Members of the organization Witness Against Torture wear orange prison jump suits with handcuffs and a hood over their heads during a demonstration urging the government to close down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, in Lafayette Park outside the White House January 11, 2012 in Washington, DC. Protesters carry on a 92-hour vigil in a protest of the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the first group of detainees to arrive at the US military facility (Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images)

“Hey! I'm Thomas Shahan, an artist and macrophotographer from Oklahoma. In my spare time over the past few years, I've been shooting portraiture of local arthropods. Why would I devote countless hours to tramping through forests, fields and the like searching for insects and spiders? Well, despite some common beliefs, arthropods (members of the phylum Arthropoda – insects, spiders, crustaceans...) represent an endlessly varied, wildly beautiful and fascinating bunch of animals with surprisingly personable faces and behavior. Often, all it takes is simply inspecting their lives on a closer level to turn repulsion to reverence”. – Thomas Shahan

Photo: Adult Male Jumping Spider at Sunset – Phidippus mystaceus. (Photo by Thomas Shahan; Source: Flickr)

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)

Tourists visit the Corral Canyon Cave in Malibu, Calif., Friday, May, 6, 2016. The cave, better known by the misleading moniker “Jim Morrison Cave” is now closed to the public until further notice. Large crowds have shown up on a daily basis to see the often vandalized cave and in some cases add to the vandalism with graffiti of their own. (Photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo)

“NTV (Cyrillic: НТВ) is a Russian television channel. As a subsidiary of Vladimir Gusinsky's company Media-Most, it was a pioneer in the post-Soviet independent television media, but was later taken over by state-owned Gazprom”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman with “I love NTV” painted on here face cheers in support of the independent Russian NTV television station April 7, 2001 during a rally in Moscow. Thousands of people gathered in the rain to show their support for Russia's only national independent television station in its fight against new owners. (Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers)

An open water swimmer surfaces as she enjoys a socially-distanced dawn swim after breaking the ice on the surface of a lake near Scunthorpe, northern England, January 9, 2021. Faced by a sharp rise in coronavirus infections, driven by the new strain, England entered a strict lockdown on January 5, 2021, with schools and non-essential shops closed for at least six weeks after previous measures failed to halt the steep rise in cases. (Photo by Lindsey Parnaby/AFP Photo)

The incredible photographs show the three alligators crowding around the man’s head as they look directly at the camera and one even appears to sit on his lap whilst another reptile places a claw on his arm as it swims towards the surface. Photographs taken from above the surface show animal handler, Chris Gillette (29) from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA holding an alligator out of the water. The images of Chris were taken by Michael Dornellas at the Everglades Outpost Wildlife Rescue, Florida USA. Here: Mich­ael Dornellas brings the beast up close and personal to the camera. (Photo by Chris Gillette and Michael Dornellas/Mediadrumworld.com)

Balinese man watches Mount Agung volcano almost covered with clouds as he stands at a temple in Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia, Tuesday, September 26, 2017. An increasing frequency of tremors from the volcano indicates magma is continuing to move toward the surface and an eruption is possible, a disaster agency official said Tuesday. Tourists are cutting short their stay to the island, where an eruption would force the airport to close and strand thousands. (Photo by Firdia Lisnawati/AP Photo)