Richard Rude Junior of the United States, competes on his way to win the UCI MTB Enduro Men Elite, Mountain Bike World Championship, Monday, September 1, 2025, in Fiesch, Switzerland. (Photo by Maxime Schmid/Keystone via AP Photo)

A local boy plays football on Iracema Beach on June 11, 2014 in Fortaleza, Brazil. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

A woman in traditional Malaysian attire welcomes leaders to the official dinner at the venue of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia November 21, 2015. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

A racegoer uses the camera on her phone to check her hair on the opening day of the Grand National Festival at Aintree Racecourse on April 3, 2014 in Aintree, England. The three days of racing attracts thousands of racegoers and fans from across the world. The meeting culminates with millions of pounds being wagered on the runners taking part in Europe's richest jump race, the Grand National. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Employees of a food stand take pictures of Titan, a robot created by England Cyberstein Robots, performing at the Danilovsly market in downtown of Moscow, Russia, 12 May 2014. Titan visited to Moscow to attend “Bal Robotov”, an interactive exhibition of the most recent advances in robotics which will be opened on 15 May in Artplay Moscow exhibition center. Titan worked alongside superstars including Will.i.am, Rihanna, Will Smith and Jackie Chan. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA)

Harris & Ewing Inc. photographed people, events, and architecture, particularly in Washington, D.C., during the period 1905-1945. Photo: Tests of Curtiss Palne for Army, Single Control. Created by Harris & Ewing. Published in 1912.

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)

A house burns as the Butte fire rages through Mountain Ranch, California September 11, 2015. Evacuation orders were expanded to thousands of homes in northern California's Sierras on Friday as the rapidly spreading wildfire roared for a third day through drought-parched timber and brush, threatening mountain communities. (Photo by Noah Berger/Reuters)