People who dismiss science in favor of religion sometimes confuse the challenge of rigorously understanding the world with a deliberate intellectual exclusion that leads them to mistrust scientists and, to their detriment, what they discover.

In fairness, I don't think that everyone understands what I say, but I think they understand part of it and part of what the issues are... Just the same way that people like a good painting, I think people really like understanding, knowing about the world.

Neuroscience is exciting. Understanding how thoughts work, how connections are made, how the memory works, how we process information, how information is stored - it's all fascinating.

I was always good at math, but I was good at everything. It sounds obnoxious, but I was just smart. In school, it's kind of obvious when you're learning things faster than other kids.

For me, influences really come from everywhere: literature, comics, movies, anime, Internet, science, real-life situations. In fact, I think that writing is just about living.

Synthetic biology can help address key challenges facing the planet and its population. Research in synthetic biology may lead to new things such as programmed cells that self-assemble at the sites of disease to repair damage.

I didn't know what kinds of questions to ask in mathematics. In physics, I could see there were things that were known and things that weren't.

I never had a favourite book! I liked all kinds of things - science fiction, so I read Heinlen and Ray Bradbury, and I also liked reading about kids like myself, so I read Judy Blume and Norma Klein and Paula Danzinger and a lot of other writers. I also read James Herriot!