In the imperfect records left of the anatomy of the ancient Egyptians, no trace of any knowledge of the spleen can be ascertained.

The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened.

Since the beginning of civilization humans have altered our environment and its biology to allow our civilization to thrive - from domesticating plants and animals to building shelter and tools from...

While at Cal Tech I talked a lot with Jon Mathews, then a junior faculty member; he taught me how to use the Institute's computer; we also went on hikes together.

Because I believe that humans are computers, I conjectured that computers, like people, can have left- and right-handed versions.

Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'etre.

Every time we get a story that says there was a Big Bang, then people want to know what was before that. And if we find out, what was before that?

In the process of making nanomaterials, we learned that with the electronic density of states, the phonon electronic properties and everything change at the nano-level. So the thermoelectric...

As I became more interested in behavior from the standpoint of neurobiology, the stress-response became really interesting. What stress physiology is about is - when there is a new environmental...

Nuclear scientists lost their innocence when we used the atom bomb for the very first time. So we could argue computer scientists lost their innocence in 2009 when we started using malware as an...

A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular...

Synaptic summation is the technical term used in neurophysiology for those instances in which some neuron C is fired only by a combination of neurons A and B.

The best recommendation I can have is my own talents, and the fruits of my own labors, and what others will not do for me, I will try and do for myself.

The theory of founder effects does not explain how novel features like plumage traits arise.

About 3 million IVF babies have been born since Louise Brown's birth in 1978. Bizarrely, when this life-giving treatment was first considered, it was massively controversial. A storm of vitriolic...

A big tree seemed even more beautiful to me when I imagined thousands of tiny photosynthesis machines inside every leaf. So I went to MIT and worked on bacteria because that's where people knew the...

I've been collecting art for much of my adult life. I started around 1960. And my wife and I really enjoy art a great deal. We don't have a lot of money, so we have works on paper, but we enjoy them a...

Streptomycin belongs to a group of compounds, known as antibiotics, which are produced by microorganisms and which possess the property of inhibiting the growth and even of destroying other...

There is no evidence to show that prohibition has ever had its intended impact. Of course, just as banning beef has reduced beef consumption, banning alcohol will lead to reduced alcohol consumption....

Being insignificant statistically doesn't mean it's right or wrong. It just means you don't have enough data to show yes or no.

Art and money are closely related. Try sitting down with a group of artists and ask them what's on their mind. Very quickly the topic shifts to money. And it can be very hard to get them off that...

I can't write unless I'm overlooking water.

For more than 200 years, materialists have promised that science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Believers are sustained by the faith that scientific discoveries...

When I first got to Apple, which was in '84, the Mac was already out, and 'Newsweek' contacted me and asked me what I thought of the Mac. I said, 'Well, the Mac is the first personal computer good...

There are a number of candidate vaccines that are in development for HIV/AIDS.

I should not like to leave an impression that all structural problems can be settled by X-ray analysis or that all crystal structures are easy to solve. I seem to have spent much more of my life not...

The mosque was the neighbourhood house of worship, but it was also the place where my high school friends and I came to study.

When I was in college, I didn't like physics a lot, and I really wasn't very good at physics. And there were a lot of people around me who were really good at physics: I mean, scary good at physics....

The important thing is to do what you most love in the best way. If you love literature, you could be a great writer and perhaps one day become a Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature.

When we anthropomorphize the egg and sperm, when we turn them into a miniature bride and groom complete with personalities, what effect does this have on abortion legislation?