Natasha Cloud #0 and Diana Taurasi #3 of the Phoenix Mercury gather their team before the game against the Seattle Storm at Climate Pledge Arena on June 04, 2024 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty 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)

A dog walks past a mural by street artist Alex Martinez outside a shop which sells bags at Psiri area, central Athens, on Thursday, January 25, 2018. (Photo by Petros Giannakouris/AP Photo)

A model composes herself during the Ukrainian Fashion Week 2020-2021 at the Mystetskyi Arsenal National Art and Culture Museum Complex on February 4, 2020. (Photo by Irynka Hromotska/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Swedish actress Alicia Vikander poses during a photocall for the film “Firebrand” at the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 22, 2023. (Photo by Joel C. Ryan/Invision/AP Photo)

Italian movie star Gina Lollobrigida shows a 0.95 super-grand-angle lens mount on a 35mm camera, as she presents her collection of photographic equipment at her home on the ancient Appian Way on the outskirts of Rome, July 2, 1964. (Photo by Girolamo di Majo/AP Photo)

A model presents a creation at a metro station during a show opening the Moscow Fashion Week in Moscow, Russia on October 22, 2019. (Photo by Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)

Cork twins Sibéal and Éimhin Walsh celebrate with their friends, Samuel Palliser Kehoe and Charlotte Herlihy, during the Feis Ceoil Festival in Ireland on March 20, 2023. (Photo by Clare Keogh/The Irish Times)