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Rachel Pike : The science behind a climate headline
In 4 minutes , atmospheric chemist Rachel Pike provides a glimpse of the massive scientific effort behind the bold headlines on climate change , with her team -- one of thousands who contributed -- taking a risky flight over the rainforest in pursuit of data on a key molecule .
I 'd like to talk to you today about the scale of the scientific effort that goes into making the headlines you see in the paper .
Headlines that look like this when they have to do with climate change , and headlines that look like this when they have to do with air quality or smog .
They are both two branches of the same field of atmospheric science .
Recently the headlines looked like this when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , or IPCC , put out their report on the state of understanding of the atmospheric system .
That report was written by 620 scientists from 40 countries .
They wrote almost a thousand pages on the topic .
And all of those pages were reviewed by another 400-plus scientists and reviewers , from 113 countries .
It 's a big community . It 's such a big community , in fact , that our annual gathering is the largest scientific meeting in the world .
Over 15,000 scientists go to San Francisco every year for that .
And every one of those scientists is in a research group , and every research group studies a wide variety of topics .
For us at Cambridge , it 's as varied as the El Niño oscillation , which affects weather and climate , to the assimilation of satellite data , to emissions from crops that produce biofuels , which is what I happen to study .
And in each one of these research areas , of which there are even more , there are PhD students , like me , and we study incredibly narrow topics , things as narrow as a few processes or a few molecules .
And one of the molecules I study is called isoprene , which is here . It 's a small organic molecule . You 've probably never heard of it .
The weight of a paper clip is approximately equal to 900 zeta-illion -- 10 to the 21st -- molecules of isoprene .
But despite its very small weight , enough of it is emitted into the atmosphere every year to equal the weight of all the people on the planet .
It 's a huge amount of stuff . It 's equal to the weight of methane .
And because it 's so much stuff , it 's really important for the atmospheric system .
Because it 's important to the atmospheric system , we go to all lengths to study this thing .
We blow it up and look at the pieces .
This is the EUPHORE Smog Chamber in Spain .
Atmospheric explosions , or full combustion , takes about 15,000 times longer than what happens in your car .
But still , we look at the pieces .
We run enormous models on supercomputers ; this is what I happen to do .
Our models have hundreds of thousands of grid boxes calculating hundreds of variables each , on minute timescales .
And it takes weeks to perform our integrations .
And we perform dozens of integrations in order to understand what 's happening .
We also fly all over the world looking for this thing .
I recently joined a field campaign in Malaysia . There are others .
We found a global atmospheric watchtower there , in the middle of the rainforest , and hung hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of scientific equipment off this tower , to look for isoprene , and of course , other things while we were there .
This is the tower in the middle of the rainforest , from above .
And this is the tower from below .
And on part of that field campaign we even brought an aircraft with us .
And this plane , the model , BA146 , which was run by FAAM , normally flies 120 to 130 people .
So maybe you took a similar aircraft to get here today .
But we didn 't just fly it . We were flying at 100 meters above the top of the canopy to measure this molecule -- incredibly dangerous stuff .
We have to fly at a special incline in order to make the measurements .
We hire military and test pilots to do the maneuvering .
We have to get special flight clearance .
And as you come around the banks in these valleys , the forces can get up to two Gs .
And the scientists have to be completely harnessed in in order to make measurements while they 're on board .
So , as you can imagine , the inside of this aircraft doesn 't look like any plane you would take on vacation .
It 's a flying laboratory that we took to make measurements in the region of this molecule .
We do all of this to understand the chemistry of one molecule .
And when one student like me has some sort of inclination or understanding about that molecule , they write one scientific paper on the subject .
And out of that field campaign we 'll probably get a few dozen papers on a few dozen processes or molecules .
And as a body of knowledge builds up , it will form one subsection , or one sub-subsection of an assessment like the IPCC , although we have others .
And each one of the 11 chapters of the IPCC has six to ten subsections .
So you can imagine the scale of the effort .
