When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the 'National Geographic' covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people.

Luckily, unreasonable expectations go hand in hand with naive young scientists. The more naive the better - otherwise we would never have the audacity to try and build a 22,000-mile-high space elevator or some sprawling underwater hotel.

There's probably more history now preserved underwater than in all the museums of the world combined. And there's no law governing that history. It's finders keepers.

'Changes in Latitudes' began when I was looking at a photograph of a sea turtle swimming underwater. I had such a strong feeling for the beauty of this ancient creature, at home in the sea. On the spot, I wanted to swim with that turtle. I began to imagine a character who would do just that.

Frank stared at him. "Unfair? You can breathe underwater and blow up glaciers and summon freaking hurricanes-and it's unfair that I can be an elephant?

How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turnec the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, bus as long as Em was with him, he was at home?