Going back into the history of a word, very often into Latin, we come back pretty commonly to pictures or models of how things happen or are done.

Sentences are not as such either true or false.

In the one defence, briefly, we accept responsibility but deny that it was bad: in the other, we admit that it was bad but don't accept full, or even any, responsibility.

In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.

My grandmother was a chemist. She worked at the Banting Institute in Toronto, and at 44 she died of stomach cancer. I never met my grandmother, but I carry on her name - her exact name, Eva Vertes - and I like to think I carry on her scientific passion, too.

With modern medicine prolonging life no matter what condition you're in, it seems like we're working towards immortality by science.

When religious believers invoke miracles and acts of creation ex nihilo, that is the end of the search for them, whereas for scientists, the identification of such mysteries is only the beginning. Science picks up where theology leaves off.