There is a furnace in our cells, and when we breathe we pass the world through our bodies, brew it lightly, and turn it loose again, gently altered for having known us.

And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can't really share the enormity of our lives.

The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven's sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's jazz. Audrey Hepburn's wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children.

It's animal by animal that you save a species.

Mystery causes a mental itch, which the brain tries to soothe with the balm of reasonable talk.

Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.

All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.