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 hippopotamus performs during a show at the circus in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, July 7, 2016. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

A fox cub with some bluebells in some woodland at Wye Valley near Gloucester, United Kingdom on April 29, 2023. (Photo by Thomas Winstone/Picture Exclusive)

Visitors to West Midlands Safari Park in Bewdley, UK on October 17, 2023 are enjoying the bright October sunshine ahead of the storms to come. A curious giraffe meets eye to eye with a car full of happy visitors while licking the car windscreen with his long tongue. (Photo by Lee Hudson/Alamy Live News)

A fireman looks on as a Canadair aircraft drops water to extinguish a wildfire in Sicily's Trapani, Italy on August 27, 2023. (Photo by Antonio Cascio/Reuters)

An elderly woman sits next to shanties as a Philippine Airlines (PAL) plane flies over a slum area in Paranaque city, Metro Manila, Philippines, 06 March 2025. According to the latest report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), poverty rate dropped to 15.5 percent in 2024 from 18.1 percent in 2021, with 17.54 million people living below the poverty line, a decrease of 2.4 million from the previous survey two years earlier. (Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA)

Joseph's Amazing Racing Pigs entertain the crowds at the Gillingham And Shaftesbury Spring Countryside Show, on June 09, 2024 in Shaftesbury, England. The countryside show celebrates Dorset's rural life, traditions and culture. Initially set to be the first countryside show of Dorset's rural calendar but now featuring near the end of Spring after a postponement due to a waterlogged showground. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)

A medical worker wearing a full protective outfit tests a man for Covid-19 symptoms in a street in Wuhan, China, 01 April 2020. Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, partly lifted the lockdown allowing people to enter the city after more than two months. According to Chinese government figures over 2,500 people have died of Covid-19 in Wuhan since the outbreak began. (Photo by Roman Pilipey/EPA/EFE)