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)

Under Exposed: Pekka Tuuri (Finland) – Great white shark, Isla Guadalupe, Mexico. “Isla Guadalupe is the world capital when it comes to observing great white sharks, but cage diving seriously limits the possibilities to take ‘fresh’ pictures. When I took this, the water close to the surface was quite milky, making photography very challenging. From out of the “mist”, I saw this great white shark lurking behind a school of fusiliers. I quickly focused on the shark and set a wide aperture to get focus blur on the fish, along with a fast shutter to avoid excessive motion blur”. (Photo by Pekka Tuuri/The Outdoor Photographer of the Year/The Guardian)

“North and South Korea staged dueling war games Monday as threatening rhetoric from the rivals rose to the highest level since North Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island in 2010”. – Associated Press. Photo: North Korean soldiers with weapons attend military training in an undisclosed location in this picture released by the North’s official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang March 11, 2013. South Korea and U.S. forces are conducting large-scale military drills until the end of April, while the North is also gearing up for a massive state-wide military exercise. North Korea has accused the U.S. of using the military drills in South Korea as a launch pad for a nuclear war and has threatened to scrap the armistice with Washington that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. (Photo by KCNA/Reuters)

A soldier fires a rocket gun as Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk region, where the country's most intense clashes occur, attend intensive combat training by using both domestic and foreign weapons amid Russia-Ukraine war in Donetsk, Ukraine on May 08, 2023. Infantry is always prepared in a conflict where heavy weaponry like aircraft, helicopters, tanks and other heavy armored vehicles, artillery systems, and mortars are widely deployed on frontline. Combat readiness and experience training of the 57th Brigade of the Ukrainian army continues in Donetsk. (Photo by Muhammed Enes Yildirim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Canadian slackliner Mia Noblet walks on a slackline (25mm wide, 3mm thick and 60m long) during “Tianmen Mountain Female High-Heeled Highline Challenge” at Zhangjiajie National Forest Park on May 27, 2018 in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province of China. 23-year-old Canadian slackliner Mia Noblet became the first one who finished the challenge in 22 minutes and 36 seconds while 32-year-old French slackliner Mini Guesdon broke the record in 9 minutes and 24 seconds during her second attempt on Sunday. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

A wild elephant eats garbage containing plastic waste at a dump in Sri Lanka's eastern district of Ampara on June 3, 2023. Sri Lanka is set to launch a nation-wide clean up of plastic waste ahead of new laws banning the sale of single use plastics, the Environmental ministry said, after a spate of deaths of elephants and deer in the island's northeast after foraging at open garbage tips filled with plastic waste, whilst shrinking habitat has led to jumbos raiding villages looking for food. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

“Boom, a three-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier, who loves birds and rabbits. He has already acquired a legion of fans on his Facebook page, and who can blame them? He might actually be the cutest pup we've ever laid eyes on (and his little buddies seem to agree). Check out these pics and see if you don't fall in love!” (Photo by Boom)

“In a nutshell and to prevent my english readers from experiencing eye bleeding after having read too many syntax errors, I’m a french journalist – I work as an editor, not as photographer – who happens to be nuts about photography. Being the happy owner of too many Leica M for a man to shoot, I spend most of my free time shooting my friend and my town, Strasbourg, in b&w and sometimes in colors”. – Manuel Plantin

Photo: “Even detectives got the blues”. Strasbourg, 2011 (Photo by Manuel Plantin)