Alice Roberts

“Always attempting to tame and subjugate nature is not the solution. But the latest science is helping us to map out a path across this shifting landscape in uncertain times, showing us how to work with natural forces, not against them.”

“Whatever happens to science in schools, there's something peculiar going on if students don't see it as creative.”

“While planting woodlands along rivers has been shown to work in small areas, it has been unclear whether it would be effective on a larger scale. But computer modelling indicates that restoring forests on floodplains could slow floodwaters and reduce the height of the flood downstream.”

“At Bristol I found it quite difficult to continue trying to balance three things - teaching, research and public engagement, for which television was obviously the most prominent part.”

“If a group of humans began to run regularly, perhaps allowing them to hunt or scavenge more effectively, anatomical changes would follow, especially among the still-developing youngsters.”

“My childhood hero was David Attenborough. He opened my eyes to the wonder of the natural world. In fact, he's still my hero. I interviewed him at the Science Museum in 2015, and he is such a thoughtful, humble and inspiring person.”

“I suppose the thing I'm quite pleased about is that I am, I would hope, a role model for girls and younger women who are thinking about doing science.”

“My mum was an art teacher, so we used to have fantastic dressing-up costumes when we were little.”

“I have family connections with Salisbury through my godmother. Her sister lived there, so I have very fond memories of visiting the city as a child.”

“The access to information the web provides is both daunting and exciting. Information that was once secreted away in library stacks is now so much more easily available.”

“I love prehistory - particularly the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. These were times when our ancestors made a revolutionary change from being hunter-gatherers to being farmers, and when great migrations of people spread languages - and genes - across Europe.”

“So I had this fascination with old bones and being able to diagnose disease in old bones. And I was doing that, and started to do bone reports for the Channel 4 series 'Time Team'.”

“Eighteen years later, pregnant with my first child, I started eating fish. Oily fish in particular contains plenty of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, essential for neural development.”

“I've always loved the seaside and I used to be a fairly keen surfer, but it's a solitary activity so when my husband and I had children, we bought sit-on-top kayaks. Whenever possible, we escape to the coast or explore rivers with them.”

“Science plays a huge role in our lives. We're surrounded by technology, we depend on it.”

“The scientific method is about trying to remove our own bias and subjectivity, and be as objective as possible. But then you can put it back into context and you're allowed to be emotional and human about the way you engage with it.”

“Chance is hugely significant in biology. In fact, the presence of apparent randomness in so many aspects of biology - from mutations in DNA to the chance involved in that one sperm reaching that one egg that became you - suggests that randomness is useful, even necessary, in very many cases.”

“We need to stop being so profligate with fossil fuels, to rein back climate change and protect biodiversity. We need to work together, globally, and I'm optimistic that we will.”

“We're not the only mammals who are partial to blackberries, far from it. Foxes and badgers will also gobble them up, helping to distribute the seeds, which survive the transit through the gut.”

“I find humanism to be the most rational and positive philosophy for life. And it's not a new thing at all - the history of humanist thought is deep and inspiring.”