Although both of us were raised on Oahu, in Honolulu, my mother has always had fond memories of Maui; this was, after all, where she and my father, then penniless yet oddly optimistic newlyweds, honeymooned in 1969.

One of the writers I most admire is Hilary Mantel because in the middle of her career, she just changed paths entirely and became just a totally different novelist.

I think there are patterns of the aftermath of colonization that you see echoed in cultures and communities across the world.

I wanted to see how flavors, spices, and grains traveled back and forth along the Silk Road and were interpreted by a multitude of cultures' palates.

The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you've ever seen a space IMAX movie, that's really what it looks like. I wish I'd had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map, but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time.

So many people I talk to who work in technology, you ask them, 'What got you interested in science?' and those from my generation say, 'The Apollo landings.'

Right now, oil is being isolated around the globe, and there is a major effort in shipping, trucking and otherwise transporting that oil around to a very finite number of refineries. Biology allows us to make these same fuels in a much more distributed fashion.

I have devoted much time and energy to helping medical physics in developing countries.