Award-winning photographer Alex Bernasconi has captured thousands of images – from hiding hippos to wandering zebras – in his travels across Africa. His amazing work features in a new edition of his book Wild Africa. These amazing pictures create a snapshot of the life of some of the planet’s most spectacular animals and natural habitats. Photo: “Wild Africa”. (Photo by Alex Bernasconi)

Ivan Shamyanok, 90, shaves in his house in the village of Tulgovichi, near the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, Belarus March 15, 2016. “My sister lived here with her husband. They decided to leave and soon enough they were in the ground ... They died from anxiety. I'm not anxious. I sing a little, take a turn in the yard, take things slowly like this and I live”, he said. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/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)

Jensen a two-year-old False Map turtle, from the Mississippi River, gets used to his new home at Blackpool Sea Life Centre on February 13, 2012 in Blackpool, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The brave boy, called Belal and in his early teens, held the young fawn in one hand above his head as he plunged through the surging river to save it. Onlookers watched as the boy waded through the raging river to get to the other side safely. (Photo by Hasib Wahab/Caters News)

Balal, who killed Iranian youth Abdolah Hosseinzadeh in a street fight with a knife in 2007, is brought to the gallows during his execution ceremony in the northern city of Nowshahr on April 15, 2014. The mother of Abdolah Hosseinzadeh spared the life of the her son's convicted murderer, with an emotional slap in the face as he awaited execution prior to removing the noose around his neck. (Photo by Araash Khamooshi/AFP Photo/ISNA)

Eight-year-old handicapped Chinese girl Qian Hongyan crawls with two home-made props and part of a basketball at Zhuangxia Village on January 5, 2005 in Luliang County of Qujing City, Yunnan Province, China. The girl who lost both of her legs in a traffic accident in 2000 at the age of three, struggles to live her life with a basketball as an underprop, “walking” between school and home by herself. The girl's story is widely reported in the country, and experts from China Rehabilitation Research Center has come to Qian's home to help her for rehabilitative treatment early 2005. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Young Buddhist novice monks play at a Tibetan nomadic summer grazing area on July 24, 2015 on the Tibetan Plateau in Yushu County, Qinghai, China. Tibetan nomads face many challenges to their traditional way of life including political pressures, forced resettlement by China's government, climate change and rapid modernization. The Tibetan Plateau, often called “The Roof of the World”, is the world's highest and largest plateau. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)