Men work on a large hookah at the Taha factory in Baghdad, Iraq July 2, 2016. (Photo by Khalid al Mousily/Reuters)

People ride on a truck as they return to their families ahead of the Eid al-Adha festival in Khartoum September 11, 2016. (Photo by Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters)

A fan of Japan reacts after Crotia winning the penalty shoot out during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Round of 16 match between Japan and Croatia at Al Janoub Stadium on December 5, 2022 in Al Wakrah, Qatar. (Photo by John Sibley/Reuters)

Veiled Thai women take a selfie on the Talo Kapo beach enjoying Eid al-Fitr on June 5, 2019 in Pattani, Thailand. Today is Eid al-Fitr, or Festival of Breaking the Fast, which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A Syrian man sells vegetables in front of a damaged tank in Homs, on December 20, 2024. Islamist-led rebels took Damascus in a lightning offensive on December 8, ousting president Bashar al-Assad and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria. (Photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/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)

A dinosaur robot produced by Tyco Electronics Japan G.K. is controlled by a smartphone at CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) Japan 2014 held at at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, east of Tokyo, Japan, 07 October 2014.With a Sharp Aquos ZETA mobile phone model, users can make the 6.5-meter (21 feet, 4 inches) long, 2.1-meter (6 feet, 11 inches) tall dinosaur robot to walk forward and backward, jump, move its head, hands and legs up and down, left and right, open and close its mouth by touching the screen panel and make it bark by shaking the handheld. (Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA)

Female pilot Anna climbs out the cockpit of Japanese electronics company Suidobashi Heavy Industry's newly unveiled robot “Kuratas” at the Wonder Festival in Chiba, suburban Tokyo on July 29, 2012. The “Kuratas” robot, which will go on sale with a price tag of one million USD, measures four meters in height, weighs four tons and has four wheeled legs that can either be controlled remotely through the 3G network or by a human seated within the cockpit. (Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP Photo)