Villagers from Jiexi Jiantan village perform a ritual of “Zha Laoye”, or “Cracking local spirits”, in Chaoshan, Guangdong Province, China, 10 February 2019. Jiexi Jiantan Village celebrates the annual custom of “Zha Laoye” where Laoye are local spirits. Every third day of the lunar New Year, statues of local spirits known as the “Thousand-mile Eye” Laoye and “Ear Following the Wind” Laoye are brought out to the village committee to receive incensed tea offered by believers. (Photo by EPA/EFE/ZNSEN)

A family take a souvenir picture next to giant male panda Xiao Liwu, who was born at the San Diego Zoo and will be repatriated to China with his mother Bai Yun, bringing an end to a 23-year-long panda research program in San Diego, California, U.S., April 18, 2019. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

In this 2017 photo provided by Simon Pierce, Jonathan Green checks on a fin-mounted satellite tag on a whale shark in the Galapagos Islands area of Ecuador. Despite typically being bigger than a double-decker bus, the elusive whale shark has only tiny, almost useless teeth. It's also one of the least understood animals in the ocean. (Photo by Simonjpierce.com via AP Photo)

Women dancing at the disco club Xenon in New York City, USA in 1978. Xenon was a popular disco in Manhattan in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was the only nightclub popular enough to compete with Studio 54. (Photo by Waring Abbott/Getty Images)

Performers Roni, Liv and Becky behind the scenes at Great Yarmouth Hippodrome Circus, England. (Photo by Nick Warner/The Guardian)

A boy plays with pelicans in Yoff, commune of Dakar, Senegal March 14, 2018. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

A brown capuchin monkey holds a fruit in the Botanic Garden of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 5, 2013. (Photo by Pablo Porciuncula/AFP Photo)

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)