Nuns light candles during the Catholic Washing of the Feet ceremony during Easter Holy Week in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City on March 28, 2024. (Photo by Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)

Organizers of an exhibition of ancient instruments of torture in Huai'an, Jiangsu province, have suggested that children, heart disease patients and people with high blood pressure stay away because of the vivid depictions of shocking cruelty. The exhibition has more than 200 instruments of torture on display in the 50,000-square-meter exhibition halls of a restored ancient building. Wax figures, along with sound and light techniques, are incorporated for scary effect. The local government said the exhibition is for tourists and historians to research ancient torture practices. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress)

A helicopter of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) flies through millions of Locusts as spreads pesticide to fight against a swarm of locusts threatening to reach Amparihibe village on May 7, 2014 in Tsiroanomandidy, Madagascar. FAO mission is to fight the locust's swarm with an insecticide. (Photo by AFP Photo/RIJASOLO)

Sap runs out of a frankincense tree near Mader Moge, Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia on August 4, 2016In a tradition dating to Biblical times, men rise at dawn in the rugged Cal Madow mountains of Somaliland in the Horn of Africa to scale rocky outcrops in search of the prized sap of wild frankincense trees. (Photo by Jason Patinkin/AP Photo)

William Gibson is not one of the authors that spits out novels like a machine – in his long and fruitful career he has only published 11 novels andof short stories and articles in the tens each. Still his impact on modern literature was huge – the “noir prophet” of the cyberpunk subgenre (that he was one of the pioneers of) has predicted the rise of reality television, virtual reality, video games and the internet. He is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction writer, with a special eye for what the future might bring.

Serbian police officers of the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit pose for a picture in their base outside Belgrade October 8, 2014. When the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white policeman in Ferguson, Missouri, in August sparked sometimes violent protests, the response of police in camouflage gear and armoured vehicles wielding stun grenades and assault rifles seemed more like a combat operation than a public order measure. Some U.S. police departments have recently acquired U.S. military-surplus hardware from wars abroad, but there are many law enforcers around the world whose rules of engagement also allow the use of lethal force with relatively few restrictions. But for every regulation that gives police wide scope to use firearms, there is another code that sharply limits their use. In Serbia, police may use measures ranging from batons to special vehicles, water cannon and tear gas on groups of people who have gathered illegally and are behaving in a way that is violent or could cause violence, but they may use firearms only when life is endangered. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

In this photo taken on Monday, August 5, 2019, a family watches explosions at a military ammunition depot near the city of Achinsk in eastern Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region, in Achinsk, Russia. Russian officials say powerful explosions at a military depot in Siberia left 12 people injured and one missing and forced over 16,500 people to leave their homes. (Photo by Dmitry Dub/AP Photo)

Shooting star by Tony Wu, US/Japan. Winner, underwater. The electrifying reproductive dance of a giant sea star. As the surrounding water filled with sperm and eggs from spawning sea stars, Wu faced several challenges. Stuck in a small, enclosed bay with only a macro lens for photographing small subjects, he backed up to squeeze the undulating sea star into his field of view. The dancing posture of spawning sea stars rising and swaying may help release eggs and sperm, or may help sweep the eggs and sperm into the currents where they fertilise together in the water. Kinko Bay, Japan. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)