—The late Duke neuroscientist Saul Schanberg, quoted by science writer Diane Ackerman in her book A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
—Author Margaret Atwood, in her Booker Prize–winning novel The Blind Assassin (2000)
—Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in an address to influenza investigators about the cessation of research on a highly pathogenic bird flu strain (Nature, July 13, 2012)
—Nobel-Prize–winning physicist Edward Purcell, who discovered the phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and solids and was born 100 years ago, on August 30, 1912
—NASA Mars rover Curiosity, in its first tweet after touching down safely on the Red Planet (Aug. 5, 2012)
—The editorial board of The Christian Science Monitor, on the potential for NASA’s new Mars rover to discover molecular traces of life on the planet (Aug. 6, 2012)