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)

Against the scorching sun, a hungry jackal chases a flock of birds looking for a quick morning snack. Taken in South Africa's Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park, these images capture the moment a lone hunter tries, and then succeeds, in his pursuit. (Photo by John Mullineux/Solent News)

Vladimir Putin shows a hold to a young judo wrestler at the Regional Judo Center at the Arena Sports Complex in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on January 24, 2012, during his visit to the region. Putin is known for his passion for judo, in which he has a black belt. (Photo by AFP Photo/STR)

Female of pygmy hippopotamus called Malaya from Netherlands in zoo in Dvur Kralove nad Labem, Czech Republic, February 22, 2016. (Photo by David Tanecek/CTK via ZUMA Press)

A small section of the expanding remains of the Veil Nebula, a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/ESA/Hubble)

The sun begins to set over this rusty beachside mansion that has been left abandoned for more than 25 years in Thailand, June 2017. A deserted beachside mansion in southern Thailand has retained its beauty – despite no one living there for more than 25 years. In June this year abandoned photographer, Dax Ward, ventured to the Prachuap Khiri-Khan Province to capture the haunting attraction on camera. (Photo by Dax Ward/Barcroft Images)

Ismail Mustafa, seen in 2007. “I was collecting mushrooms on the hill near here. I didn’t see the mine. There was a huge explosion. When I woke up I saw that both my legs were gone; I thought my life was over. My brother and another guy were with me. They made a stretcher from sticks and tied it together with clothing. It took two hours to get off the mountain. ‘My daughter has also been injured. She found a shell and brought it into the house and put it on the fire. She didn’t know what she was doing at the time – she was only three. She is blind and has lost an arm”. (Photo by Sean Sutton for the Mines Advisory Group/The Guardian)

16-year-old panda, Ye Ye, rests in an enclosure at the Wolong Nature Reserve, a conservation center that trains pandas for release into the wild. This image was published in the August 2016 National Geographic magazine as part of the “Pandas Gone Wild” story. (Photo by Ami Vitale/National Geographic Creative)