In each one of those assessments that we write , we always tag on a summary , and the summary is written for a non-scientific audience .
And we hand that summary to journalists and policy makers , in order to make headlines like these .
Thank you very much .
Christopher deCharms : A look inside the brain in real time
Neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demonstrates a new way to use fMRI to show brain activity -- thoughts , emotions , pain -- while it is happening . In other words , you can actually see how you feel .
Hi . I 'm going to ask you to raise your arms and wave back , just the way I am -- kind of a royal wave .
You can mimic what you can see .
You can program the hundreds of muscles in your arm .
Soon , you 'll be able to look inside your brain and program , control the hundreds of brain areas that you see there .
I 'm going to tell you about that technology .
People have wanted to look inside the human mind , the human brain , for thousands of years .
Well , coming out of the research labs just now , for our generation , is the possibility to do that .
People envision this as being very difficult .
You had to take a spaceship , shrink it down , inject it into the bloodstream .
It was terribly dangerous .
You could be attacked by white blood cells in the arteries .
But now , we have a real technology to do this .
We 're going to fly into my colleague Peter 's brain .
We 're going to do it non-invasively using MRI .
We don 't have to inject anything . We don 't need radiation .
We will be able to fly into the anatomy of Peter 's brain -- literally , fly into his body -- but more importantly , we can look into his mind .
When Peter moves his arm , that yellow spot you see there is the interface to the functioning of Peter 's mind taking place .
Now you 've seen before that with electrodes you can control robotic arms , that brain imaging and scanners can show you the insides of brains .
What 's new is that that process has typically taken days or months of analysis .
We 've collapsed that through technology to milliseconds , and that allows us to let Peter to look at his brain in real time as he 's inside the scanner .
He can look at these 65,000 points of activation per second .
If he can see this pattern in his own brain , he can learn how to control it .
There have been three ways to try to impact the brain : the therapist 's couch , pills and the knife .
This is a fourth alternative that you are soon going to have .
We all know that as we form thoughts , they form deep channels in our minds and in our brains .
Chronic pain is an example . If you burn yourself , you pull your hand away .
But if you 're still in pain in six months ' or six years ' time , it 's because these circuits are producing pain that 's no longer helping you .
If we can look at the activation in the brain that 's producing the pain , we can form 3D models and watch in real time the brain process information , and then we can select the areas that produce the pain .
So put your arms back up and flex your bicep .
Now imagine that you will soon be able to look inside your brain and select brain areas to do that same thing .
What you 're seeing here is , we 've selected the pathways in the brain of a chronic pain patient .
This may shock you , but we 're literally reading this person 's brain in real time .
They 're watching their own brain activation , and they 're controlling the pathway that produces their pain .
They 're learning to flex this system that releases their own endogenous opiates .
As they do it , in the upper left is a display that 's yoked to their brain activation of their own pain being controlled .
When they control their brain , they can control their pain .
This is an investigational technology , but , in clinical trials , we 're seeing a 44 to 64 percent decrease in chronic pain patients .
This is not " The Matrix . " You can only do this to yourself . You take control .
I 've seen inside my brain . You will too , soon .
When you do , what do you want to control ?
You will be able to look at all the aspects that make you yourself , all your experiences .
These are some of the areas we 're working on today that I don 't have time to go into in detail .
But I want to leave with you the big question .
We are the first generation that 's going to be able to enter into , using this technology , the human mind and brain .
Where will we take it ?
Beeban Kidron : The shared wonder of film
Movies have the power to create a shared narrative experience and to shape memories and worldviews . British film director Beeban Kidron invokes iconic film scenes -- from & lt ; em & gt ; Miracle in Milan & lt ; / em & gt ; to & lt ; em & gt ; Boyz n the Hood & lt ; / em & gt ; -- as she shows how her group FILMCLUB shares great films with kids .
Evidence suggests that humans in all ages and from all cultures create their identity in some kind of narrative form .
From mother to daughter , preacher to congregant , teacher to pupil , storyteller to audience .
