The Future And You

James Maxey (author and "big science geek") Emlee Vassilos (actress) and Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) are our featured guests.

Topic: Alternative Energy Sources

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 14, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 40 minutes]. This is the first half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The second half will be presented next week.)

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Emlee Vassilos is an actress who is co-staring (as Lily) in the soon to be released zombie horror movie A Few Brains More, which is the sequel to Fist Full of Brains. She has also performed in Destiny Road, Renee, and the TV movie Trinity Goodheart.

Stephen Euin Cobb is the author of Skinbrain and Bones Burnt Black.

News Items: [1] eBooks are now more than 20% of book profits for the traditional Book publishers, according to USA Today. [2] Photovoltaics are now among the fastest growing industries in the world, having doubled in just one year. [3] The rate at which loss of function occurs in our bodies, as we age, differs widely in different organs. As part of his TA-65 evaluation project, your host goes over some of the statistics from Scientific American Magazine.

John Ringo, Tedd Roberts (AKA: Speaker to Lab Animals) Chris & Janet Morris, Jason Cordova and Mike Williamson are our featured guests.

Topic: The Technological Future of War.

John Ringo is a New York Times best selling novelist with over two million books in print. Tedd Roberts (AKA: Speaker to Lab Animals) is an associate professor at an unspecified "major southeastern medical school." Janet Morris is President and CEO of M2 Technologies, Inc. (a corporation specializing in non-lethal weapons, novel technology applications, tactics and technology). Chris Morris is Vice-President and Board Chairman of M2 technologies. Jason Cordova is an author. And Mike Williamson is an author and editor.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb (author of Skinbrain) this is the September 7, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 32 minutes]. This is the second half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on July 16, 2011 in Chattanooga TN at the SF&F convention LibertyCon. The first half is available in the previous week's episode. Special thanks go to Derek Spraker (who recorded this panel) and to the volunteers of the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company (who provided microphones, a sound board and a sound technician).

News Items: [1] This year's Singularity Summit will be held next month on the weekend of October 15-16, 2011 at the 92nd Street Y, in New York, NY. (Having covered it for his show in 2009, your host recommends it as an excellent event.) [2] The worlds first electric motor composed of a single molecule was created by researchers at Tufts University in Massachusetts. (Previous single molecule motors were powered by chemical reactions or by light, rather than electricity.) The work is being published in the magazine Nature Nanotechnology. [3] Your host's six-month evaluation project of the telomerase activator TA-65 began on September 1, 2011 with a blood test to measure the strength of his and his co-participant's immune systems. The blood test is being performed by UCLA.

John Ringo, Tedd Roberts (AKA: Speaker to Lab Animals) Chris & Janet Morris, Jason Cordova and Mike Williamson are our featured guests.

Topic: The Technological Future of War.

John Ringo is a New York Times best selling novelist with over two million books in print. Tedd Roberts (AKA: Speaker to Lab Animals) is an associate professor at an unspecified "major southeastern medical school." Janet Morris is President and CEO of M2 Technologies, Inc. (a corporation specializing in non-lethal weapons, novel technology applications, tactics and technology). Chris Morris is Vice-President and Board Chairman of M2 technologies. Jason Cordova is an author. And Mike Williamson is an author and editor.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb (author of Skinbrain) this is the August 31, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 29 minutes]. This is the first half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on July 16, 2011 in Chattanooga TN at the SF&F convention LibertyCon. The second half will be available next week. Special thanks go to Derek Spraker (who recorded this panel) and to the volunteers of the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company (who provided microphones, a sound board and a sound technician).

News Item: Your host will begin a six-month evaluation of the telemerase activator TA-65, at the standard dosage, beginning on September 1, 2011. Since he is only 56 years old, his mother will also take it for six months. Being 75 years old, the benefits to her may be more observable. During this six-month evaluation he plans to give the listerners to his show frequent updates. (TA-65 is not sponsoring his show, there will be NO commercials, and the host is not being paid to do this.)

