What a life in science really teaches you is the vastness of our ignorance.

We don't really understand most of what's happening in the cosmos. Is there any afterlife? Who knows.

Humans have discovered that they cannot stop Death, but at least they can spit in his drink.

When a male vole repeatedly mates with a female, a hormone called vasopressin is released in his brain. The vasopressin binds to receptors in a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, and the binding mediates a pleasurable feeling that becomes associated with that female. This locks in the monogamy, which is known as pair-bonding. If you block this hormone, the pair-bonding goes away.

Modern neuroimaging is like asking an astronaut in the space shuttle to look out the window and judge how America is doing.

If you cannot always elicit a straight answer from the unconscious brain, how can you access its knowledge? Sometimes the trick is merely to probe what your gut is telling you. So the next time a friend laments that she cannot decide between two options, tell her the easiest way to solve her problem: flip a coin. She should specify which option belongs to heads and which to tails, and then let the coin fly. The important part is to assess her gut feeling after the coin lands. If she feels a subtle sense of relief at being "told" what to do by the coin, that's the right choice for her.

Just like a good drama, the human brain runs on conflict.