“I was socially isolated as a kid. I had friends, but I wasn't very goo...” — Vilayanur S. Ramachandran Quote

I was socially isolated as a kid. I had friends, but I wasn't very good at sports and that sort of thing so I became quite comfortable being by myself, exploring. The world was my private playground, and in it, I was supreme. Darwin, Faraday, Huxley and other great scientists were my companions.

Ask, 'How are we different from the great apes?' We have culture, we have civilisation, and we have language to be celebrated as part of being human.

It may well be our brains are wired up to be slightly more optimistic than they should be.

You need to have tremendous confidence in your work, even a touch of arrogance, chutzpah. Many very fine researchers lack intellectual daring. It's human nature to want to be cozy, secure. But that can be a cul de sac.

It even has the same phraseology as the English orders of knighthood, companions and this sort of thing.

I got rounded up by the police in Quito as I didn't have my passport with me. I was in prison for a night, which was pretty frightening, made more so when one of my male companions started crying.

I can go on for hours about how 'Doctor Who' is a portal fantasy writ across the stars, how the companions are falling down the rabbit hole over and over again forever, tumbling head over heels into mystery. Hours.

One of the first thoughts I had, when doing early exoplanet research, was that Earth and its many companions seemed very different from the planetary systems we were detecting.