Friends and relatives of Palestinian Fulla al-Masalma, 16, mourn during her funeral in the village of Beit Awa, west of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank on November 15, 2022. Israeli forces shot dead the Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank the previous day, the Palestinian health ministry said, while the army confirmed raids and a shooting incident in the area. The Israeli Defence Forces reported that its soldiers had fired at a car that was speeding toward them and that “hits were identified”, but without confirming the fatality. (Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP Photo)

A Siberian tiger gestures at the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, on January 6, 2023. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)

Dancers walk on rice fields during the Rice Field Festival in Baginda Village. The Rice Field Festival, organized by the Baginda Village Youth Organization, was held to maintain the local culture and art of Sundanese culture on May 5, 2024. (Photo by Algi Febri Sugita/ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy Live News)

St. Mark's and Panagia Erithiani church congregations perform “Rocket War” by firing thousands of home-made rockets across the sky during Greek Orthodox Easter celebrations in the town of Vrontados on the Greek island of Chios on April 19, 2014. Greek habit of throwing handmade rockets with the aim of hitting the bell tower of the church at the other side during the celebration of the service at midnight before Easter Sunday. (Photo by Cem Oksuz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Nihon University professor and head of Nihon University Animal Medical Center Kazuya Edamura, 49, points to cat photos on a computer screen, which are used to train the AI of “CatsMe!”, an AI-driven smartphone application jointly developed by tech startup Carelogy and researchers at Nihon University that purports to tell when a cat is feeling pain, as he gives a lecture to students on diagnosing pain in cats, at the medical center in Fujisawa, south of Tokyo, Japan on June 11, 2024. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

Circus artists perform at the International Circus Show started in Avenue Habib Bourguiba in Tunis, Tunisia on June 23, 2022. (Photo by Yassine Gaidi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A hot-air balloon flies over Metropolitan Park during the International Hot-Air Balloon Festival in Leon, state of Guanajuato, Mexico, on November 16, 2024. (Photo by Henry Romero/Reuters)

Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)