Biological anthropology tends to focus on skeletons because that's what is often left behind in the ground, but I am a whole-body anatomist, I'm a clinical anatomist and that's what I teach, I teach it all, not just the skeleton, the muscles and nerves, blood vessels.

Then the BBC approached me in 2005 and asked me to be one of the presenters of the series 'Coast', which turned into a very long-running series.

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'.

So I think as a biologist I would like us to focus on this planet and finding solutions to sustaining humanity, to improving people's lives globally, but doing our absolute utmost to preserve as much biodiversity as we can, knowing that we have already been responsible for the loss of thousands of species.

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.

You don’t need to go to Rome, Prague or Vienna to find wonderful architecture, amazing stories and suprising, hidden gems.

It’s incredible that the layout of the centre of Chester, for instance, is still essentially that of the original Roman fort.

Archaeology can be overlooked as a discipline, I think, but it’s incredibly important to have this other way of approaching the past - not just through historical documents, but through actual physical remains - objects, buildings and the layout of our towns.

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 usually turn over when ads appear on television. But - very rarely - I am gripped by a particularly beautiful one, and wonder if art historians of the future will point to these televisual delights as our best art.

I love Roger Deakin's writing, and enjoyed making a programme about wild swimming for BBC4, inspired by his book about his own aquatic adventures, 'Waterlog'.

More useful than beautiful perhaps, my favourite regular programme is 'Question Time'. And Charlie Brooker is just hilarious.

If we don’t concentrate on resurrecting science, we’re not going to be able to compete in a global economy.

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.

In fact, humans have less variation genetically than chimpanzees.

Educated guesswork’ is what science is. You form hypotheses, test them against the evidence, and if they fit the evidence, you can assume you’ve got close to the truth.

Choosing my career was always based on job satisfaction rather than financial security. I wanted to get a job in science; I enjoyed being a surgeon and I now enjoy being an academic and having a media career.

I was extremely lucky as I was in one of the last generations of British students who went to university and had my fees paid, and I had a grant as well. I also earned money from my waitressing and designing and selling my own range of dinosaur cards.

I was keen to earn my own money from an early age. I had a job as a paper girl in my local village when I was about 11 - and when I was a bit older, around 15, I was a waitress.

I grew up in the Seventies; my dad is an aeronautical engineer and my mum was an English and arts teacher and for a while my family had to exist on one salary.

It is so stimulating for young children to hear someone who does science talking about it. It can be so exciting and inspiring. It is easy to get younger school children enthused about science.

We need to get across the excitement and creativity of science. That it isn't just a list of facts that have already been discovered - but a process, a creative project, that you are generating ideas, testing them and looking for evidence.

One of the big factors in me going to an independent school was the bullying at junior school. But it wasn't an easy choice for my parents. And now, I do have issues with independent schools.

We have been talking about public engagement for a decade. For me it is about recognising that the mission of science has to be embedded within our culture - the direction in which science is going has to be determined by all of us, and so we need a dialogue with the public.