A cycle-rickshaw puller takes a nap during a hot afternoon along a street in Amritsar on April 19, 2022. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

Commuters make their way through a flooded street after a heavy rain shower in Lahore on July 14, 2022. (Photo by Arif Ali/AFP Photo)

An Afghan boy carrying empty plastic cans, walks along a street in Kabul on December 21, 2023. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

A woman dressed in traditional clothing visits a business street in Beijing on June 5, 2024. (Photo by Wang Zhao/AFP Photo)

Colombian Jahn Fredy Duque, dressed as superhero “Spiderman”, performs on the streets in Bogota, Colombia on April 24, 2017. Duque hangs a white cloth 26 meters long – his cobweb – from a bridge near the international center of Bogota, where he performs in the street for a livelihood. (Photo by Raul Arboleda/AFP Photo)

Iraqi security forces vehicles take part in a military parade in the streets of Baghdad, Iraq July 12, 2016. Social media activists posted images of tanks, armored vehicles, cannons, soldiers, police officers, and PMF members in Saadoun Street. The photos spiked a rumor of military coup. Military and security advisor and expert Lt. Diyaa al-Wakil said that it is only normal for such rumors to spread since there were no prior announcements about the training. (Photo by Khalid al Mousily/Reuters)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

Street animators wearing fancy costumes take a break on a bench in a park in Stavropol, Russia on March 14, 2021. (Photo by Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)