I remain fearless of airplanes after 9/11. But during a trip to Los Angeles on a Boeing 767, I couldn't keep my mind from drifting: What's the largest piece of this airplane that could crash into the World Trade Center, explode out the other side, and survive intact? The landing gear? My computer battery? My belt buckle? My wedding ring?

The tenacity of life is mind-boggling. We keep finding it where no one thought it could be.

For centuries, magicians have intuitively taken advantage of the inner workings of our brains.

'Boldly going where hundreds have gone before' does not make headlines.

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

I've accomplished enough in life so that I do not fear death.

Apart from the obvious advantages of having ice to melt, filter, then drink, you can also break apart the water's hydrogen from its oxygen. Use the hydrogen and some of the oxygen as active ingredients in rocket fuel and keep the rest of the oxygen for breathing. And in your spare time between space missions, you can always go ice skating on the frozen lake created with the extracted water.