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 Scots soldier has won a top award for his photos vividly depicting Army life in Afghanistan. Corporal Jamie Peters took the overall first prize for his portfolio in the annual Army Photographic Competition. Photo: Jamie's overall winning image entitled “Celtic Warrior” and shows Private Ross Cunningham from 1 Scots cleaning his personal weapon. (Photo by Jamie Peters/PA Wire)

This is a portion of the first color 360-degree panorama from NASA's Curiosity rover, made up of thumbnails, which are small copies of higher-resolution images. The mission's destination, a mountain at the center of Gale Crater called Mount Sharp, can be seen in the distance, to the left, beginning to rise up. The mountain's summit will be imaged later. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Copies of the Unauthorized Autobiography of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange are on display and on sale in Waterstones bookstore on September 22, 2011in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Wikileaks founder has accused publishers Cannongate of a breach of contract after releasing drafts of his autobiography without his approval. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A copy of part of the Dead Sea Scrolls is displayed at the “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times” exhibition at Discovery Times Square on December 16, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“The Family of Man” opened at The Museum of Modern Art in January 1955 and was curated by Edward Steichen. It was groundbreaking in its scope – 503 images by 273 photographers from 68 countries – as well as in the numbers of people who experienced it on its tour through 88 venues in 37 countries. The touring exhibit drew over 9 million people and the accompanying catalog sold over 2.5 million copies. Here: “Coney Island, New York”, by American photographer Garry Winogrand, circa 1952. (Photo by Garry Winogrand)

Image patterning has existed for hundreds of years; however, before Thomas Yang no one has ever thought of putting paint on the bicycle wheels and using it as a patterning tool to create very interesting-looking pictures. Being an avid cyclist and an artist, Thomas Yang has decided to combine the two, creating the 100copies. The name of this project not only alludes to the fact that only one hundred copies of those pictures were going to be made, but also to the fact that the pictures themselves consist of hundreds of repeating shapes. And even though the project is called 100copies, no two pictures are alike due to the nature of their creation, making them truly unique. (Photo by Thomas Yang)

French artist Julien Breton aka Kaalam started calligraphy in 2001 by copying Arabic calligraphers. Self-taught, he began to incorporate long exposure photography to create incredible light paintings around the world. All of the images in this gallery were created in-camera, meaning there is no Photoshop trickery or post-production manipulation involved in creating these works of art.