The Big Bang Theory: When geeky scientists can be main characters in a hit prime time series, you know there's hope for the world.

Countless women are alive today because of ideas stimulated by a design flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.

We fail in even the simplest of all scientific observations-nobody looks up anymore.

Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list: sure signs of the absence of intelligence.

The first colony on Mars is not going to be built by a private company. How are you going to make money? You're not.

We think scientific literacy flows out of how many science facts can you recite rather than how was your brain wired for thinking. And it's the brain wiring that I'm more interested in rather than the facts that come out of the curriculum or the lesson plan that's been proposed.

We are in the universe and the universe is in us.