The sun sets on Walney Island, Cumbria, county in North West England on October 10, 2019. Today will be unsettled with spells of heavy rain. (Photo by GREENBURN/Alamy Live News)

A Chinese woman wears a protective mask as she shops in a market on February 6, 2020 in Beijing, China. The number of cases of a deadly new coronavirus rose to more than 28000 in mainland China Thursday, days after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a global public health emergency. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Activists from climate action group Ocean Rebellion demonstrate in St Ives Harbour, ahead of the G7 summit, in St Ives, Cornwall, Britain, June 9, 2021. (Photo by Tom Nicholson/Reuters)

A giraffe was captured creating a dust cloud while running in front of a perfect African sunset in Amboseli National Park, Kenya in the first decade of November 2022. (Photo by Edgard Berben/Media Drum 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 woman and her son hold firecrackers during Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in Mumbai, India, November 4, 2021. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)

Muslim women light candles during the “EarthHour” in Jakarta, Indonesia, on March 23, 2013. Hundreds of people observed the global event that encourages people to turn off their lights for 60 minutes. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/Associated Press)

The Perseid Meteor Shower seen over The Scorhill Stone Circle in Dartmoor, Devon on August 2, 2016. (Photo by John Baker/SWNS.com)