School students attend a pioneer induction ceremony in Moscow's Red Square in Moscow, Russia on May 22, 2022. Pro-Communist Russians are trying to preserve the Young Pioneers, which used to be the Communist league for pre-teens in the Soviet Union. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/TASS)

A vendor gestures as he arranges watermelons for sale at a market in Colombo on February 17, 2025. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/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)

Images of an American ghost town that was home to gold mines and features a plane which crashed during the filming of 3000 Miles to Graceland starring Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell reveal the remnants of the once thriving location. An assortment of rusted vehicles which include a canary yellow bus, caravans and cars have all been left behind in the desert. (Photo by Abandoned Southeast/Mediadrumworld.com)

People throw turnips at the Jarramplas as he makes his way through the streets beating his drum during the Jarramplas Festival in Piornal, Spain, Tuesday, January 20, 2015. Jarramplas is a character that wears a costume made from colorful strips of fabric, and a devil-like mask and beats a drum through the streets of Piornal while residents throw turnips as a punishment for stealing cattle. The exact origin of the festival are not known, various theories exist from the mythological punishment of Caco by Hercules, to a cattle thief ridiculed and expelled by his neighbors. The Jarramplas Festival takes place every year from the 19th till the 20th of January on Saint Sebastian Day. (Photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP Photo)

Competitors practice their moves before taking part in the UK Hobby Horse championship at Bury Farm Equestrian Centre on September 08, 2024 in Slapton, United Kingdom. While hobby horsing as a form of play has been around for centuries, the modern-day interpretation of the sport originated in Finland.(Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“Serengeti National Park encompasses 5,700 square miles of grassy plains and woodlands near the northern border of Tanzania, and is home to more than 3,500 lions grouped into a couple dozen prides. Photographer Nick Nichols and videographer Nathan Williamson made several extended trips to the Serengeti between July 2011 and January 2013, determined to break new visual ground in their coverage of the Serengeti Lions”. Photo: Cubs of the Simba East pride: too young to kill but old enough to crave meat. Adult females, and sometimes males, do the hunting. Zebras and wildebeests rank high as chosen prey in the rainy season. (Photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic via The Atlantic)

A prisoner from the Pedrinhas prison is carried to receive medical help after he was injured during a fight between rival gangs inside the jail, in Sao Luiz, capital of Maranhao state, January 8, 2014. The recent posting on a major Brazilian news website of a video filmed last December 17 by Pedrinhas prisoners of the decapitated and tortured bodies of rival inmates inside the jail has highlighted some of the problems present in the country's prison system which houses nearly twice as many prisoners as its capacity, according to official statistics. (Photo by Douglas Cunha/Reuters/O Estado do Maranhão)