In the clear frosty pre-dawn of 17 November I was watching the Leonid meteor shower. Not far away a tawny owl was calling. Pieces of comet debris blazing trails through the earth's atmosphere, and a hunter able to catch mice in near darkness--wonders of physics and biology.

Our growing understanding of the forces of nature, and how to harness them, seems to have placed within our grasp almost anything that the human mind can conceive.

Professor Eduard Kellenberger witnessed one of the great scientific breakthroughs of the century. He talks to Alan Channer about genes, ethics and society.

We must find ways to improve living standards in the Third World and to maintain those in the West, with as little as possible damage to the environment. This will require a growth in the environmental sciences.

Christ's first recorded sermon expresses the same simplicity. 'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Repent and believe.' Not exactly a wordy programme; simply an invitation to life in all its fullness.

My wife, Lyn, and I had just arrived in Fiji, where for the next five and a half years I was to teach physics and maths at a large part-boarding high school run by the Methodist Church.

In the green and wooded countryside which skirts Lake Geneva and has been civilized since Roman times, I found a unique juxtaposition. The convent of Fille Dieu sits quietly at the foot of the medieval town of Romont, neighboured by horses and sheep in lush fields. Within its walls, there has been constant prayer since 1253. There I met the Abbess, a French philosopher and nuclear physicist, who for the past 37 years has devoted herself to the life of the spirit.