I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.

I'm not myself religious but have no wish to insult or denigrate those who are.

Collective human actions are transforming, even ravaging, the biosphere - perhaps irreversibly - through global warming and loss of biodiversity.

To ensure continuing prosperity in the global economy, nothing is more important than the development and application of knowledge and skills.

I'm not a specialist in the science but I have followed it fairly closely and it seems to me that there is among the experts a clear consensus that potential climate change is something to worry about.

If we ever establish contact with intelligent aliens living on a planet around a distant star ... They would be made of similar atoms to us. They could trace their origins back to the big bang 13.7 billion years ago, and they would share with us the universe's future. However, the surest common culture would be mathematics.

Science isn't just for scientists - it's not just a training for careers.