The word 'mundane' has come to mean 'boring' and 'dull', and it really shouldn't - it should mean the opposite. Because it comes from the latin mundus, meaning 'the world'. And the world is anything but dull: The world is wonderful. There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

It is all too easy to mistake passion that can change its mind for fundamentalism, which never will.

I think the world's always a better place if people are filled with understanding.

Why do more than 40 percent of Americans think that the Universe began after the domestication of the dog?

Genome sequencing has changed taxonomy.

Public sharing is an important part of science.

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.