Ray

“We talk of the traditional five senses, but in reality, there are many more than that. Proprioception is a significant one here – awareness of one’s own body in space; another is interoception – an awareness of one’s internal bodily state: try sitting perfectly still (like a toad) and counting your heartbeats by nothing other than feeling them in your body. These are also key expressions of a sense that you are a body in space, independent of the environment. Self-awareness is essential for recognising that you are a being which is separate from everything else. It is part of the conscious experience of being human, and the experience of being in some other animals.”
― Adam Rutherford, The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us

“A gene encodes a phenotype – that is, the physical manifestation of a piece of DNA – and differences in those physical manifestations in a population are visible to nature as a means of selecting what works better. The gene that encodes that phenotype is what is transmitted from generation to generation, the unit of inheritance. A gene for processing goat’s milk after weaning was selected in humans over a gene that did not permit digestion of a nutritious drink. Individuals are merely carriers of genes, which drive the necessity of procreating simply so that the existence of the gene is perpetuated.”
― Adam Rutherford, The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us

“Your genome is the totality of your DNA, 3 billion letters of it, and due to the way it comes together – by the mysterious (from a biological point of view) business of sex – it is unique to you. Not only is this genetic fingerprint yours alone, it’s unlike any other of the 107 billion people who have ever lived. That applies even if you are an identical twin, whose genomes begin their existence indistinguishable, but inch away from each other moments after conception. In the”
― Adam Rutherford, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes

“The collapsing star pushes past the resistance of crushed electrons, past the resistance of the neutrons. When the stellar material is compressed enough, the curves in spacetime around the collapsing mass become so sharp that even light can be caught in orbit. As collapse continues, light cannot escape the surface, as though the spacetime spills behind the crushed material faster than light can race outward. A horizon defining the region of no return, the event horizon, is inscribed in the very geometry of spacetime. The event horizon casts a lightless shadow, and a black hole has formed. The black hole is not a star anymore. It’s not really even a thing. The pulverized matter that cast the shadow of the event horizon continues to fall and is gone. The black hole is nothing but its shadow. Wheeler”
― Janna Levin, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space