And since I'm realistic, rather than grandiose, I don't claim that the ability to control the function of the nervous system will at once unravel all its mysteries.

And more than anything, for those of you who share that, I've simply come to tell you to keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

But in a world of conservation reliance, those stories have very real consequences, because now, how we feel about an animal affects its survival more than anything that you read about in ecology textbooks.