Most research into life's murky origin has been carried out by chemists. They've tried a variety of approaches in their attempts to recreate the first steps on the road to life, but little progress has been made. Perhaps that is no surprise, given life's stupendous complexity.
Writing in a strict form can surprise you.
Now, honestly, every movie set that I go on, I walk onto set with the confidence that there is nothing that they can throw at me that's gonna surprise me.
On 6 October 1973, the Yom Kippur war broke out between a coalition of Arab states and Israel. At 6 A.M. that morning, Kissinger, asleep in the Waldorf, was taken by surprise by the Arab attack - as were the CIA and the rest of the world.
I assumed that 'Gone Girl' would do incrementally better than 'Dark Places,' and that would be great. So the fact that it did more than that was kind of an incredibly pleasant surprise.
I'm sure it came as no surprise to my friends and family when I became an illustrator and then a writer because, from about the age of five, I was one of those children who always had his nose in a book.
I never rehearse scenes with the whole ensemble, because I need to preserve some surprise. Instead, I work with the cast individually on their characters.
My kids are very special; they can bring a lot of surprise.
I think I surprise some people because a lot of the time, I roll out of bed and go to school, and it's like I don't wear anything that interesting sometimes.
I can tell you one of the most surprising ingredients I've ever found. Perhaps five years ago on a beach I saw this herb that looked exactly like chives. I put it in my mouth and started chewing and, surprise, it tasted exactly like coriander.
That so many binary or quasi-binary KBOs exist came as a real surprise to the research community.
When one person does something that works, everyone else wants to do it. So it didn't surprise me at all to see people come with different versions of 'American Idol' and a lot of them are exactly the same but with different twists.
The fact that Russia has shown a willingness to disrupt elections and undermine institutions should come as no surprise. Just ask our allies across Europe, particularly in places like Georgia and Ukraine.
For me, what is most important is the element of surprise. If I can surprise you with every film of mine, that is exactly what I am trying to do.
Pope Benedict XVI's resignation is big on buzz but is not the stunning surprise claimed by many pundits. It is rather a further example of the German theology professor's style that informed his years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, his term as pope, and the formation of his legacy to the church.
The biggest lesson that I've learned is that fashion is this tightrope where you have to be consistent but inconsistent. You need the connective thread but at the same time you need a sense of surprise.
It may be no surprise that Pittsburgh has direct flights to London, Paris and Frankfurt, but consider this: many of the tourists here have come from Europe to the capital of culture in the Alleghenies.
I only started singing at about 15, and it came as quite a surprise to my dad.
It would probably surprise people to know that I'm interested in wildlife. I read a lot of poetry, too.
We make a lot of movies that I don't think merit a wide release. We have this label called Tilt, and we have the movies come out on that, and that's fine. But it shocks me when, having done this a few times, when I really believe a movie should get a wide release, and I struggle to get it released. That does surprise me.
It's no surprise that the Bush administration's bullying swagger and blithe ignorance have caused much of the Muslim world to hold the U.S. in rock-bottom regard.
To my great surprise, Twitter is not housed in a silver pod that orbits Earth at supersonic speeds, vacuuming up and then dispersing digital bits of worldwide chitchat; it's in a big, bland office building in downtown San Francisco, near a bowling alley and an Old Navy.
