Festivalgoers watch two actors of the Wasteland Warriors movement fight in a cage at the world's largest heavy metal festival, the Wacken Open Air 2019, in Wacken, Germany on August 3, 2019. Wacken is a village in northern Germany with a population of 1,800 that has hosted the annual festival, which attracts heavy metal fans from around the world, since 1990. (Photo by Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)

A recruitment drive during the First World War at Trafalgar Square, London. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

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)

Festival goers plays in mud during the 15th Annual Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon beach in Boryeong, about 190 km (118 miles) southwest of Seoul, July 15, 2012. About 2 to 3 million domestic and international tourists visit the beach during the annual mud festival, according to the festival organisation. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun)

Somalis remove the body of a man killed in a blast in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia Saturday, October 14, 2017. A huge explosion from a truck bomb has killed at least 20 people in Somalia's capital, police said Saturday, as shaken residents called it the most powerful blast they'd heard in years. (Photo by Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP Photo)

This photo provided by the North Korean government shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, is surrounded by performers during a celebration marking the nation's 74th anniversary in Pyongyang, North Korea, on September 8, 2022. (Photo by Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Photo)

People attend the New Year's eve gala of youth and students at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Sunday, December 31, 2023. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)

A woman stands in front of a mask-clad lion statue outside a department store in Tokyo's Ginza district on January 18, 2022, as Japan reported a record high of new Covid-19 infections fuelled by the Omicron variant. (Photo by Philip Fong/AFP Photo)