The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.

If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble.

The regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.

Essentially, we humans live well enough and long enough, and are smart enough, to generate all sorts of stressful events purely in our heads.

It's great to have a buff frontal cortex to do that harder thing - for example, help a person in need rather buy some useless, shiny gee-gaw.

...I might continue to believe that there is no god even if it were proved that there is. A religious friend of mine once remarked that the concept of god is useful, because you can berate god during the bad times. But it is clear to me that I don't need to believe there is a god in order to berate him.

An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart.