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)

October winner. “A burst of the aurora borealis over Kirkjufell, taken in September 2016. This shot has been a holy grail for me and was finally captured after many trips”. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: Iceland is a hotspot for aurora photography and this composition of the symmetric, free-standing Kirkjufell and the trident waterfall is much-sought after. If you can time your visit when the aurora “kp” index is high and know the settings for nighttime aurora images, you may end up with a beautiful photograph like this. (Photo by DВ/The Guardian)

A man shows his tattoos at the 7th Hong Kong China International Tattoo Convention in Hong Kong on August 25, 2023. (Photo by Isaac Lawrence/AFP Photo)

Preparation of a Cuban cake (a Mexican sandwich that is made with bread, generally a telera, bolillo or baguette, which is split in half and filled with different ingredients such as milanesa, sausages, cheese, avocado, onion, tomato, bacon, chili, chorizo, pineapple, among others), during the International Cake Fair on the esplanade of the Venustiano Carranza mayor's office in Mexico City on August 2, 2023. (Photo by Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Participants take part in the 44th annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in Sydney, Australia, 05 Ma​rch 2022. (Photo by Bianca de Marchi/EPA/EFE)

A cat meows in it's owner's bag after fleeing from Kiev in Ukraine to Romania, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the border crossing in Siret, Romania, March 10, 2022. (Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

A baby elephant struggles to climb out of a dam before being rescued by rangers at Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa in the last decade of March 2025, having been pushed into the water by another elephant. (Photo by Anne Laing/Caters News Agency)

«Female Boxers», 2024. Julia Fullerton-Batten is a fine art photographer renowned for her cinematic visual storytelling. Her large-scale projects are based around specific themes, each image embellishing her subject matter in a series of thought-provoking “stories” using staged tableaux and sophisticated lighting techniques. (Photo by Julia Fullerton-Batten)