The philosophy of the school was quite simple - the bright boys specialised in Latin, the not so bright in science and the rest managed with geography or the like.

This field is not necessarily glamorous, nor does it often produce immediate results, but it seeks to increase our basic understanding of living processes.

My father was trained as a saddler, but in fact as a young man worked in his father's business of rearing and selling cattle, so he grew up in the countryside.

In the course of my stay there, I also showed how one could analyse the experimental kinetic curves for the reaction of haemoglobin with carbon dioxide or oxygen by simulations in the computer, and so fit the rate constants.

This joy of discovery is real, and it is one of our rewards. So too is the approval of our work by our peers.

Science is the greatest creative impulse of our time. It dominates the intellectual scene and forms our lives, not only in the material things which it has given us, but also in that it guides our spirit.

I wanted to have the no. 1 show on the Discovery channel. I went for it for a very long time, and I was knocking on every door in L.A. that would answer, and sleeping in front of Discovery’s office, probably. It wasn’t working, so I decided to regroup and take a break from knocking on doors."

Science does not just drive space travel - space travel also drives science.