Dancer Beth Bracegirdle of the Balbir Singh Dance Company practises at the Billingham Forum pool in Billingham, UK on July 20, 2016, ahead of the 52nd Billingham international folklore festival of world dance in August. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

Revellers hit the booze cruise in the Croatian port city of Split on August 11, 2023. The hot new party town for Brits. Boat Party booze cruise with Split after dark. (Photo by Darren Fletcher)

Italy's Valentina Greggio during the Women's Speed Skiing at the World Speed Skiing Championship and World Record Attempt in Vars, France, on March 27, 2025. (Photo by Manon Cruz/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)

A dachshund dressed as a leo walks a podium during a dachshund parade festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, September 16, 2023. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Team Bahrain Raid Xtreme's French driver Sebastien Loeb and his Belgian co-driver Fabian Lurquin steer their car, during stage 9 of the Dakar rally 2024, between Hail and Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia, on January 16, 2024. (Photo by Patrick Hertzog/AFP Photo)

An ancient oak tree sits in a Shropshire field as the first signs of Spring begin to show across the United Kingdom on February 19, 2014 in Bridgnorth, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

A young boy dressed in traditional Tamang dress plays with pigeons as Sonam Lhosar (the new year festival) is observed in Kathmandu, Nepal on February 2, 2022. (Photo by Amit Machamasi/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)