A rare grasshopper shines bright against its leafy background in North Holland, Netherlands in the first decade of October 2024. The insects are usually brown or green but turn pink due to a genetic mutation. (Photo by Roeselien Raimond/Media Drum Images)

Combat between two male stag beetles, Italy, 2022. During the mating season, male stag beetles (Lucanus cervus) go into a frenzy, with lively but harmless clashes, in which bigger males often have the advantage over smaller ones due to their impressive mandibles. Longer larval development and genetic traits can increase the size of some individuals, but all saproxylic beetles are threatened by poor forest management, logging and dead wood removal to “clean” the forest. (Photo by Iacopo Nerozzi)

“A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology. Reaction Engines Ltd believes its Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on Earth to no more than four hours away”. – Chris Wickham via Reuters. Photo: Artist's impression of Skylon. (Photo by Reaction Engines Ltd)

A love story with two log choppers. “In 1993, I was working on a project about life in the Olomouc region of Czechoslovakia. One day, I came to the village of Dlouhá Loučka-Křivá and went into a courtyard where I saw two old people, a husband and wife, sawing firewood for winter. They were working quietly, concentrating. I watched them fetch a beam from a wrecked barn, but they didn’t discuss how they planned to carry it to the saw. The woman faced one way, the man the other. When they realised, the woman eventually turned and followed her husband. The picture I took is the picture of many relationships – when each partner wants something different, but they have to come to an agreement, pull together eventually”. (Photo by Jindrich Streit)

A gosling sits in the plumage of its mother, in a meadow in Frankfurt, Germany, Saturday, April 13, 2024. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

U.S. Army soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment deployed to Combat Outpost Sabari, Afghanistan scan their area as they begin a multi-day air assault mission near the Pakistani border of eastern Afghanistan's Khost province May 2, 2012. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua L. DeMotts/U.S. Air Force)

A butterfly is seen at a farm in Beykoz disrtict of Istanbul, Turkey on October 26, 2021. Cigdem Unlu runs a farm where 800 butterflies live and being presented to the visitors as the environment exclusively weathered for butterflies. (Photo by Elif Ozturk Ozgoncu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A woman lies face-down on the floor where other race-goers are standing on 2017 Derby Day at Flemington Racecourse on November 4, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)