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)

Athletes in action during the international parachuting competition Mountain Gravity in Quinto, Switzerland, 27 August 2015. Some 200 participants from all over the world are expected to jump at the event running from 22 to 30 August 2015. (Photo by Samuel Golay/EPA)

A Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur costume runs on the field as young boys play an exhibition soccer match during halftime of the MLS soccer game between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Seattle Sounders FC in Carson, California May 26, 2013. The dinosaur was on the field to promote the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Reuters)

In this Tuesday, May 3, 2016 photo, Madeley Vasquez, 16, breast feeds her one-year-old son Joangel as she waits in line outside a supermarket to buy food in Caracas, Venezuela. Vasquez once ran down the block to avoid getting caught up in a knife fight that broke out when a woman was accused of cutting the line. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

Michael Pankratz’s intriguing works focus specifically on the feet of tarantulas – an appendage that many have perhaps never focused on. The extreme close-ups of tarantulas’ “paws” show fine, colourful hairs, and sharp claws. Here: Brachypelma albopilosum, foot detail. (Photo by Michael Pankratz/Caters News Agency)

Canadian actress Ellen Page and wife Emma Portner arrive at “The Cured” – Los Angeles Special Screening on February 20, 2018 at AMC Dine-In Sunset 5 in West Hollywood, CA. (Photo by Parisa Michelle/Splash News and Pictures)

A light railway train passes through a residential building on March 18, 2017 in Chongqing, China. Chongqing Rail Transit No.2 and a 19-storey residential building have been built across each other. The railway set its Liziba Station on the sixth to eighth floor in the building with noise reduction equipment. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

College students take shelter at a traffic point as a man paddles his rickshaw through a flooded road during heavy rain in Guwahati, India, June 13, 2017. (Photo by Anuwar Hazarika/Reuters)