While a lot of the world still struggles to cope with the continued effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have also been devastated by wildfires, floods and volcanoes, just as the IPCC released its latest reportinto the global impact of climate change.
However, it's not all bad news. There is still plenty or innovation going on around the world, with rubbish being used to make public benches, further scientific discoveries on Mars, and many efforts being made to combat climate change.
So take a look through the good, the bad, and the ugly in our round-up of science images for August 2021.
Rollin' rollin' rollin'
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen as it is rolled out of the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 mission, 2 August 2021 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 will be Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test and will dock to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Photo by NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
Aurora down under
This image, taken from aboard the International Space Station on the 2 August 2021, shows the aurora australisas it streams across the Earth's atmosphere as the station orbited 271 miles above the southern Indian Ocean in between Asia and Antarctica. Photo by NASA
Just a drill
Rescue personnel evacuate "victims" from a subway train and tunnel during a homeland defence emergency drill involving a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack in an urban environment. The drill took place at the New York Fire Department Training Academy on Randall's Island in New York City, USA, on 4 August 2021. Photo by Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images
A small sample
This image taken by NASA's Perseverance rover on 6 August 2021, shows the hole drilled in a Martian rock in preparation for the rover's first attempt to collect a sample. It was taken by one of the rover’s hazard cameras in what the rover's science team has nicknamed a "paver rock" in the "Crater Floor Fractured Rough" area of Jezero Crater. Photo by NASA
Dude, where's my car?
An interior view of an automated underground parking lot on 6 August 2021 in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province of China. Photo by Zhai Yujia/China News Service/Getty Images
Approaching wildfire
A man watches as wildfires approach Kochyli beach near Limni village on the island of Evia, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Athens, Greece. A new massive United Nations science report was released on the 9 August 2021, reporting on the impact of global warming due to human activity. Photo by Thodoris Nikolaou/AP/Shutterstock
For those about to rock...
An underwater photo shows the new microbialites discovered at Lake Van in Adilcevaz district of Turkey's Bitlis province on 8 August 2021. Microbialites look like reefs, but are in fact rock-like structures that are made entirely of millions of microbes. Photo by Ali Ethem Keskin/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Melted metal
A tyre and wheel melted from the heat of the Dixie Fire on 8 August 2021 in Greenville, California, USA. The Dixie Fire, which has incinerated more than 463,000 acres, is the second largest recorded wildfire in state history. Photo by Maranie R. Staab/Getty Images
The hills are alive with the sound of solar
A photo taken on 10 August 2021 shows a photovoltaic power station on a deserted hill near Zhangjiazhuang village, Xinzhuangzi Township, Xiahuayuan District, Zhangjiakou City, North China's Hebei Province. Photo credit should read Costfoto/Barcroft Media/Getty Images
Ready for launch
The Virgin Orbit Launcher One rocket in its hanger at Newquay Airport on 10 August 2021 in Newquay, United Kingdom. Spaceport Cornwall is aiming to launch its first satellites in spring of 2022. Photo by Hugh R Hastings/Getty Images
Little urchin
A freediver prepares to collect a specimen of a long-spined sea urchin (Diadema setosum), typically native to Indo-Pacific waters and currently invading the eastern Mediteranean sea, some 17 metres underwater off the shore of Lebanon's northern coastal city of Qalamun on 11 August 2021. Photo by Ibrahim Chaloub/AFP/Getty Images
Remote care robot
Egyptian engineer Hager gives an order to a robot nurse invented by the faculity of computer and information science at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, 11 August 2021. The nurse robot helps in reducing direct contact between the medical staff and patients at time of the coronavirus pandemic in order to reduce the infection risk for the medical staff. It can also conduct video calls between patients and doctors, deliver medications, and sterilise the rooms. Photo by Khaled Elfiqi/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Testing testing 1, 2, 3
An engineer tests Motorola smartphones in a lab at a Lenovo production base in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province 13 August 2021. Photo by Feature China/Barcroft Media/Getty Images
On the rocks with no ice
