Stephen Euin Cobb's Blog, page 7
August 11, 2015
The Future And You--August 12, 2015
Topic: Emerging Pathogens and Antibiotic Resistance. What we are doing right, and what we are doing wrong.
Speakers: John Harp (scientist) and Phil Wohlrab (scientist).
John Harp is a graduate student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville studying bacterial membrane physiology.
Phil Wohlrab is pursuing a master's degree in public health with a focus on epidemiology; he is also a medic serving in the Virginia Army National Guard, currently as an instructor in combat medicine, basic lifesaving skills, and teaching the communicable diseases portion of field sanitation courses.
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 12, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 51 minutes] This presentation was recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN, on June 27, 2015.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer, ghostwriter, and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
August 4, 2015
The Future And You--August 5, 2015
Topic: Intelligence: What is it, and where is my smart pill?
Speakers: Julie Cochrane (author), John Harp (bacterial scientist), Bill Thomasson (scientist), Cathe Smith (insect genetics scientist), and Dr. Robert E. Hampson (neuroscientist, writer, and public speaker).
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 5, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 51 minutes] This panel was recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN, on June 27, 2015.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer, ghostwriter, and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
July 28, 2015
The Future And You--July 29, 2015
Topic: The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop is a group of scientists, engineers, space advocates, and space enthusiasts who are all pulling together to promote the eventual exploration of planets beyond our solar system.
Les Johnson has described it this way: "The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop is an opportunity for relaxed sharing of ideas in directions that will stimulate and encourage Interstellar exploration including propulsion, communications, and research. The 'Workshop' theme suggests that the direction should go beyond that of a 'conference'. Attendees are encouraged to not only present intellectual concepts but to develop these concepts to suggest projects, collaboration, active research and mission planning. It should be a time for engaging discussions, thought-provoking ideas, and boundless optimism contemplating a future that may one day be within the reach of humanity."
Speakers include: Les Johnson (space scientist), Robert G. Kennedy (author, speaker and engineer), Yohon Lo (aerospace and system engineer), Kenneth I. Roy (author and engineer), and Martha Knowles.
Also: an email from Barry, in Australia, a long-time listener. He points out that the number of astronauts who have been beyond low Earth orbit is 24, not the oft quoted 27, and he explains why. He also describes a bit about the Kerbal Space Program, a game I look forward to playing. (Barry is a Statistician. One false move and you're a Statistic.)
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 29, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 58 minutes] This discussion was recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN, on June 27, 2015.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer, ghostwriter, and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
July 21, 2015
The Future And You--July 22, 2015
The Secret Life of the Human Brain. How Modafinil and Ritalin are being used by college students to improve their mental functioning; efforts to simulate the human brain in software; new imaging devices that are improving our view deep inside the brain; neural prosthesis to replace a damaged section of the brain; how does the brain encode information?; how will living in space effect the human brain?; how changes in federal funding have effected research; and what exactly is consciousness?
Dr. Robert E. Hampson (neuroscientist, writer, and public speaker) is today's featured guest.
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 22, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 58 minutes] This interview was recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN, on June 27, 2015.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
July 14, 2015
The Future And You--July 15, 2015
Many uncomfortable secrets of publishing are revealed. Such as: just how little fact-checking is done by newspapers and magazines; an explanation of "white papers" along with who writes them, who pays for them, and a sneak peek into their darker side; how science is altered by the process of publishing it in peer-reviewed journals; how budgets at universities, government agencies, and nonprofits, grow or shrink because of the effectiveness of their press releases.
Speakers include: Jim Beall (nuclear engineer), Walt Boyes (magazine editor), Les Johnson (space scientist), Dr. Robert Lightfoot, Stephen Euin Cobb, and Dr. Robert Hampson (neuroscientist) as the moderator.
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 15, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 51 minutes] This presentation was recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN, on June 27, 2015.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
July 7, 2015
The Future And You--July 8, 2015
"Nuclear Follies" a presentation by Jim Beall (nuclear engineer).
