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)

These Arab recruits line up in a barracks square in the British Mandate of Palestine, on December 28, 1940, for their first drill under a British solider. Some 6,000 Palestinian Arabs signed up with the British Army during the course of World War II. (AP Photo)

Photographer Jim Zielinski from Florida, USA, captured this hilarious moment when a squirrel spied a tasty treat inside a novelty horse's head bird feeder in his back garden. (Photo by Jim Zielinski/Caters News)

A Civil Protection employee dressed as death participates in the campaign “Beware of Monoxide, the Silent Killer”, which seeks to prevent deaths from poisoning with carbon monoxide through the use of heaters to mitigate low temperatures, on an avenue in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on February 2, 2022. (Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

The 20-year-old American fashion model Kaia Jordan Gerber – who is the daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford, 55, and businessman Rande Gerber, 59 – poses braless as she stuns in an edgy shoot in January 2022. (Photo by Ports 1961’s Spring/Summer Campaign)

Models walk the runway for Sergio Hudson during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Spring Studios on February 13, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows)

A military instructor teaches a schoolboy shooting with Kalashnikov rifles, during a training session at a military unit of the National Guard of Ukraine in western Ukrainian city of Lviv on February 15, 2022. (Photo by Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP Photo)

Security chase a spectator on centre court during a rain delay on Day Two of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers at IGA Stadium on August 10, 2021 in Montreal, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)