Sport category, winner: Yuan Peng. Liu Bingqing and Liu Yujie are twin sisters who have studied and trained in gymnastics since their early childhood in Jining, China. (Photo by Yuan Peng/Sony World Photography Awards)

Members of the Colombian Military forces pray for members of the military that have lost their lives and peace in the country at the Military Engineers School in Bogota, Colombia on October 14, 2021. (Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“Don't Leave Any Food On Your Plate”. The giraffes at Nairobi's Giraffe Manor are totally at home with humans. They will eat out of your hand, or even off your plate. Photo location: Giraffe Manor, Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo and caption by Gavin Werbeloff/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Do tears of joy look the same as ones of woe—or ones from chopping onions? In “The Topography of Tears,” the Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher explores the physical terrain of one hundred tears emitted during a range of emotional states and physical reactions. Using a Zeiss microscope with an attached digital camera, she captures the composition of tears enclosed in glass slides, magnified between 10x and 40x. “There are many factors that determine the look of each tear image, including the viscosity of the tear, the chemistry of the weeper, the settings of the microscope, and the way I process the images afterwards,” she says.

When you think of the People's Liberation Army, you probably don't think of line dancing. But the Chinese military's latest online recruiting video makes a soldier's life look more fun than the macarena. The brief spot, posted last week on the website of the Ministry of National Defense and going viral, features tanks and fighter jets, as well as soldiers dancing in rows to a quirky hit tune by the Chopsticks Brothers called “Little Apple”. Its lyrics include, “You are my little dear little apple/I can never stop loving you”.

The landscape series we’ve selected from Leo Caillard photography is a series of panoramic views of negative and information-filled spaces. The French photographer describes his remarkable work in the following terms: “a landscape series I chose to shoot in very high definition. A work about the action of humans in diverse types of environments; void of activity or full of information.

Dublin student beat depression by befriending sharks, stingrays and pigs in the Bahamas. Awesome underwater pictures show the 23-year-old diver cosying up to a range of animals including turtles, stingray and sharks. The sunny selfies were taken in the Bahamas by Stuart’s Cove dive instructor and native of the island, Amelia Klonaris – who beat depression by embracing her incredible beach paradise lifestyle. (Photo by Amelia Klonaris/Mediadrumworld)

A photographer has created a series of paw-traits of hungry dogs pulling hilarious faces as they try and catch treats. Using a unique technique, the shots are captured at the exact moment the adorable pooches attempt to catch an airborne piece of food. The dogs appear surprised, happy, sad, confused – and sometimes even so blasé they miss the treat entirely. The images were taken by Christian Vieler, a photographer from Waltrop, Germany. Here: A labrador retriever. (Photo by Christian Vieler/Caters News)