An interview with Yoky Matsuoka, a leader in the field of neurobotics, which combines neuroscience with robotics. The winner of a MacArthur Genius Grant, Yoky founded the Neurobotics Lab at the University of Washington, and her goal is to create prosthetic limbs controlled by brain power alone. Also, her nonprofit foundation, YokyWorks, seeks to devise ingenious engineering solutions to help people overcome their physical limitations.
A look at Project LIGO, an attempt to prove Einstein's theory of gravitational waves. Guests are Stanford University physicists Riccardo Bassiri and Brian Lantz. Also, a discussion of the spinoff benefits generated by LIGO's new technologies.
An Interview with Bill Davidow, author of the recent book "Overconnected: The promise and threat of the Internet", which says that the constantly accelerating speed with which data can move through the Internet can have a destabilizing effect on society and even lead to catastrophic consequences. Bill Davidow is a former senior vice president of Intel, co-founder of the Mohr Davidow venture capital firm, and currently is on the boards of Caltech and UCSF Medical Center.
A discussion of possible future scenarios with two futurists. David Passig is associate professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where he heads the graduate program in information technology. He's written two books on futurism, "The Future Code" and "2048". John Smart is director of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, co-founder of the Evo Devo Universe Research Community, director of the Emerging Technology master's degree program at the U. of Advancing Technology and a frequent blogger.
Inventor Chuck Colby, whose 50+ year career includes numerous technological firsts, and who now works mostly with robots, demonstrates some of his robotic creations and discusses the future of this rapidly growing field. Also, videos of two very different types of robots.
A look at how information technology is making medical knowledge more accessible than ever before, and empowering people to be more active participants in their own health maintenance. Guests include John de Souza, CEO of MedHelp, and Bruce Cohen, CEO of VitaPath Genetics. Also, footage of the 2011 Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.
One of the biggest problems facing the world today is finding enough energy to feed our ever growing industrial economy in a way that's clean, sustainable and affordable. Discussing the issue are two guests from SRI International, one of the top research organizations in the world. Barbara Heydorn is Director of the Center of Excellence in Energy at SRI, and Ripudaman Malhotra is a research fellow at SRI and co-author of the book, "A Cubic Mile of Oil".
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence as conducted by the SETI Institute, which uses radio telescopes to search the skies for signals of possibly intelligent origin. The guest is SETI's senior astronomer Seth Shostak.
Coverage of the Triple Helix Conference, a yearly international event whose aim is to foster innovative solutions to world problems by promoting better collaboration between industry, government and academia. The studio guests are Keith Devlin, Director of Stanford's H-STAR Institute and also known as "The Math Guy" on National Public Radio, and Marina Ranga, senior researcher at the H-STAR Institute and co-organizer of the conference who also serves on several UN commissions.
A look at CliniSpace, an online, multiuser virtual hospital used for training real doctors and nurses on virtual patients. CliniSpace won the 2011 Grand Prize of $25,000 at the Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge, sponsored by the US Army Research Lab. The guests are CliniSpace co-creators Dr. Wm. LeRoy Heinrichs and Parvati Dev. Includes a live demonstration of a CliniSpace session.