Dr. Diane Mucci, Cathe Smith, Gary Shelton, and Speaker To Lab Animals are our featured guests.

Topic: Cutting Edge Bioinformatics and Genetics.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb (author of Skinbrain) this is the August 24, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 33 minutes]. This is the second half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on July 16, 2011 in Chattanooga TN at the SF&F convention LibertyCon. (The first half is available in last week's episode.)

Dr. Diane Mucci, formerly with the National Institute of Health (NIH), is currently a full time professor of biotechnology, and has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology. Cathy Smith is an insect molecular geneticist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Gary Shelton is an agronomist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Speaker To Lab Animals (who writes under the name Tedd Roberts) is an associate professor at an unspecified "major southeastern medical school."

News Item: With kidnappings on the rise, thousands of Mexicans are paying serious money to a Mexican company named Xega to have RFID chips surgically implanted in their bodies. But according to Mark Corner, an RFID researcher and computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts, their hope of being tracked and rescued by GPS signals using an implanted RFID chip is "nonsense."

Dr. Diane Mucci, Cathe Smith, Gary Shelton, and "Speaker To Lab Animals" are our featured guests.

Topic: Cutting Edge Bioinformatics and Genetics.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 17, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 42 minutes]. This is the first half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on July 16, 2011 in Chattanooga TN at the SF&F convention LibertyCon. (The second half will be presented next week.)

Dr. Diane Mucci, formerly with the National Institute of Health (NIH), is currently a full time professor of biotechnology, and has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology. Cathy Smith is an insect molecular geneticist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Gary Shelton is an agronomist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). And Speaker To Lab Animals (who writes under the name Tedd Roberts) is an associate professor at an unspecified "major southeastern medical school."

News Item: CNN, AP, Routers and every other prominent news service on earth carried stories this week about Epidermal Electronic Systems. Wikipedia describes this technology as "a breakthrough field whereby very small and sensitive electronic sensors and relays are made to interact with a human's body and nervous system. It is believed that in the years to come this technology will have a host of applications from medical devices to the creation of more interactive video games and consumer electronic devices." Confused at how to explain the technology to the less tech-savvy of their viewers (and reporters) CNN described them as "Medical Tattoos." All those actually involved in the decades-old medical tattoo field, probably cringed or shook their heads in astonishment.

Stephen Euin Cobb is the author of Skinbrain.

James Maxey (author and "big science geek") Charles White (magazine writer) and Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) are our featured guests.

Topic: Life enhancing and life extending advances in medical technology.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 10, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 33 minutes]. This is the second half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The first half was presented last week.)

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Charles White works for an organization which handles the recovery of solid organs for transplant. He has been involved in tissue banking for about ten years; is a regular contributor to World Forge Online Magazine; holds two masters degrees; and is a tissue recipient.

Stephen Euin Cobb is the author of Skinbrain (Cerebrodermus Fantastica) and Bones Burnt Black.

James Maxey (author and "big science geek") Charles White (magazine writer) and Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) are our featured guests.

Topic: Life enhancing and life extending advances in medical technology.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 3, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 32 minutes]. This is the first half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The second half will be presented next week.)

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Charles White works for an organization which handles the recovery of solid organs for transplant. He has been involved in tissue banking for about ten years; is a regular contributor to World Forge Online Magazine; holds two masters degrees; and is a tissue recipient.

Stephen Euin Cobb is the author of Skinbrain (Cerebrodermus Fantastica) and Bones Burnt Black.

Michael A. Stackpole (New York Times best selling author) is today's featured guest.

Topics: How an asteroid came to be named after him; why he is an advocate for skeptical thinking and a spokesperson for the skeptical community; how skeptical thinkers can more effectively relate to and debate faith-based thinkers; what happened the day he became an active skeptic; his work in the Advanced Research Department at Coleco; his defence of role playing games during the years they were under attack by educators and the media.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 27, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 41 minutes]. This is part three of a two hour interview recorded using Skype on May 17, 2011.

