Science

The biggest of all perhaps is how life began. We still don't know how life started from a soup of chemicals – how molecules assembled, replicated, and managed to survive and evolve into incredibly complex life forms. We also don't know how likely this was, and if we ever able to answer that, it will give us a better idea of whether we're alone in the universe.

Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry for Ribosome Structure Studies

Much of the pushback against science is related to a distrust of the establishment and of multinational corporations and their profit motive. It's easy to spread fear; as humans we're very tuned and sensitive to it. This is what we've seen with the anti-vaccine movement.

Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry for Ribosome Structure Studies

Compare the 1600s to the present day, and what we do now would seem like magic to people from that era. That just shows you how dramatic the transformation of society has been as a result of science and technological advances.

Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry for Ribosome Structure Studies

It is essential that the public knows how deeply science and technology affect their lives. A lot of the decisions that will impact our future are underpinned by science, and whilst sometimes these decisions are made by governments – who are elected and hopefully transparent – many are made by corporations who are not generally accountable to the public.

Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry for Ribosome Structure Studies

There was no single spark that got me into science. My parents were both scientists, so I was exposed to that world from an early age. I remember noticing that science was international – in our house in India, we would have visitors from many different countries and I found that fascinating.

Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry for Ribosome Structure Studies

We are facing a global catastrophe, one which should be a bigger motivator for us to come-together around a common cause than even World War II. Climate scientists tell us we're facing an existential crisis, and unless we get emissions under control in the next decade, that climate change will be irreversible.

Environmental activist & former Executive Director of Greenpeace International

She channelled that culture, and felt entitled to do the same thing – only her device wasn't a computer, or software, it was a medical device that patients and doctors relied on to make important health decisions, some of them life-or-death decisions. With medicine, you simply can't fake it till you make it. Otherwise, you jeopardize lives.

Investigative journalist who exposed Theranos fraud through Wall Street Journal reporting

When you close your eyes and imagine the person you're going to be in 10 years, this area of your brain is totally deactivated – it's treating the person you are going to become as a stranger. This is why people have such a hard time getting prostate exams, staying on a diet, quitting smoking, because the person who is going to benefit the most from these things is literally not you.

Author & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance

Anyone worth following in peak performance will tell you that 90% of human performance is mental. The understanding of that mental aspect of the game is brand-new – perhaps 10-20 years old. The work being done around the neuroscience of performance is creating an unprecedented rate of change; it's honestly off the charts.

Author & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance

Being at that altitude though – 100 miles higher than the space station, enables you to see even more of the planet's curvature – it's a different viewpoint, a different experience and perspective – you truly felt like you were interacting with the environment, you felt like a real spaceman – it was extraordinary.

Astronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope

One of the amazing things is how adaptable our brains our – and by day 2, I was feeling really good. NASA is pretty good at understanding how to keep you healthy in space; and so you go through sleep-shifts to help you stay rested, and to make sure you don't get a drop in performance from being tired.

Astronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope

I don't know why I didn't just walk-away from Los Alamos...

Theater director and avant-garde performance artist; founder of The Wooster Group

We are at a stage of development where we have 'god like' physical powers. In the bible, only God could create new life forms- yet with the genetics technologies we have, we can do that. In the Bible, only God was supposed to be able to throw down thunderbolts that could incinerate whole cities; we call them nuclear weapons.

Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

I tried to remain as emotionless as possible – remaining as much of a scientist as I could be, going with the evidence. I felt that although I didn't have a coach on hand in Ireland, and even though the sport of MMA was very small, I had mountains of evidence I could study.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

Knowledge isn't always used to make people better off, of course. It can be used to make more lethal weaponry and more effective militia and armies – so we must couple knowledge with humanism, with universal sympathy, for it to be a force for good. Without knowledge, however, all the sympathy in the world would be impotent – they must exist together.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

An appreciation of entropy is necessary to grasp that we are not entitled to wellbeing, progress, comfort, or health. The forces of the universe are- at best, indifferent- at worse, antipathetic- to our interests. Left to their own devices, things get worse.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature