa Castle, encompasses over 28 acres in downtown Kanazawa. With two ponds, rolling hills with streams and bridges, is considered a strolling-style landscape garden. It's regarded as one of the top three most beautiful gardens in Japan. (Photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)