In this aerial view, meltwater descends in shifting rivulets from Vatnajokull ice cap on 14 August 2021 near Hof, Iceland. The country is undergoing a strong impact from global warming, and since the 1990s, 90 per cent of the country's glaciers have been retreating. Projections for the future show a continued and strong reduction in size of its three ice caps. Fjallsjokull is one of dozens of glacier tongues that descend from Vatnajokull, Iceland's biggest ice cap, along the southeastern coast. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Stick in the mud
A stuck train after flooding is pictured in Wald im Pinzgau near Salzburg, Austria, on 17 August 2021. Storms had battered large parts of Austria since late August with landslides and flooding hitting especially Austria's western regions of Pinzgau and Pongau in the state of Salzburg, bordering Germany. Some one hundred people stuck in cars as landslides hit roads had to be rescued, while three people were reported injured. Photo by JFK/EXPA/AFP/Getty Images
A Royal Moroccan Air Force Canadair plane douses a wildfire in the region of Chefchaouen of northern Morocco on 17 August 2021. Firefighters in northern Morocco were battling to put out two forest blazes, as the North African kingdom swelters in a heatwave. Firefighting planes were being used to tackle the conflagrations which had already destroyed some 200 hectares (500 acres) of forest. Photo by Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images
Mint glacier
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (left), and the head of the ESA Climate Office Susanne Mecklenburg (right), explore some ice caves at the Gorner Glacier in Switzerland, on 19 August 2021. They are both part of an ESA-led expedition to observe the retreat and status of the glacier, which is the second biggest ice mass in the Alps, and is situated in Switzerland near the Monte Rosa massif close to Zermatt and the Matterhorn. Photo by ESA
Home alone
This photo taken and released on 20 August 2021 by China Manned Space Engineering Office via CNS shows Chinese astronaut Tang Hongbo coordinating inside the Tianhe core module on the Tiangong space station as his colleague Nie Haisheng conducts a spacewalk. Photo by China Manned Space Engineering/AFP/Getty Images
Air freshener
Workers examine the 25 metre (82 foot) high smog tower, built to purify the air during pollution season, in New Delhi, India, on 23 August 2021. Photo by Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images
Keep on the grass
Staff members spray disinfectant at a school ahead of the new semester in Bozhou in China's eastern Anhui province on 23 August 2021. Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images
Light Show
The interior of Lichfield Cathedral is bathed in colourful patterns of light during The Great Exhibition: Science light and sound projection show in Lichfield, United Kingdom, on 24 August 2021. The exhibition sees the inside of the 900-year-old Cathedral bathed in moving light and sound projections that explore the world of science, and the ways in which it has shaped our past as well as considering how it will influence our future. Photo by Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images
Straight to your yacht
A drone pilot ties up a bag of food to a drone at Cala Tadira near Sant Josep de Sa Talaia in Ibiza Island on 24 August 2021. Drone to Yacht is an exclusive delivery service for yachts launched in Ibiza by the restaurant Can Yucas and the Galician company Aerocamaras to deliver food and drinks to yachts. Photo by Jaime Reina/ AFP/Getty Images
Astronaut display
Visitors watch a 3D Micro LED screen displaying an astronaut figure during the Smart China Expo 2021 at Chongqing International Expo Center on 25 August 2021 in Chongqing, China. Photo by Chen Chao/China News Service/Getty Images
A rubbish bench
An eco-friendly bench made from 160,000 recycled milk cartons is seen in Shanghai, China, on 25 August 2021. It is reported that the environmental protection seat through special process and trial and error, has a high strength, as well as the resistance to bad weather and other factors. Photo by Wang Gang/Costfoto/Barcroft Media/Getty Images
James Cutmore is the picture editor of BBC Science Focus Magazine. He has worked on the magazine and website for over a decade, telling compelling science stories through the use of striking imagery. He holds a degree in Fine Art, and has been nominated for the British Society of Magazine Editors Talent Awards, being highly commended in 2020. His main areas of interest include photography that highlights positive technology and the natural world. For many years he was a judge for the Wellcome Trust's image competition, as well as judging for the Royal Photographic Society.
NEWQUAY, ENGLAND - AUGUST 10: The Virgin Orbit Launcher One rocket in its hanger at Newquay Airport on August 10, 2021 in Newquay, England. Spaceport Cornwall is aiming to launch its first satellites in spring of 2022. (Photo by Hugh R Hastings/Getty Images)
