John Cox, far left, begins his recall campaign for California governor with “Tag”, a Kodiak brown bear, on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 in Sacramento. It was the first stop for his “Meet the Beast” bus tour. (Photo by Renee C. Byer/The Sacramento Bee via AP Photo)

US actor Ben Affleck and US actress and singer Jennifer Lopez arrive for the screening of the film “The Last Duel” presented out of competition on September 10, 2021 during the 78th Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido. (Photo by Yara Nardi/Reuters)

People view the sunrise scene at the Bund in Shanghai, east China, January 1, 2017. (Photo by Wang Hechun/Xinhua/Barcroft Images)

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)

In this January 23, 2015 photo, Guillermo Luna Martinez, 36, carries freshly painted piñatas representing Disney's Frozen snowman character Olaf downstairs to where his wife Elvia Vicente Albarran will use paper to craft the character's eyes, teeth, and distinctive tuft of hair, at the family's workshop in the Iztapalapa neighborhood of Mexico City. Though Luna and his wife have chosen to work in the family business, they plan to let their children, Guillermo, 10, and Melissa, 9, decide for themselves. “Who knows if the business will last forever”, said Luna, “I'd prefer that they study and get a career, for them to have a better future”. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

The sun begins to set over this rusty beachside mansion that has been left abandoned for more than 25 years in Thailand, June 2017. A deserted beachside mansion in southern Thailand has retained its beauty – despite no one living there for more than 25 years. In June this year abandoned photographer, Dax Ward, ventured to the Prachuap Khiri-Khan Province to capture the haunting attraction on camera. (Photo by Dax Ward/Barcroft Images)

A participant dances as approximately 70,000 people from all over the world gathered for the annual Burning Man arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, U.S. on August 29, 2017. (Photo by Jim Urquhart/Reuters)

Behaviour: Mammals category. Giant Gathering by Tony Wu, USA. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast, stacked as far down as Tony could see. This was a congregation of dozens of social units, like a gathering of the clans. Aggregations like this could be a critical part of the whales’ rich social lives but are rarely reported. Some two thirds of the population was wiped out before commercial whaling was banned in 1986. This kind of major gathering could be “a sign that populations are recovering”, says Tony. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017)