Silicon-based life may be impossible for one other reason: silicon bonds readily dissolve in water.

As much as we sometimes roll our eyes at the ivory-tower isolation of universities, they continue to serve as remarkable engines of innovation.

This is not the wisdom of the crowd, but the wisdom of someone in the crowd. It’s not that the network itself is smart; it’s that the individuals get smarter because they’re connected to the network.

Chance favors the connected mind.

We need to play each others instruments.

If you look at where innovation - defined as ideas, not as commercial product - tends to live, the university system is remarkably innovative.

One of the founding moments of public health in the 19th century effectively poisoned the water supply of London much more effectively than any modern day bioterrorist could have ever dreamed of doing.