I wish I had a talent for dropping things as well as taking on new ones. It gets to be quite a clutter after a while.
I think we have to believe we are here for some purpose, and I know there are many cynics who will deny it, but they don't live as if they deny it.
As soon as you go into any biological process in any real detail, you discover it's open-ended in terms of what needs to be found out about it.
When I was in high school, I became interested in cytochemistry: chemical analysis under the microscope, and trying to understand the composition of cells.
About 20 percent of the genetic information in your nose doesn't match anything that we've ever seen before.
Don't assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story. Go after the dark matter, in whatever field you choose to explore.
We may have charted all the continents on the planet, and we may have discovered all the mammals, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing left to explore on Earth.
If you find diseases before they've really emerged, you can control them early on, before you get a major epidemic.
This possibility bothered me as I thought it was not advisable to remain in one academic environment, and the long dark winters in Edinburgh could be rather dismal.
Better understanding of the natural world not only enhances all of us as human beings, but can also be harnessed for the better good, leading to improved health and quality of life.
Pearl Harbor was the defining event in my life. It shaped who I am, and all of my hang-ups and my drives, I think, stem from that.
One must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron.
So much of what we are currently seeing as far as human suffering and misery comes from diseases that should have been preventable but were not.
For delightfully quirky descriptions of bizarre neurological syndromes that teach us a lot about how the brain works, there is no match for Oliver Sacks.
I took care of young adults with cystic fibrosis when I was in my residency training and found this to be a disease that was desperately in need of some explanation.
My own area of expertise is the genetics of human disease. I was fortunate to be part of the team that found the genes for cystic fibrosis, and Huntington's disease and neurofibromatosis.
The word 'living' has so many connotations that I'm almost reluctant to try to define it scientifically because it sounds as if I'm then downgrading all the other significances of that word.
Many people struggle with losing weight and then regaining it. But there is no convincing evidence that the effort to lose weight actually promotes more weight gain in the long run.
Preserving parks and open spaces is a winner because it doesn't need to be explained to everyday Americans.
The fundamental problem for Republicans when it comes to the environment is that whatever you say is viewed through the prism of suspicion.
Many instances of persecution and killing have occurred in countries with atrocious human rights records such as Sri Lanka, Guatemala and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
