A biker shows his 12-year-old cat “Chiquinho” – which always rides with him on his motorbike – in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 19, 2016. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

A Hindu sadhu (holy man) smears coloured paste onto his face ahead of the forthcoming Hindu festival of “Maha Shivaratri” at the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu on February 11, 2018. Hindus mark the “Maha Shivratri” festival by offering special prayers and fasting, with sadhus arriving at Pashupatinath to take part in the event, which takes place on February 13. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

A woman receives money at a food stand using the light of her mobile phone during a power outage affecting Caracas and other regions of the country, in Caracas, Venezuela on August 30, 2024. (Photo by Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)

A police officer from an explosive disposal unit takes part in a security drill ahead of next year's general election in Sidoarjo, East Java, on August 23, 2023. (Photo by Juni Kriswanto/AFP Photo)

An Indian Sikh devotee takes a dip in the holy sarover (water tank) at the Golden Temple on the eve of “Ghallughara Diwas”, the 29th Anniversary of Operation Bluestar, in Amritsar on June 5, 2013. The 1984 assault on the Golden Temple complex by the Indian army was conducted in an attempt to arrest separatists Sikh leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his militant followers who had initiated a movement for a separate Sikh state. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

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)

A jogger runs on the bank of Donaukanal channel in central Vienna, Austria, September 5, 2016. (Photo by Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)

In this 2017 photo provided by Simon Pierce, Jonathan Green checks on a fin-mounted satellite tag on a whale shark in the Galapagos Islands area of Ecuador. Despite typically being bigger than a double-decker bus, the elusive whale shark has only tiny, almost useless teeth. It's also one of the least understood animals in the ocean. (Photo by Simonjpierce.com via AP Photo)