Especially working in infectious disease, it's very interesting because these infectious diseases, these agents, they evolve over time. So it's very much an arms race and understanding how each changes to protect itself and to continue. And so it's very much this puzzle-solving but with this great urgency and importance in what you find.

At 9, I think I had really gotten into tennis. I liked writing short stories; I loved solving math problems. I was learning a little piano, and I was collecting Garbage Pail Kids cards.

The process of discovery in my field is very incremental. But there are moments when you realize you know something about the world nobody else knows. That's extraordinarily exhilarating.

You get these moments of thrill. There you are, at 3:00 in the morning, and you know something about how we evolved that nobody else in the world knows. It's a thrill of discovery. You make this breakthrough, and you find something. It's this wonderful, wonderful scavenger hunt when you got to the end. It's just so great to be a scientist.

I was obsessed with country music when I was a kid, and it's definitely had a huge influence on the way I write songs. I was always attracted to songs that had a brilliant pun or a clever turn of phrase, but came from a dark, bitter place. As a writer, I've always gravitated towards that feeling.

Reporters have to use their imagination, really put themselves in the shoes of the person they want to interview.

I enjoy trying to inspire myself. I enjoy the artistic side of everything. Music, art, fashion, everything. I just like to be on the cutting edge of it. I'm into designing houses and interior design. I like change. I like creating things out of nothing.

We do care about planets like the Earth because by now we understood that life as a chemical system really needs a smaller planet with water and with rocks and with a lot of complex chemistry to originate, to emerge, to survive.