A girl plays in a waterlogged street following a heavy monsoon rainfall in Mumbai on June 9, 2021. (Photo by Sujit Jaiswal/AFP Photo)

A member of Iraqi rapid response forces fires a rocket launcher during a battle with Islamic State militants in the district of Yarimja in southern Mosul, Iraq, January 18, 2017. (Photo by Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters)

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)

An Iraqi special forces soldier wears a rose in his body armor as troops move from the Yarmouk neighborhood to take another district from Islamic State militant control in Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, April 12, 2017. (Photo by Maya Alleruzzo/AP Photo)

A young tiger tries to get at poultry parts hidden in a pumpkin at Magdeburg Zoo, Germany on October 30, 2025. The zoo is celebrating Halloween from October 31, 2025 to November 1, 2025. In addition to the puppet theater, children's carousel and children's train, visitors can carve their own pumpkins, which are then distributed to the zoo animals and serve as food. (Photo by Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/Avalon)

A volunteer feeds a swift chick after it was found on the ground during a heatwave and given to the Centre Ornithologique de Readaptation in Genthod near Geneva, Switzerland on July 25, 2023. (Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

Wang uses a mobile phone as she take a rest in her room at the accommodation where patients and their family members stay while seeking medical treatments in Beijing, China, June 23, 2016. Wang, who suffers from cervical cancer, came from Inner Mongolia to seek treatment at a specialist hospital in Beijing. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)