Trees are essentially growing chairs. There are lots of primates that sit and sleep in them.

The rewards for biotechnology are tremendous - to solve disease, eliminate poverty, age gracefully. It sounds so much cooler than Facebook.

Clearly, we are a species that is well connected to other species. Whether or not we evolve from them, we are certainly very closely related to them. A series of mutations could change us into all kinds of intermediate species. Whether or not those intermediate species are provably in the past, they could easily be in our future.

My laboratory and my obsession is about safety and building/engineering safety. It's not just a matter of saying we want the world to be safer; we have to create technology.

I've always been interested in people who think out of their time, and I have this passion, actually, for science. I'm just so enormously interested in how, when you think of these revolutionary ideas, other people get threatened, especially if you are different.

The chemistry at a table is so important. You must start with a carefully balanced mix of personalities. If the balance is off, and the stakes are too big for some of the players, it kills the game. Too small, and everybody gets bored.

What Bradbury had that most other science-fiction writers didn't have at that time was a love for beautiful language, evocative description, and haunting phrases that would stick with the reader.

That knowledge which is popular is not scientific.