To a young kid growing up in Canada, America seemed to be crazy about the future; dazzled by it.

Let's face it, who among us wouldn't take a pill or potion that would make us better at our job? Goodness knows, we abuse substances for just about everything in our personal lives; why not in our professional lives as well?

As any journalist will tell you, there are few professional situations as vexing as when a friend becomes involved in a major story that you feel you must cover.

Memory is often - perhaps usually - a distorting lens: what we think we remember isn't the way it was at all. It's what we'd like to remember.

Science can lift people out of poverty and cure disease. That, in turn, will reduce civil unrest.

The humanities have been forced to disguise, both from themselves and their students, why their subjects really matter, for the sake of attracting money and prestige in a world obsessed by the achievements of science.

Chemistry's a weird thing. You can see actors who are friends in real life but have no screen chemistry. Then there are actors who don't get on but have great chemistry.

When the AIDS epidemic broke, because I happened to be a science nerd and knew a lot about viruses and a lot about that virus at the time, I felt a moral obligation to go out and try to stem the fear and get out and explain to people what the disease was and how it worked.