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)

Members of the Funky Uptown Krewe parade as Twelfth Night kicks off Carnival season, in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. January 6, 2025. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

The first prototype of the HIRIKO electric car, during the global launch of Hiriko Driving Mobility, at the EU Commssion headquarters on January 24, 2012 in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Getty Images)

A trapped car is pushed along a flooded street after typhoon Soudelor hit Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, August 9, 2015. The typhoon battered China's east coast on Sunday, killing eight people and forcing authorities to cancel hundreds of flights and evacuate more than 163,000 people. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A Russian-made rifle, carried by this woman when she was captured in Nearby Brush, is slung around her neck by South Vietnamese soldiers before they began their interrogation of her as Viet Cong suspect near AP La Ghi in Vietnam, August 25, 1965. The girl behind the woman, also was captured in the brush. (Photo by AP Photo)

A young man wears a mask on the right side of his head as he stands on a bridge with the European Central Bank at left in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, October 29, 2020. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

A picture taken on April 18, 2020 in Sainte-Croix shows a scultpure representing a man wearing a facemask as a preventive measure against the Covid-19 coronavirus in a field. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP Photo)

Operations & Exercises, 1st place. An RAF Voyager aircraft sits in the harsh winter weather at Mount Pleasant Complex, Falkland Islands, while personnel work to ensure the snow is cleared. (Photo by Sgt Andy Holmes/2020 RAF Photo Competition)