An ice covered entrance door to the international gene bank Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) near Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, Norway, October 20, 2015. Two consignments of crop seeds will be deposited next year in a “doomsday vault” built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global supplies. The vault, which opened on the Svalbard archipelago in 2008, is designed to protect crop seeds, such as beans, rice and wheat against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease. (Photo by Anna Filipova/Reuters)

Central to The Capture Site on the R103 in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands – where Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1963 – is a sculptural installation by Johannesburg artist Marco Cianfanelli. When viewed from a distance, the 50 painted laser-cut steel columns form the image of Madiba’s face. Click on the image below for more on The Capture Site.

Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei holds some seeds from his Unilever Installation “Sunflower Seeds” at The Tate Modern on October 11, 2010 in London, England. The sculptural installation comprises 100 million handmade porcelain replica sunflower seeds. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Russian pop art photographer Sergey Chilikov captures a nation liberated from the social oppression of late-era Soviet rule – at parties, in the streets, and bouncing high. His exhibition, Photoprovocations, will be at Photo London, 19-22 May. Here: Yoshkar-Ola, Matrosova Street (1995). (Photo by Sergey Chilikov)

A wounded member of the Afghan police reaction force waits for treatment in Alingar, Laghman province, on April 30, 2012. A bomb exploded next to opium poppy fields during a poppy eradication campaign in, wounding two Afghan policemen, police officials said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

A starling jealously guards a seed station in the back garden of the photographer’s Michigan home in January 2024. (Photo by Lisa Cavanary/Solent News)

Jonathon Seed, Joint Master and Huntsman with the Avon Vale Hunt, leads the hounds and fellow riders for their traditional Boxing Day hunt, on December 26, 2011 in Lacock, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)