This has been in the works for a long time. This was something that was always obvious to do as a next step.

I am absolutely certain that life can exist in outer space, move around, find a new aqueous environment.

Sailing is a big outlet for me. It’s one of the key things I’ve been able to do by commingling science with sailing and my love of the sea. Also, I have several motorcycles, and...

We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.

When you do cross-breeding of plants, you’re doing this blind experiment where you’re just mixing DNA of different types of cells and just seeing what comes out of it.

My complaint is that there are more books and news articles than there are primary scientific papers. I am probably the biggest critic of the hypesters, because it’s dangerous when fields get overhyped.

If I could change the science system, my prescription for changing the whole thing would be organising it around big goals and building teams to do it.

I have an unusual type of thinking. I have no visual memory whatsoever. Everything is conceptual to me.

Science should be the most fun job on the planet. You get to ask questions about the world around you and go out and seek the answers. Not to have fun doing that is crazy.

You’d need a very specialized electron microscope to get down to the level to actually see a single strand of DNA.

When you think of all the things that are made from oil or in the chemical industry, if in the future we could find cells to replace most of those processes, the ideal way would...

People equate patents with secrecy, that secrecy is what patents were designed to overcome. That’s why the formula for Coca-Cola was never patented. They kept it as a trade secret, and they’ve outlasted patent laws...

If we were trying to make liquid transportation fuels to replace all transportation fuels in the U.S., and you try and do that from corn, it would take a facility three times the size of...

I have this idea of trying to catalog all the genes on the planet.

Since my own genome was sequenced, my software has been broadcast into space in the form of electromagnetic waves, carrying my genetic information far beyond Earth. Whether there is any creature out there capable of...