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.

For many years, I was obsessed about what I was eating, how many calories it had, and how much exercise I'd have to do.

The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.

I always knew I'd keep at it with the plodding doggedness that I used to master lump-less gravy and wriggle out of fitness classes; I always knew I'd get a zillion rejection slips. I figured I'd write part time while working various full-time office jobs, and maybe, maybe in my 50s, I'd be able to quit and try writing full time.

At 16, I would wear clothes that hid my body; now I've found clothes that fit me rather than cover me. I'm not skinny, but I'm healthy, and you have to embrace what you've been given.