The Ars Technicast

Today, we build on the amazing results Google attained with its experimental eye scan study, and consider the unlikely things that might one day be meaningful early-warning markers for health problems. We close by talking about the Cancer X Prize, which Daniel is overseeing. It’s all about early detection. 

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Our guest is pediatric oncologist and medical futurist Daniel Kraft. We begin today discussing Daniel’s background and Singularity University itself. We then delve into the world of advanced quantified-self devices, and how they’re finally starting to link into the caregiving world in ways that could truly saving lives. When I question navigability of the inevitable data glut, Daniel points to the taming potential of AI, by citing some astounding work recently done at Google.

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Today we open with an heartening story about an infant who went through one of Robert’s studies, and may have picked up fifteen IQ points as a direct result (this is neither a metaphor nor an exaggeration)! We then talk about the vast potential of pre-conception genetic screening, and an early initiative in this area that has almost eradicated a genetic disease that long plagued the Ashkenazi Jewish population. We close by discussing an ambitious government initiative that’s called “All of Us.”

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Today we present the second installment of my interview with medical geneticist Robert Green, about the promise and pitfalls that could lie in reading out your full genome. In this installment, we discuss why some medical researchers view personal genetic information as a literal toxin before moving on to discussing rare genetic diseases, and how incongruously common they are. 

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My guest this week is a medical geneticist Robert Green, and our topic is the promise and peril that could come from reading your full genome. Whole-genome sequencing will soon become a mass phenomenon, because it will be better to know something than nothing in enough cases to justify the effort. But not in all cases!

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Today we present the third and final installment of my interview British astronomer Stephen Webb on the subject of Fermi’s paradox. we open by talking about some of the amazing instruments and projects that are coming online in the coming decade – both to extend the search for extraterrestrial life, and to advance the much broader field of astrophysics. The episode concludes with a conversation between me and Tom Merritt, of the Daily Tech News Show. 

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Today we present the second installment of my interview British astronomer Stephen Webb on the subject of Fermi’s paradox. We open by talking about the second category of solutions to the paradox. This is that intelligent aliens out there, but we just haven’t detected them yet. We then go on to the third category—which is that we are quite alone in our galaxy, and perhaps in the entire universe. Stephen then lays out the solution to Fermi’s paradox that he deems to be most plausible. No spoilers h

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This week we ponder Fermi's Paradox with British astronomer Stephen Webb. This is the question of why can’t we detect any signs of intelligent alien life when we look to the skies. No signs of astro-engineering projects. No signatures of relativistic space travel. No obviously artificial electromagnetic waves, and so forth. And when you think of it, this is rather surprising. Or at least it was surprising to the ingenious physicist Enrico Fermi, who first drew attention to the matter. 

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Today we open by talking about some astounding work of UC Berkeley neuroscientist Jack Gallant—in which he trained an AI system to infer what test subjects were viewing on a video screen just by watching their brains light up on an MRI. We then get to the truly speculative stuff. Could near-infrared light be used to excite, or trigger neurons? If so, could some creepy descendant of this technology be used to implant memories, or desires into people?

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This week my guest is a holographer, a one-time academic, a former CTO of Oculus, and a present-day entrepreneur named Mary Lou Jepsen. We open today’s installment discussing the roots of Mary Lou’s new company. Like so many things, it all started with holography and a brain tumor.We then zip through Mary Lou’s career, and then comes the cool part: we start talking about near-infrared light.

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