Michael A. Stackpole is a science fiction and fantasy author best known for his Star Wars and Battletech books. Beginning in 1977, he worked as a designer of role-playing games for various gaming companies. In the 1980s he began designing computer games for Coleco and Interplay Productions, such as Bard's Tale III, Wasteland, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites. He also created the role-playing game Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, which provided the game mechanics for Wasteland. In 1987 he began writing novels set in the BattleTech universe, and became one of the most popular authors in that genre. He was then selected to write a number of novels in the Star Wars universe. He is also a popular podcaster, essayist, speaker and has an asteroid named after him.

News item: A few weeks ago a young man named Julle created an article in Wikipedia about this show written in Swedish. Blog posts have long discussed the show in half a dozen languages (such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Chinese) but this is the show's first Wikipedia article in a language other than English.

News Item: Your host's novel Skinbrain is selling nicely on two continents and has received another review at Amazon. "Excellent book! Hard Science fiction at its finest," wrote someone who goes by the code-name Monkey. "I enjoyed this book completely. Details of the alien's throughout the story is impressive. I recommend this to anyone interested in hard science fiction. I also listened to Bones Burnt Black, Stephen's audio-book, twice. Keep up the good work!"

James Maxey (author and "big science geek") and Jim Craig (planetarium director) are our featured guests.

Topic: The Year in Science. What's new and what's happening. Such as: Life extension using telomeres; TA-65; three parent embryo; antimatter made and trapped in lab; stem cell research; stem cells from breast milk; 3D printers to print human organs for surgical implant; a machine that can test a single sample for 10,000 toxins; the first person ever has been cured of AIDS.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 20, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 31 minutes]. This is the second half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The first half was presented last week.)

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Jim Craig is the director of the James H. Lynn Planetarium at the Schiele Museum in Gastonia NC. He is a lifelong science fiction fan and has given presentations on the history of science fiction. He is an outspoken activist for science education, critical thinking, skepticism and free thought. In 2006 he was allowed to name a crater on Mars.

Bonus: your host reads a few more paragraphs from his new novel Skinbrain (Cerebrodermus Fantastica) which features the alien character who calls herself Pug.

Within human civilization, hundreds of individuals resembled Pug. None were real. All were fake, every last one. They were androids intended to give humanity the impression that Pug's civilization was interacting with theirs. It was not. Nor would it ever. These decoys visited human tourist sites, shopped in stores, ate in restaurants, made business contacts, set-up shop, bought and sold real estate, and did all the other things human beings would expect of them. To Pug their activities were meaningless. They were not spies or manipulators, they were just cover. They existed only to provide a signal-to-noise problem for anyone who might otherwise realize that Pug was the only member of her species in this galaxy.

James Maxey (author and "big science geek") and Jim Craig (planetarium director) are our featured guests.

Topic: The Year in Science. What's new and what's happening. Such as: Is science slowing down?; water verified on the moon; eyeglass head-up computers; a thousand planets discovered outside our solar system; and a vast cloud of alcohol discovered in space large enough to keep every living human drunk for the next three million years.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 13, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 38 minutes]. This is the first half of a discussion panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte North Carolina at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. (The second half will be presented next week.)

James Maxey is the author of the superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl as well as the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Jim Craig is the director of the James H. Lynn Planetarium at the Schiele Museum in Gastonia NC. He is a lifelong science fiction fan and has given presentations on the history of science fiction. He is an outspoken activist for science education, critical thinking, skepticism and free thought. In 2006 he was allowed to name a crater on Mars.

Bonus: Your host reads a few paragraphs from his new novel Skinbrain (Cerebrodermus Fantastica) which features the alien character who calls herself Pug. Pug believes our galaxy belongs to her, which would be a meaningless notion if she did not have the power to destroy whole civilizations. And indeed, the habit.