Over the years, I've had a lot of different jobs - newspaper boy, dish washer, naval flight officer, Amtrak board member, Governor and chairman of the National Governors Association - just to name a few. But my most cherished job - and frankly my most important job for that matter - is being a father.

In my home state of Delaware, we've done our homework and worked hard and, as a result, we've made great strides in cleaning up our own air pollution. Unfortunately, a number of the upwind states to the west of us have not made the same commitment to reducing harmful pollution by investing in cleaner air.

Delaware's firefighters put their lives in jeopardy every day in an effort to keep families safe.

Unbeknownst to a lot of us, our children actually listen to just about everything we say and, even more so, watch everything we do. They notice the choices we make and the company we keep.

National governments alone cannot deliver lasting prosperity without a transformation of social and economic development that seeks to minimise risk and seize the opportunity we have.

It turns out that viruses evolve from each other, like everything else. So if you look at the evolutionary tree of viruses, you can find parts of their genome that haven't changed over evolutionary time. You can recognize what may be a new virus by identifying this little piece of their genome that hasn't changed and is represented on the chip.

When you grow up on film, people sometimes have difficulties accepting the fact that you are growing up. They always imagine you younger.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.