Quotes from Roger Highfield

If Newton had not, as Wordsworth put it, voyaged through strange seas of thought alone, someone else would have. If Marie Curie had not lived, we still would have discovered the radioactive elements polonium and radium. But if J. K. Rowling had not been born, we would never have known about Harry Potter. That is why Master Potter means so much to me. Science may be special but Harry, as a work of art, is more so. Harry Potter is unique.

Words can calm people, can make them them fall in love, can whip them up into a frenzy, can turn them into killers.

Retailers use various strategies, policies, and procedures in timing their markdowns of Christmas merchandise, adds Dale Lewison of the University of Akron. "Some retailers start taking small and early markdowns before Thanksgiving, while others wait until after the weekend following Thanksgiving —the biggest shopping weekend of the year. Still other retailers wait longer to mark down merchandise.

some researchers have found that eating resin or oil from Commiphora or guggulu, lowers blood cholesterol levels. Chinese scientists have discovered that C. myrrha can reduce the development of arteriosclerosis —hardening of the arteries —in animals.

The selfsame hydrogen bonds also make water blue, because they absorb a little red from sunlight, which contains all the colors of the rainbow.)

life span is determined by a fixed amount of metabolic activity: eat less, slow your metabolism, and you may live longer.

When it comes to the number of forms, or phases, of ice, water has more solid phases —nine total —than any other known pure substance because it can form phases which differ only in the orientations of the hydrogen bonds. No wonder every crystal is different.

The sprout's slightly bitter, sulfurous taste is meant to discourage would-be insect diners. This is the vegetable equivalent of a chemical weapon and evolved to deal with pests.