One theme I ran into over and over while writing about the periodic table was the future of energy and the question of which element or elements will replace carbon as king. Sam Kean Read Quote
The amygdala is one of those brain structures that a lot of people know a little bit about, and there’s a definite tendency to conflate the amygdala and the fear response itself – as if the amygdala, and the amygdala alone, ’causes’ fear. Sam Kean Read Quote
The more that I looked at DNA, the more I realized it was nature and nurture. It’s how genes and your environment work together to produce the person you are. Sam Kean Read Quote
As a child in the early 1980s, I tended to talk with things in my mouth – food, dentist’s tubes, balloons that would fly away, whatever – and if no one else was around, I’d talk anyway. Sam Kean Read Quote
It’s often meaningless to talk about a genetic trait without also discussing the environment in which that trait appears. Sometimes, genes don’t work at all until the environment awakens them. Sam Kean Read Quote
While our amplified knowledge of genetics – and the increasing precision of the field – does make it tempting to take on celebrity cases, retro-genetics can’t always provide clear answers. Sam Kean Read Quote
Our evolution could have gone in different directions a lot of times. We could have gone extinct at some points. We might not have gotten our big brains, or Neanderthals might have made it while we did not. Sam Kean Read Quote
Medieval alchemists, despite their lust for gold, considered mercury the most potent and poetic substance in the universe. As a child, I would have agreed with them. Sam Kean Read Quote
Among physicists and chemists, cold fusion – nuclear fusion at close to room temperature – enjoys a reputation about on par with creationism. Sam Kean Read Quote
Cancer is really a DNA disease… We have these certain genes that prevent our cells from growing out of control at the expense of the body. And it’s a pretty good, robust system. But if a couple of these genes fail, then that’s when cancer starts, and cells start growing out of control. Sam Kean Read Quote
