“We human beings are humane in part because we can look beyond our biol...” — Sam Kean Quote

We human beings are humane in part because we can look beyond our biology.

In 'The Violinist's Thumb,' I talk about the poignancy of cells leaking across the placenta into both the mother and the child.

Things look especially bleak for common killers such as diabetes and heart disease. Those ailments clearly have a genetic component. But when scientists survey genes looking for which mutations patients have in common, they come up empty.

Many different elements can form isomers, but only a few elements on the periodic table, like hafnium, can form isomers that last more than fractions of a second - and might therefore be turned into weapons.

No other planet in the solar system is a suitable home for human beings; it's this world or nothing. That's a very powerful perception.

The differences that separate human beings are nothing compared to the similarities that bond us together.

Human beings are a social species. We like to hang together in groups, just like wildebeests, just like lions. Wildebeests don't hang with lions because lions eat wildebeests. Human beings are like that. We do what that group does that we're trying to identify with.

Human beings have to create hope. They have to. You have to have something you hold onto as being a possibility. Otherwise, why go on?