These images have been created using a colour scanning electron microscope (SEM) by the award-winning Eye of Science, comprised of snapper Oliver Meckes and biologist Nicole Ottawa. For a decade the pair, based in Reutlingen in the south of Germany, worked with an old SEM they saved from the scrapheap, but for the last five years they have used a £250,000 FEI Quanta Series Field Emission SEM. Oliver said: “Flowers are beautiful in 'normal' view, but when you look closer, some parts get very bizarre and unexpected structures appear – flowers within flowers, worlds within worlds”. Photo: The floret of a Chamomile flower up close and personal. (Photo by Oliver Meckes/Barcroft Media)

Second Place Winner: “Thunderstorm at False Kiva”. I hiked out to these ruins at night hoping to photograph them with the Milky Way, but instead a thunderstorm rolled through, creating this dramatic image. – Max Seigal. National Geographic Traveler Director of Photography Dan Westergren, one of this year's judges, shares his thoughts on the second place winner: “This photo combines two different scenes into one: the small kiva in a cliff dwelling and the grand vista of Canyonlands National Park across the valley. I really like the two different color palettes – warm inside and purple outside. This two-for-one scene was caused by the lightning storm outside the dwelling, which lit up the landscape like it was a huge electronic flash. Looking at this picture I can imagine what a wonderful sight it must have been for the ancient people who lived here. It doesn't seem too amazing now in our modern world, but might have been mind-blowing for the prehistoric residents”. Location: Utah. (Photo and caption by Max Seigal/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Soap Bubble Structures by Kym Cox. Bubbles optimise space and minimise their surface area for a given volume of air. This phenomenon makes them a useful tool in many areas of research, in particular, materials science and “packing” – how things fit together. Bubble walls drain under gravity, thin at the top, thick at the bottom, which interferes with travelling lightwaves to create bands of colour. Black spots show the wall is too thin for interference colours, indicating the bubble is about to burst. (Photo by Kym Cox/2019 Science Photographer of the Year/RPS)

Robert Price of TREWGrip LLC demonstrates a TREWGrip handheld rear-type keyboard and air mouse for Apple and Android tablets at the “CES: Unveiled”, media preview for International CES, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas on January 5, 2014. (Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP Photo)

Men dressed as Hindu deities from the epic Ramayan wear face masks before going on a public awareness campaign against the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, on the occasion of the Hindu festival “Ram Navami”, in Bangalore on April 21, 2021. (Photo by Manjunath Kiran/AFP Photo)

A prototype Rollkers transportation device is displayed during a press event at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center for the 2015 International CES on January 4, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The product is not a skate; it balances for you and when you place it on the bottom of your shoe, it gives you the ability for faster transportation based on walking. The balance CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs from January 6-9 and is expected to feature 3,600 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 150,000 attendees. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

A taxi driver seen sleeping on his taxi in the middle of a decorated street during the Durga Puja Festival in Kolkata, India on October 22, 2020. (Photo by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Italian disabled dancer Simona Atzori (top) performs, before a special audience with disabled athletes led by Pope Francis, in Paul VI hall at the Vatican October 4, 2014. (Photo by Tony Gentile/Reuters)