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 woman walks past a caricature of Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in east London, Britain November 18, 2016. (Photo by Andrew Winning/Reuters)

A tamed hawk sits on a chair next to a participant during a traditional hunting contest in Almaty, Kazakhstan on December 1, 2018. (Photo by Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters)

New lovebirds boxer Robin Deakin – once known as “Britain's Worst Boxer” – and former UK “Big Brother” star Lisa Appleton go to the boxing gym in London, United Kingdom on September 28, 2016. The pair were seen holding hands in the street on arrival, and they then slogged it out in the ring and fooled about in Robin's gym. (Photo by FameFlynet UK)

JAPAN: A businessman stands at a pond in the Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Garden on a warm and sunny day in Tokyo, Japan, March 18, 2016. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

An indigenous woman holds her child while trying to resist the advance of Amazonas state policemen who were expelling the woman and some 200 other members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirts of Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, in this March 11, 2008 file photo. (Photo by Luiz Vasconcelos-A Critica/Reuters/AE)

A woman holds up an umbrella and license plates, one that reads “love”, during violent protests between riot police and demonstrators in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong on October 1, 2019. The city observes the National Day holiday to mark the 70th anniversary of communist China's founding Strife-torn Hong Kong on October 1 marked the 70th anniversary of communist China's founding with defiant “Day of Grief” protests and fresh clashes with police as pro-democracy activists ignored a ban and took to the streets across the city. (Photo by Nicolas Asfouri/AFP Photo)