An African giant pouched rat sniffs for traces of landmine explosives at APOPO's training facility in Morogoro on June 17, 2016. APOPO trains the rats to detect both tuberculosis and landmines at its facility. Every year landmines kill or maim thousands of people worldwide. The trained rats sniff for explosive and so are able to detect the presence of landmines far faster than conventional methods which involve metal detection. (Photo by Carl De Souza/AFP Photo)
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)
Pope Francis attends a circus performance during his weekly general audience at Paul VI hall on December 22, 2016 at the Vatican. (Photo by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP Photo)
Medic James E. Callahan of Pittsfield, Mass., gives mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dying soldier in war zone D, about 50 miles northeast of Saigon, June 17, 1967. Thirty-one men of the 1st Infantry Division were reported killed in the guerrilla ambush, with more than 100 wounded. (Photo by Henri Huet/AP Photo)
Former Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin performs a flip while throwing the ceremonial first pitch during a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Tampa Bay Rays, Friday, July 14, 2017, in Anaheim, Calif. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)
People protest at the Boston Free Speech Rally in Boston, USA on August 19. 2017. With the Boston Free Speech rally was closed to the media (despite the Boston Common being a public space), a lot of the media’s coverage centred on the tensions within the larger counter-protest. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters)
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)