“Accept nothing at face value and get in the habit of thinking unconventionally. Work hard, work smart and, with a bit of luck, serendipity will play its part.”
Australian Nobel prizewinning scientist Peter Doherty in his new book The Beginner’s Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize (Reuters, 10 October)
“The cookie jar is wide open and the bad kids are robbing it.”
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Robert Wintner, owner of Snorkel Bob’s dive shop in Hawaii, on the aquarium collectors who loot local reefs (The Washington Post, 10 October)
“The elevation of Mount Everest’s summit is 8844.43 metres, with a precision of 10.21 metres.”
Chen Bangzhu, director-general of the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, confirming that the world’s highest mountain is 3.7 metres lower than previously thought (The Times of India, 9 October)
“All kinds of mathematical games are a good thing.”
Michael Atiyah, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, on why the Sudoku craze could spur an interest in mathematics among young people (The Daily Telegraph, London, 10 October)
“The Amazon is a canary in a coal mine for the Earth.”
Ecologist Dan Nepstadt, from the Woods Hole Research Institute, on why we should care that the world’s biggest rainforest is suffering its worst drought for 40 years (Reuters, 10 October)
“If a man ends his life saying he wants to donate his organs, we have no ethical problem fulfilling his request.”
A doctor at the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, after a man walked in, committed suicide, and left a note donating his organs for transplant (AFP, 10 October)
