David Keith: A surprising idea for "solving" climate change
About this Talk
Environmental scientist David Keith talks about a cheap, effective, shocking solution to climate change: What if we injected a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere, to deflect sunlight and heat? As an emergency measure to slow a melting ice cap, it could work. Keith discusses why it's a good idea, why it's a terrible one -- and who, despite the cost, might be tempted to use it.
About David Keith
David Keith studies our climate, and the many ideas we've come up with to fix it. A wildly original thinker, he challenges us to look at climate solutions that may seem daring, sometimes even shocking.
Labels:
Business,
China,
Climate Change,
Engineering,
Global Issues,
Science,
Technology
Juan Enriquez: Why can't we grow new energy?
About this Talk
Juan Enriquez offers a glimpse of some ground-breaking research to explore the potential of bioenergy. Our current energy sources -- coal, oil, gas -- are ultimately derived from ancient plants -- they're "concentrated sunlight." He asks, Can we learn from that process and accelerate it? Can we get to the point where we grow our own energy as efficiently as we grow wheat? (Less than a month after this talk, his company announced a process to do just that.)
About Juan Enriquez
Juan Enriquez is an authority on the economic and political impact of science. In his 2001 best-seller As the Future Catches You, he examines the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will cause in business, technology, politics and society.
Larry Brilliant: The case for informed optimism
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About this Talk
Recorded at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Oxford, UK
Google.org director Larry Brilliant uses a clip from an old Frank Capra movie to show that we've known about global warming for 50 years -- yet in half a century, we've done almost nothing to solve it. He explores this and other megatrends that could inspire pessimism. But, he says, there is a more powerful case for optimism.
The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, UK, is an annual gathering of innovators from all over the world who are creating positive change across critical issue areas.
About Larry Brilliant
2006 TED Prize winner Dr. Larry Brilliant has spent his career solving the ills of today -- from overseeing the last smallpox cases to saving millions from blindness -- and building technologies of the future. Now, as executive director of Google.org, he's redefining how we solve the world's biggest problems.
Robert Full: Secrets of movement, from geckos and roaches
About this Talk
UC Berkeley biologist Robert Full shares his fascination with spiny cockroach legs that allow them to scuttle at full speed across loose mesh and gecko feet that have billions of nano-bristles to run straight up walls. His talk, complete with wonderful slow-mo video of cockroach, crab and gecko gaits, explains his goal of creating the perfect robotic "distributed foot."
About Robert Full
Robert Full studies cockroach legs and gecko feet. His research is helping build the perfect "distributed foot" for tomorrow's robots, based on evolution's ancient engineering.
Ron Eglash: African fractals, in buildings and braids
About this Talk
"I am a mathematician, and I would like to stand on your roof." This is how Ron Eglash greeted many African families while researching the intriguing fractal patterns he noticed in villages across the continent. He talks about his work exploring the rigorous fractal math underpinning African architecture, art and even hair braiding.
About Ron Eglash
Ron Eglash is an ethno-mathematician: he studies the way math and cultures intersect.
Philippe Starck: Why design?
About this Talk
Legendary designer Philippe Starck -- with no pretty slides behind him -- spends 18 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question "Why design?" Along the way he drops brilliant insights into the human condition; listen carefully for one perfectly crystallized mantra for all of us, genius or not. Yet all this deep thought, he cheerfully admits, is to aid in the design of a better toothbrush.
About Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck designs deluxe objects and posh condos and hotels around the world. Always witty and engaged, he takes special delight in rethinking everyday objects.
Why you should listen to him:
Philippe Starck is a legend of modern design. He's known for his luxurious hotels and boites around the world -- notably the Peninsula Hotel restaurant in Hong Kong, the Teatron in Mexico, the Hotel Delano in Miami, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, the Asia de Cuba restaurant in New York -- designing the total environment from layout to furniture to linens.
But he has made perhaps his most permanent mark on design through his bold reworkings of everyday objects. In reimagining and rethinking the quotidian, he has produced some of the iconic shapes of the 20th century, including his leggy chrome juice squeezer , the reimagined Emeco aluminum chairs, and the witty Louis Ghost polycarbonate fauteuil.
When Starck turns his bold vision toward a chair, a shoe, a toothbrush, it's clear he thinks deeper than the glossy surface.
Murray Gell-Mann: Beauty and truth in physics
About this Talk
Wielding laypeople's terms and a sense of humor, Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right than inelegant ones? Can the fundamental law, the so-called "theory of everything," really explain everything? His answers will surprise you.
About Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann brings visibility to a crucial aspect of our existence that we can't actually see: elemental particles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for introducing quarks, one of two fundamental ingredients for all matter in the universe. Read full bio
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