You cant just take an image and randomly distort it and call it art - although many people in La Jolla where I come from do precisely that.

In the fetus, or a really young child, all the different brain areas are connected to each other, diffusely. And as the brain develops, the excess connections are turned off, so you get very specialized areas. So most people have really specialized talents. What happens in creative people is this pooling doesn't take place.

Here is a neuron that fires when I reach and grab something, but it also fires when I watch Joe reaching and grabbing something. ... It's as though this neuron is adopting the other person's point of view.

What the artist tries to do (either consciously or unconsciously) is to not only capture the essence of something but also to amplify it in order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanisms that would be activated by the original object.

If you're a thinking person, the liver is interesting, but nothing is more intriguing than the brain.

Science is like a love affair with nature; an elusive, tantalising mistress. It has all the turbulence, twists and turns of romantic love, but thats part of the game.

Curiosity illuminates the correct path to anything in life. If you're not curious, that's when your brain is starting to die.