When Small is Big News

Alan and the author of a new book called Supercommunicators share their thoughts on what makes a great conversation.  The result? A great conversation!

The world of the very small is very different from the one we are familiar with. (Gold for instance turns red.) Chad Mirkin and Robert Langer’s skills in crafting this bizarre micro-world into medical breakthroughs earned them the 2024 Kavli Prize in nanotechnology.

He is searching space for planets that are something like ours. She is searching brains to discover how we recognize things. They are both 2024 Kavli laureates – Charbonneau awarded the prize for astrophysics, Tsao for neuroscience.

That was the question two determined astronomers set out to answer. A frustrating five-year search revealed that Pluto, long thought to be a small, lonely planet on the outer fringes of the solar system, is in fact part of a huge ring of debris left over from the solar system’s birth.

Between them these two neuroscientists changed the way we think of our brains. Their insights are now opening new ways to tackle the problems our brains face as they age, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. 

Once sworn enemies in TV appearances and on social media, Fred Guttenberg and Joe Walsh got together privately and realized there is much that unites them. They are now on a tour of college campuses hoping to share their success in bridge-building with others divided by hate.

Aboard his 100 ft sailboat, the geneticist famed for his work deciphering human genes spent 15 years sailing the world’s oceans, discovering millions of unknown genes in the microbes that live there – genes that could lead to new sources of energy, food and medicine.

After a successful career as an award-winning magazine editor, Adam Moss decided to put it all aside to pursue a passion for painting. He became pretty good; but something was missing. His struggle to understand what that something was led him to his new book, The Work of Art.

Should we be planning to establish settlements on the moon and Mars? To many, including a couple of billionaires, the idea has become almost an obsession. An unlikely husband and wife duo has spent years digging deeply into plans to colonize space. Their conclusion: not so fast. 

We exist because of the moon. Rebecca Boyle relates the amazing story of how the moon, born of a cataclysmic collision with an infant earth, has shaped our history, our evolution, and even our very existence.