Topic: Science and Technology (general)

If your confidence in healthcare is hurting, listen to this inspiring talk by pediatrician Chris Longhurst for a quick boost. Chris gives an intelligent and honest overview of technology adoption by hospitals, its huge benefits in reducing errors and costs together with its unintended consequences and how to manage them. Learn nine common problems that arise from healthcare IT adoption and take heart that we have smart, caring doctors like Chris to work through them, so patients can reap the benefits.

A flash at 3 AM inspired Wei-Min Shen and Peter Will to use life-like hormones to control robot transformations. Years later, Wei-Min Shen is still learning new advantages of such a novel life-science approach to robotic control. In this interview, Per Sjoborg asks Wei-Min Shen how he defines three-degrees of freedom for his reconfigurable robots, how far Shen's blue-sky dreams reach and how to achieve his practical goals. In this fun exchange, Sjoborg explores the nitty-gritty problems of keeping robots clean, dry and safe before aiming for loftier goals.

Dr. Moira Gunn gets up to speed on advances in nanotechnology with Roland Germann from IBM's Nanotechnology Center Operations and Lord Alec Broers, Chairman, Diamond Light Source, while author Robert Vamosi looks at gadget security.

Technology is changing: not only is it faster, more universal, and more integral to all facets of life, but each piece of technology is evolving to be quick, universal and integral by becoming multi-functional and interactive. Mark Rolston, Chief Creative Officer of frog design, gives a glimpse into the future of changing technology, predicting that present radical changes, such as touch screens and interaction like that featured in the Wii, will continue to grow and allow people to transmit data in any number of forms and function.

Dr. Moira Gunn talks with New York Times best-selling author, Lisa See, about her new book, Dreams of Joy, and where she looks at the impact of questionable science in China during the Great Leap Forward.

Dr. Moira Gunn talks about the history, the challenges and the issues of getting medicine to people versus the legal guarantees of drugs patents with World Trade Organization representatives, Keith Rockwell and Antony Taubman.

Dr. Moira Gunn talks with Pulitzer Prize winning author and New York Times journalist, Matt Richtel about his new thriller, Devil's Plaything, where he marries an exquisite nightmare with true science.

Dr. Moira Gunn chats with Senior Vice President of Business Development at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Paul Laikind, about how non-profit research works with not-for-profit biotech.

Dr. Moira Gunn learns about the new science of longevity from Columnist and Author, David Duncan.

Modular self-healing self-directing robots that can work together independently to achieve tasks... This sounds like something out of a Science Fiction film. Per Sjoborg talks with Dr. Chih-Han Yu of the Computer Science department at Harvard University about ground-breaking work inspired by biology. Dr. Yu discusses his work with mechanical locomotion and artificial intelligence, the future of robotics research, and experimental methods of building robots that can cope with uncertainty.