Whether in cave paintings or the latest uses of the Internet , human beings have always told their histories and truths through parable and fable .
We are inveterate storytellers .
But where , in our increasingly secular and fragmented world , do we offer communality of experience , unmediated by our own furious consumerism ?
And what narrative , what history , what identity , what moral code are we imparting to our young ?
Cinema is arguably the 20th century 's most influential art form .
Its artists told stories across national boundaries , in as many languages , genres and philosophies as one can imagine .
Indeed , it is hard to find a subject that film has yet to tackle .
During the last decade we 've seen a vast integration of global media , now dominated by a culture of the Hollywood blockbuster .
We are increasingly offered a diet in which sensation , not story , is king .
What was common to us all 40 years ago -- the telling of stories between generations -- is now rarified .
As a filmmaker , it worried me .
As a human being , it puts the fear of God in me .
What future could the young build with so little grasp of where they 've come from and so few narratives of what 's possible ?
The irony is palpable ; technical access has never been greater , cultural access never weaker .
And so in 2006 we set up FILMCLUB , an organization that ran weekly film screenings in schools followed by discussions .
If we could raid the annals of 100 years of film , maybe we could build a narrative that would deliver meaning to the fragmented and restless world of the young .
Given the access to technology , even a school in a tiny rural hamlet could project a DVD onto a white board .
In the first nine months we ran 25 clubs across the U.K. , with kids in age groups between five and 18 watching a film uninterrupted for 90 minutes .
The films were curated and contextualized .
But the choice was theirs , and our audience quickly grew to choose the richest and most varied diet that we could provide .
The outcome , immediate .
It was an education of the most profound and transformative kind .
In groups as large as 150 and as small as three , these young people discovered new places , new thoughts , new perspectives .
By the time the pilot had finished , we had the names of a thousand schools that wished to join .
The film that changed my life is a 1951 film by Vittorio De Sica , " Miracle in Milan . "
It 's a remarkable comment on slums , poverty and aspiration .
I had seen the film on the occasion of my father 's 50th birthday .
Technology then meant we had to hire a viewing cinema , find and pay for the print and the projectionist .
But for my father , the emotional and artistic importance of De Sica 's vision was so great that he chose to celebrate his half-century with his three teenage children and 30 of their friends , " In order , " he said , " to pass the baton of concern and hope on to the next generation . "
In the last shot of " Miracle in Milan , " slum-dwellers float skyward on flying brooms .
Sixty years after the film was made and 30 years after I first saw it , I see young faces tilt up in awe , their incredulity matching mine .
And the speed with which they associate it with " Slumdog Millionaire " or the favelas in Rio speaks to the enduring nature .
In a FILMCLUB season about democracy and government , we screened " Mr. Smith Goes to Washington . "
Made in 1939 , the film is older than most of our members ' grandparents .
Frank Capra 's classic values independence and propriety .
It shows how to do right , how to be heroically awkward .
It is also an expression of faith in the political machine as a force of honor .
Shortly after " Mr. Smith " became a FILMCLUB classic , there was a week of all-night filibustering in the House of Lords .
And it was with great delight that we found young people up and down the country explaining with authority what filibustering was and why the Lords might defy their bedtime on a point of principle .
After all , Jimmy Stewart filibustered for two entire reels .
In choosing " Hotel Rwanda , " they explored genocide of the most brutal kind .
It provoked tears as well as incisive questions about unarmed peace-keeping forces and the double-dealing of a Western society that picks its moral fights with commodities in mind .
And when " Schindler 's List " demanded that they never forget , one child , full of the pain of consciousness , remarked , " We already forgot , otherwise how did ' Hotel Rwanda ' happen ? "
As they watch more films their lives got palpably richer .
" Pickpocket " started a debate about criminality disenfranchisement .
" To Sir , with Love " ignited its teen audience .
They celebrated a change in attitude towards non-white Britons , but railed against our restless school system that does not value collective identity , unlike that offered by Sidney Poitier 's careful tutelage .