There was a time in which the astounding power of nuclear reactions was expected to solve a wide variety of humanity's problems. So thousands of research projects were launched by businesses, governments, and universities to find all the ways it was surely going to be useful. Most all proved to be dead ends, and were abandoned. Today, many of them look ridiculous. The lesson of this presentation is the swiftness with which humanity can experience a global paradigm shift; in this case, falling in love, and then out of love, with everything nuclear. Or if you prefer, you can just focus on how simultaneously funny and scary some of these efforts were.
Jim Beall (BS-Math, MBA, PE) has been a nuclear engineer for over 40 years. His experience in engineering and power systems began as a naval officer, shortly after surviving one of Admiral Rickover's infamous interviews, aboard USS Long Beach (CGN-9). Experience after the USN includes design, construction, inspection, and assessment with a nuclear utility and an architect engineering firm before joining the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC). Assignments at the USNRC included senior resident inspector (both for construction and operations), inspection team leader, and senior enforcement specialist before serving as the policy assistant for reactors to three different USNRC Commissioners and earning the agency's Meritorious and Distinguished Service awards.
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 8, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 48 minutes] This presentation was recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN, on June 27, 2015.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
June 30, 2015
The Future And You--July 1, 2015
Les Johnson on space exploration and development: where we are exploring now, and where we will explore in the next few years. Also, plans for a future satellite-based Internet provider which will not only lower the cost of high-speed Internet and make it available everywhere on Earth, but also make it very difficult for governments to censor.
Also: the increasing need for leap-seconds to keep our clocks accurate, since the earth's rotation rate is less stable than we previously believed; NASA's plans for a Europa mission; America's dependence on Russian-made rocket engines; the value of nuclear thermal rockets to explore the solar system; a planned near pass of the sun to within 3 solar radii; an 85 meter solar sail will use the pressure of sunlight to travel to an asteroid; sending hair samples to the stars; a proposed electrodynamic propulsion; the first launch of the SLS is set for 2018; three flights of solar sails; the flyby of Pluto is still on track; the James Webb Space Telescope will be bigger and better than Hubble; Bigelow inflatable space habitats may be used on Mars; the "lunar flashlight" will look for water ice on the moon by reflecting sunlight into one of the craters at the lunar south pole which has been at 4 degrees absolute for over a billion years; and many other projects.
Les Johnson is Senior Technical Assistant for the Advanced Concepts Office at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is also a physicist, author of nonfiction books about space, and scientifically accurate science fiction novels.
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 1, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 53 minutes] This presentation was recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN, on June 27, 2015.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
June 23, 2015
The Future And You--June 24, 2015
Raising Scientifically-Minded Children (Part 2 of 2).
Speakers: Catherine Asaro (physicist, Nebula Award winning author, and SIGMA consultant);Terry W. Ervin II (author, and professional educator); James Maxey (author) ; Stephen Euin Cobb (your host); and the moderator is Jim Craig (planetarium director).
Books mentioned by the panelists include: Raptor Red, One Second After, and The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark .
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 24, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 29 minutes] This is the second half of a discussion panel recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC on May 29, 2015. The first half was in last week's episode.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
June 16, 2015
The Future And You--June 17, 2015
Raising Scientifically-Minded Children (Part 1 of 2).
Speakers: Catherine Asaro (physicist, Nebula Award winning author, and SIGMA consultant); Terry W. Ervin II (author, and professional educator); James Maxey (author) ; Stephen Euin Cobb (your host); and the moderator is Jim Craig (planetarium director).
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 17, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 32 minutes] This is the first half of a discussion panel recorded in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC on May 29, 2015. The second half will be in next week's episode.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
June 9, 2015
The Future And You--June 10, 2015
"The Year in Science" Discussion Panel (Part 2 of 2).
Topics: the appropriateness of de-extinction of extinct species from woolly mammoths to Neanderthals; Harvard University's swarm of 1,000 self-organizing robots; a fire extinguisher that puts out fires with sound; Microsoft's augmented reality goggle-style computer, named HoloLens; the fastest known star; a surprisingly effective ancient herbal medicine; the first in-space test of a light sail; the Yellowstone supervolcano; and many other topics.
Speakers are James Maxey (Author), Jim Craig (planetarium director), and your host as moderator.
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 10, 2015 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 33 minutes] This is the second half of a discussion panel I moderated in front of an audience at the science fiction and fantasy convention ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC on May 29, 2015. The first half is available in last week's episode.
Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last nine years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
