It's hard to imagine anything more interesting than learning how we're woven into the enormous tapestry of existence. Where did our universe come from? How special is our world, and how special are we? We allocate tens of billions of dollars annually to NASA, NSF and academia in search of the answers.

Today's voguish threats, including climate change, population growth, massive war, and resource depletion, are all amenable to a fix if we act prudently. And even if we don't, these problems are incapable of obliterating all of humanity, let alone destroying the Earth. No, the real End of Days will happen slowly, as the Sun ages.

The math is dead simple: it seems that the frequency of planets able to support life is roughly one percent. In other words, a billion or more such worlds exist in our galaxy alone. That's a lot of acreage, and it takes industrial-strength credulity to believe it's all bleakly barren.

The principal reason for the universe's poker face is that its constituents are far away. Stars careen through space, and galaxies spin at speeds thousands of times faster than a jet plane. But given their distance, you'd need the patience of Job to notice much change in their appearance or position.

The stars look the same from night to night. Nebulae and galaxies are dully immutable, maintaining the same overall appearance for thousands or millions of years. Indeed, only the sun, moon and planets - together with the occasional comet, asteroid or meteor - seem dynamic.

Buying insurance is no one's idea of fun. And it's especially easy to berate something as funky-sounding as writing checks to defend our neighborhoods against apartment-size rocks from space. But this is one insurance pitch that makes perfect sense. Ask the dinos.

It bears mentioning that the Milky Way is only one of 150 billion galaxies visible to our telescopes - and each of these will have its own complement of planets.

Each year, thousands of UFOs are sighted and reported, which is an impressive tally of unidentified aerial phenomena. Surveys show that roughly one-third of the populace believes that at least some of this sky show is due to extraterrestrial spacecraft, here to probe our airspace and, when that proves boring, our bodies.

It seems that 'rocket scientist' is a job category that's here for the long haul, like 'mortician.' But all this activity masks an important point: rockets are not a terribly efficient way to lift things into space.

What's a space elevator? Simply described, it's a thin ribbon, about 3 feet wide and 60 thousand miles long, stretching upwards from the surface of the Earth. The lower end is bolted to a heavy anchor (think of an oil drilling platform), and the top is capped with a counterweight.

Sending greeting cards to aliens is hardly a new idea. In 2005, Craigslist solicited messages for broadcast to space by a transmitter in Florida, and in 2008, NASA beamed a Beatles song to the North Star (Polaris), on the assumption that any putative Polarians would appreciate the Fab Four's 1960s-genre compositions.

In the four years since its launch, Kepler has chalked up 122 new and confirmed planets. It's also caught the scent of nearly three thousand additional objects, of which probably 80 percent or more will turn out to be other-worldly orbs.

The majority of my UFO diet consists of reports describing suspected encounters. This is not surprising, as there are thousands of sightings annually. The emailer has seen something unusual in the sky that he interprets as probable evidence of alien presence.

The Moon stabilizes Earth's obliquity. Well, almost. The tilt actually varies between 22 and 24.5 degrees - and the variation is enough to induce such environmental inconveniences as the occasional ice age. Without the Moon, it might be much worse.

Our nation is built upon a history of immigration, dating back to our first pioneers, the Pilgrims. For more than three centuries, we have welcomed generations of immigrants to our melting pot of hyphenated America: British-Americans; Italian-Americans; Irish-Americans; Jewish-Americans; Mexican-Americans; Chinese-Americans; Indian-Americans.

If our nation is to rebuild opportunity for future generations, it will require our elected leaders to realize that their responsibility lies not with their political party, but rather with the American people that they have been chosen to represent.

I was born and raised in California and benefited from California's excellent public schools, from kindergarten through medical school.

Patient autonomy is paramount to the oath that we take when we enter the profession of medicine. That is why I am appalled when the federal government gets between my patients and their right to the full range of medical information and complete access to health care.

Millions of nerdy kids who grew up in the 1980s could only find the components they needed at local Radio Shacks, and the stores were like a lifeline to a better world where everybody understood computers.

Humans have continued to evolve quite a lot over the past ten thousand years, and certainly over 100 thousand. Sure, our biology affects our behavior. But it's unlikely that humans' early evolution is deeply relevant to contemporary psychological questions about dating or the willpower to complete a dissertation.

With technology tracking us everywhere we go, 'cosplay' might become our best defense against surveillance.

As fears about the energy and environmental crises reach a fever pitch, we're all searching for solutions. And one possibility is that we could fix everything if we'd just shrink our population back down to about 2 billion people - which would put us roughly where we were at 80 years ago.

If your best friend has stolen your girlfriend, it does become life and death.

Movie magic is movie magic and acting magic is acting magic.

Being cool is being your own self, not doing something that someone else is telling you to do.

Exercise is amazing, from the inside out. I feel so alive and have more energy.

I had my first real kiss at Magic Mountain on a park bench. Not the most romantic thing ever.

Do not just look at your boyfriend as just a boyfriend. Look at him as a friend, too.

I'm not very experienced with boys or the whole dating thingy.

I want to let my fans get to know a little about me. I'm very thankful for everything they've done for me so, of course, I'm going to let them into my world a bit. But I really am a very private person, and I love kepping my life to myself - that's how I've always been.

Power to the peaceful.

Ghost stories really scare me. I have such a big imagination that after I watch a horror movie like 'The Grudge', I look in the corners of my room for the next two days.

I know for works for me - those wonderful sad love songs.

Dating is different when you get older. You're not as trusting, or as eager to get back out there and expose yourself to someone.

But I don't want to be out there anymore; I don't want people asking me about my health issues, about my kids. I choose not to be a public paparazzi girl on purpose.

I'd lose my mind if I heard my kid call the nanny Mommy.

I've been advised not to have any more children for medical reasons, so that's it - the shop has closed, even though I would have loved a daughter.

While I am aware of no counsel on whether kissing should be reserved only for post-mission dating or courtship, I am aware of plenty of counsel concerning honesty in our actions and treating others with respect and kindness. Casual attitudes about expressions of affection such as kissing can cause much grief and heartache.

An important part of dating is communicating. We communicate by sharing our thoughts, ideas, and feelings. We enjoy being with someone when we have an easy time communicating or when we have a lot to talk about.

God already knows what we're made of, but perhaps He wants us to learn what we're made of. I think we would all agree that we learn more from our tough times than from our easy times.

Victory in physical battles requires strength, muscles, and skill; but the fight is never tougher and victory is never sweeter than in the battles over self.

In the city, we work until quitting time. On the farm, we work until the job is finished.

The topic 'Farm Wisdom' is not a gospel doctrine or scriptural topic, although I found considerable scriptural support for the lessons learned on the farm.

Curiosity, rationalization, and laziness are no match against courage, self-control, and mental toughness.

I've never done online dating, but first of all, I have a book out called 'Make It Last Forever: The Do's and The Dont's,' which led me to do the online dating thing. A lot of people respect my relationship songs, so they can pretty much trust me.

Don't get caught up in the 'look' thing. Sometimes, we as men and women, the first thing that attracts us to someone is their physical appearance, and that's not always a good thing because what's good on the outside is not always good on the inside.

You can't stop loving or wanting to love because when its right it's the best thing in the world. When you're in a relationship and its good, even if nothing else in your life is right, you feel like your whole world is complete.

The cool thing about my show and me is that I'm a writer, and I'm a writer first if I don't have music.

I had a crazy life for a teenager. I lived in New Jersey, but I'd go to Vermont for three weeks, join a commune, take pictures with the guy I was dating, come back home, and post photos.

I learned how quickly I could go from having never met someone to having the world think I'm dating them.