By now , these thoughtful , opinionated , curious young people thought nothing of tackling films of all forms -- black and white , subtitled , documentary , non-narrative , fantasy -- and thought nothing of writing detailed reviews that competed to favor one film over another in passionate and increasingly sophisticated prose .
Six thousand reviews each school week vying for the honor of being review of the week .
From 25 clubs , we became hundreds , then thousands , until we were nearly a quarter of a million kids in 7,000 clubs right across the country .
And although the numbers were , and continue to be , extraordinary , what became more extraordinary was how the experience of critical and curious questioning translated into life .
Some of our kids started talking with their parents , others with their teachers , or with their friends .
And those without friends started making them .
The films provided communality across all manner of divide .
And the stories they held provided a shared experience .
" Persepolis " brought a daughter closer to her Iranian mother , and " Jaws " became the way in which one young boy was able to articulate the fear he 'd experienced in flight from violence that killed first his father then his mother , the latter thrown overboard on a boat journey .
Who was right , who wrong ?
What would they do under the same conditions ?
Was the tale told well ?
Was there a hidden message ?
How has the world changed ? How could it be different ?
A tsunami of questions flew out of the mouths of children who the world didn 't think were interested .
And they themselves had not known they cared .
And as they wrote and debated , rather than seeing the films as artifacts , they began to see themselves .
I have an aunt who is a wonderful storyteller .
In a moment she can invoke images of running barefoot on Table Mountain and playing cops and robbers .
Quite recently she told me that in 1948 , two of her sisters and my father traveled on a boat to Israel without my grandparents .
When the sailors mutinied at sea in a demand for humane conditions , it was these teenagers that fed the crew .
I was past 40 when my father died .
He never mentioned that journey .
My mother 's mother left Europe in a hurry without her husband , but with her three-year-old daughter and diamonds sewn into the hem of her skirt .
After two years in hiding , my grandfather appeared in London .
He was never right again .
And his story was hushed as he assimilated .
My story started in England with a clean slate and the silence of immigrant parents .
I had " Anne Frank , " " The Great Escape , " " Shoah , " " Triumph of the Will . "
It was Leni Riefenstahl in her elegant Nazi propaganda who gave context to what the family had to endure .
These films held what was too hurtful to say out loud , and they became more useful to me than the whispers of survivors and the occasional glimpse of a tattoo on a maiden aunt 's wrist .
Purists may feel that fiction dissipates the quest of real human understanding , that film is too crude to tell a complex and detailed history , or that filmmakers always serve drama over truth .
But within the reels lie purpose and meaning .
As one 12-year-old said after watching " Wizard of Oz , " " Every person should watch this , because unless you do you may not know that you too have a heart . "
We honor reading , why not honor watching with the same passion ?
Consider " Citizen Kane " as valuable as Jane Austen .
Agree that " Boyz n the Hood , " like Tennyson , offers an emotional landscape and a heightened understanding that work together .
Each a piece of memorable art , each a brick in the wall of who we are .
And it 's okay if we remember Tom Hanks better than astronaut Jim Lovell or have Ben Kingsley 's face superimposed onto that of Gandhi 's .
And though not real , Eve Harrington , Howard Beale , Mildred Pierce are an opportunity to discover what it is to be human , and no less helpful to understanding our life and times as Shakespeare is in illuminating the world of Elizabethan England .
We guessed that film , whose stories are a meeting place of drama , music , literature and human experience , would engage and inspire the young people participating in FILMCLUB .
What we could not have foreseen was the measurable improvements in behavior , confidence and academic achievement .
Once-reluctant students now race to school , talk to their teachers , fight , not on the playground , but to choose next week 's film -- young people who have found self-definition , ambition and an appetite for education and social engagement from the stories they have witnessed .
Our members defy the binary description of how we so often describe our young .
They are neither feral nor myopically self-absorbed .
They are , like other young people , negotiating a world with infinite choice , but little culture of how to find meaningful experience .
