ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, Juanmonino

In our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations. My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and timeliness. I want us all to do better and it starts with CDC leading the way.

—Rochelle Walensky, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a statement admitting missteps by the agency in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic (August 17)


For this to work, we need to remember that the edifice of forest science relies on the long-term data that scientists wring from forests over decades. Our chances of overcoming climate change are small, but they will diminish further if we forget the basics of monitoring our home planet.

—A recent Nature editorial emphasizing the importance of supporting research on Earth’s forests in the face of a rapidly changing climate (August 16)


I accept these sanctions for my error in judgment in editing a paper authored by some of my research collaborators—an error for which I have publicly stated my regret.

—Jane Lubchenco, deputy director of climate and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in a statement addressing a decision by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to bar her from receiving NAS honors and participating in NAS publications or programs for five years after she edited a now-retracted PNAS paper that included outdated data and was coauthored by Lubchenco’s brother-in-law, who was also her former PhD student (August 16)


As far as I know, this is the first study that’s ever looked at the energetics of chewing. And it really needs to be praised for that reason.

—Peter Lucas, a George Washington University anthropologist, speaking to The Scientist about a recently published Science Advances study suggesting that chewing likely shaped the evolution of our species’ musculoskeletal system (August 17)


The tree of evolution bears many fruits and many flowers, and intelligence, rather than being found only in the highest branches, has in fact flowered everywhere.

—Author, artist, and technologist James Bridle, in his recently published book Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence