A woman poses for a photo at Hitchin Lavender farm in Ickleford, Britain, August 4, 2020. (Photo by Peter Cziborra/Reuters)

Participants carry a portable shrine, or mikoshi, into the sea during a purification rite at the annual Kurihama Sumiyoshi Shrine Festival at Kurihama, Yokosuka city, south of Tokyo Sunday, July 27, 2025. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)

A woman takes a selfie with the a cafe-staff dressed in a halloween costume at a cafe in Bangkok on October 23, 2024. (Photo by Manan Vatsyayana/AFP Photo)

Amanda Seyfried attends the premiere of 20th Century Fox's “The Art Of Racing In The Rain” at El Capitan Theatre on August 01, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)

A member of Iraqi rapid response forces fires a rocket launcher during a battle with Islamic State militants in the district of Yarimja in southern Mosul, Iraq, January 18, 2017. (Photo by Alaa Al-Marjani/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)

An Iraqi special forces soldier wears a rose in his body armor as troops move from the Yarmouk neighborhood to take another district from Islamic State militant control in Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, April 12, 2017. (Photo by Maya Alleruzzo/AP Photo)

“Family disagreement”. (Photo by Vlado Pirsa/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2019)