We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us - through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

Science has taught us, against all intuition, that apparently solid things like crystals and rocks are really almost entirely composed of empty space. And the familiar illustration is the nucleus of an atom is a fly in the middle of a sports stadium, and the next atom is in the next sports stadium.

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

Our animal origins are constantly lurking behind, even if they are filtered through complicated social evolution.

It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world.