In this October 14, 2013 photo, ecology professor Ricardo Freitas catches a broad-snouted caiman to examine, then release back into the water channel in the affluent Recreio dos Bandeirantes suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Caimans are like tanks, a very old species with a remarkable capacity for renovation that allows them to survive under extreme conditions where others couldn't, said Freitas, who runs the Instituto Jacare, or the Caiman Institute, which aims to protect the reptiles. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

Storm chasing photographer Mike Hollingshead makes a living following the worst storms in America, from snarling tornadoes chewing up the Kansas farmland to supercell thunderstorms massing over the Dakotas. His style is to get right in the path of the storm. While he says it’s less scary than you think – because most of the storm consists of heavy rain – it’s still extremely stressful. Photo: Vivid sunset under severe storm in central Nebraska August 17, 2005. (Photo by Mike Hollingshead)

Star trails form over the Memorial House of the Bulgarian Communist Party on mount Buzludzha in this long exposure picture taken on September 12, 2014. The monument was officially opened in 1981 by the Bulgarian Communist regime to mark 100 years of the set up of an organised Socialist movement, a predecessor of the Bulgarian Communist Party. The monument, no longer maintained by the Bulgarian government after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, is now abandoned and vandalized. (Photo by Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)

Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov of Russia perform during Gala exhibition skating program of the ISU European Figure Skating Championships in Graz, Austria, 26 January 2020. (Photo by Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA/EFE)

A woman models the Julie Concealed Carry Handbag by Hiding Hilda during the “Fashion & Firearms” concealed carry fashion show at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., April 27, 2019. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

A man walks past a mural along a street in New Delhi on June 30, 2023. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

A woman poses with a cut-out of Vladimir Putin in the “President Cafe” in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, April 7, 2016. Dozens of photos of Vladimir Putin, from childhood to Russian President, hang on the walls of President Cafe in a working-class area of Krasnoyarsk, a city in eastern Siberia. A life-size cut-out of Putin stands by the bar. Images of U.S. President Barack Obama, as well as leaders of Germany and Britain, greet customers in the toilets. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Soap Bubble Structures by Kym Cox. Bubbles optimise space and minimise their surface area for a given volume of air. This phenomenon makes them a useful tool in many areas of research, in particular, materials science and “packing” – how things fit together. Bubble walls drain under gravity, thin at the top, thick at the bottom, which interferes with travelling lightwaves to create bands of colour. Black spots show the wall is too thin for interference colours, indicating the bubble is about to burst. (Photo by Kym Cox/2019 Science Photographer of the Year/RPS)