School cheerleaders wearing protective masks pose for a photo as fellow students arrive for classes on the first day of school in Miami-Dade County at Barbara Goleman Senior High School, in Miami, Florida, August 23, 2021. (Photo by Marco Bello/Reuters)

American social media personality, golf instructor and former professional golfer Paige Spiranac attends MAXIM Hot 100 Experience at Hyde Beach at SLS South Beach on July 16, 2022 in Miami Beach, Florida. (Photo by Aaron Davidson/Getty Images)

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)

Afghan security stands guard as a tractor eradicates a field of young poppy plants May 25, 2011, in Argu District, Badakshan, Afghanistan. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A young girl navigates her way around Hampton Court maze in the spring sunshine on May 2, 2009 in London, England. The Hampton Court maze is one of the most famous hedge mazes in the world and was planted between 1689 and 1695 by George London and Henry Wise. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

A man stands by an installation depicting “2019” in the Red Square in Moscow, Russia on December 17, 2018. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Sеxy woman in lace eye cover and red lips with young lover, foreplay in hotel room. (Photo by sakkmesterke/Getty Images)

A stray puppy walks along abandoned train tracks near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on August 19, 2017 near Chornobyl, Ukraine. An estimated 900 stray dogs live in the exclusion zone, many of them likely the descendants of dogs left behind following the mass evacuation of residents in the aftermath of the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)