A man bathes in an ice hole in the Neva River St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, February 10, 2021. The temperature in St. Petersburg is –15C ( 5 °F). (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A view of the Milky Way over the windmills at the wasteland of La Lora, in Rocamundo, region of Cantabria, northern Spain, 29 May 2022. (Photo by Pedro Puente Hoyos/EPA/EFE)

In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Saturday, February 3, 2024, a Mi-28N “Night Hunter” helicopter gunship of the Russian air force fires rockets at a target at an unknown location in Ukraine. (Photo by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP Photo)

Robbie Lee of Team Great Britain competes in the Men's 10m Platform Preliminaries on day 23 of the Singapore 2025 World Aquatics Championships at OCBC Aquatic Centre on August 02, 2025 in Singapore. (Photo by Adam Pretty/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)

A boy fires blanks from a Kalashnikov rifle, during Maslenitsa celebrations, or Shrovetide, to say farewell to winter in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, March 1, 2020. Maslenitsa is a traditional Russian and Belarusian holiday marking the end of winter that dates back to pagan times. (Photo by Sergei Grits/AP Photo)

People gather on a hill near the Chopin Airport to watch aeroplanes taking off, in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, September 9, 2018. (Photo by Alik Keplicz/AP Photo)

Carol Sofia Sanchez strikes a pose in her Shakira-inspired costume as she waits in line for the doors to open at Metropolitano Stadium, where pop star Shakira will perform in her hometown of Barranquilla in Colombia, Thursday, February 20, 2025. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)