One of the most obvious reasons to start using timber rather than concrete is that it's the one commonly grown and therefore exceptionally renewable building material that we have available to us. And it acts as storage for carbon dioxide.

Sand dunes are almost like ready-made buildings in a way. All we need to do is solidify the parts that we need to be solid, and then excavate the sand, and we have our architecture. We can either excavate it by hand, or we can have the wind excavate it for us.

If you happen to live close to the desert border, you can pretty much calculate how long it will be before you have to carry your kids away and abandon your home and your life as you know it.

One billion grains of sand come into existence in the world each second. That's a cyclical process. As rocks and mountains die, grains of sand are born. Some of those grains may then cement naturally into sandstone. And as the sandstone weathers, new grains break free. Some of those grains may then accumulate on a massive scale, into a sand dune.

You will not be able to meet the Millennium Development goals in health without e-health, in education without e-education, and government services will not be able to be provided without e-government services.

The first time I moved to L.A., I was there for five months, and my health got so bad because of how depressed I was.

When I left my parents' home when I was 19, I went to the University of Florida, and within 24 hours was in the mental health department. And within 20 minutes, I was being told by the director there that they didn't have what I needed there.

Cancer taught my family that my mom is much stronger than we ever thought. Faced with a devastating diagnosis, she just kept going and living - never complaining.