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)

Chinese workers maintain an Animatronic Dinosaurs at Gengu Dinosaurs Science and Technology company on November 13, 2019 in Zigong, Sichuan Province, China. There are hundreds of simulated dinosaur manufacturers in Zigong City. It is the largest simulated dinosaur manufacturing in China. It accounts for 95% of mainland China's production and 85% of the world's total. Its products are exported to more than 100 countries. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

“Microscope images forge an extraordinary bond between science and art, said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Olympus America's Vice President and General Manager for the Scientific Equipment Group. We founded this competition to focus on the fascinating stories coming out of today's life science research laboratories. The thousands of images that people have shared with the competition over the years reflect some of the most exciting work going on in research today – work that can help shed light on the living universe and ultimately save lives. We look at BioScapes and these beautiful images as sources of education and inspiration to us and the world”. – OlympusBioScapes

Photo: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view, by Dr. Jan Michels, Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Olympus BioScapes)

A new species of monkey found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and identified as Lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis) is seen in this undated photograph from an article published September 12, 2012 in the science journal PLOS One. The monkey was first seen in 2007 by researchers John and Terese Hart of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Research Project. The finding of C. lomamiensis represents only the second new species of African monkey to be discovered in the past 28 years, according to the research article. (Photo by Hart J. A., Detwiler K. M., Gilbert C. C./Reuters)

Michael Read, director of Flight Operations from New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft Company, flies a Martin Jetpack during a demonstration at a water park in Shenzhen, China December 6, 2015. KuangChi Science Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed Chinese company and investor of Martin Aircraft, will sell the flying machine in mainland China for 1.6 million yuan ($249,902), according to the company. (Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Members of a Star Wars fan club wear costumes of movie characters as they join a midnight premiere of the new Star Wars movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at a cinema in Stuttgart, Germany, late 16 December 2015 night. Numerous fans of the science fiction movie series were gathering to attend one of the midnight premiere screenings all over Germany of the latest movie of the epic series – “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. (Photo by Nikolai Huland/EPA)

Spanish actor Antonio Banderas embraces a robot used in the film Automata during a photocall on the third day of the 62nd San Sebastian Film Festival, September 21, 2014. Banderas stars in and produced the science fiction film, which is part of the festival's official section. (Photo by Vincent West/Reuters)