We appeared surprised at the behaviors of those who define themselves by the size of the tick on their shoes , yet acquisition has been the narrative we have offered .
If we want different values we have to tell a different story , a story that understands that an individual narrative is an essential component of a person 's identity , that a collective narrative is an essential component of a cultural identity , and without it it is impossible to imagine yourself as part of a group .
Because when these people get home after a screening of " Rear Window " and raise their gaze to the building next door , they have the tools to wonder who , apart from them , is out there and what is their story .
Thank you .
Ellen Jorgensen : Biohacking -- you can do it , too
We have personal computing , why not personal biotech ? That 's the question biologist Ellen Jorgensen and her colleagues asked themselves before opening Genspace , a nonprofit DIYbio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science , where amateurs can go and tinker with biotechnology . Far from being a sinister Frankenstein 's lab , Genspace offers a long list of fun , creative and practical uses for DIYbio .
It 's a great time to be a molecular biologist .
Reading and writing DNA code is getting easier and cheaper .
By the end of this year , we 'll be able to sequence the three million bits of information in your genome in less than a day and for less than 1,000 euros .
Biotech is probably the most powerful and the fastest-growing technology sector .
It has the power , potentially , to replace our fossil fuels , to revolutionize medicine , and to touch every aspect of our daily lives .
So who gets to do it ?
I think we 'd all be pretty comfortable with this guy doing it .
But what about that guy ?
In 2009 , I first heard about DIYbio .
It 's a movement that -- it advocates making biotechnology accessible to everyone , not just scientists and people in government labs .
The idea is that if you open up the science and you allow diverse groups to participate , it could really stimulate innovation .
Putting technology in the hands of the end user is usually a good idea because they 've got the best idea of what their needs are .
And here 's this really sophisticated technology coming down the road , all these associated social , moral , ethical questions , and we scientists are just lousy at explaining to the public just exactly what it is we 're doing in those labs .
So wouldn 't it be nice if there was a place in your local neighborhood where you could go and learn about this stuff , do it hands-on ?
I thought so .
So , three years ago , I got together with some friends of mine who had similar aspirations and we founded Genspace .
It 's a nonprofit , a community biotech lab in Brooklyn , New York , and the idea was people could come , they could take classes and putter around in the lab in a very open , friendly atmosphere .
None of my previous experience prepared me for what came next . Can you guess ?
The press started calling us .
And the more we talked about how great it was to increase science literacy , the more they wanted to talk about us creating the next Frankenstein , and as a result , for the next six months , when you Googled my name , instead of getting my scientific papers , you got this .
[ " Am I a biohazard ? " ] It was pretty depressing .
The only thing that got us through that period was that we knew that all over the world , there were other people that were trying to do the same thing that we were .
They were opening biohacker spaces , and some of them were facing much greater challenges than we did , more regulations , less resources .
But now , three years later , here 's where we stand .
It 's a vibrant , global community of hackerspaces , and this is just the beginning .
These are some of the biggest ones , and there are others opening every day .
There 's one probably going to open up in Moscow , one in South Korea , and the cool thing is they each have their own individual flavor that grew out of the community they came out of .
Let me take you on a little tour .
Biohackers work alone .
We work in groups , in big cities — — and in small villages .
We reverse engineer lab equipment .
We genetically engineer bacteria .
We hack hardware , software , wetware , and , of course , the code of life .
We like to build things .
Then we like to take things apart .
We make things grow .
We make things glow .
And we make cells dance .
The spirit of these labs , it 's open , it 's positive , but , you know , sometimes when people think of us , the first thing that comes to mind is bio-safety , bio-security , all the dark side stuff .
I 'm not going to minimize those concerns .
Any powerful technology is inherently dual use , and , you know , you get something like synthetic biology , nanobiotechnology , it really compels you , you have to look at both the amateur groups but also the professional groups , because they have better infrastructure , they have better facilities , and they have access to pathogens .
So the United Nations did just that , and they recently issued a report on this whole area , and what they concluded was the power of this technology for positive was much greater than the risk for negative , and they even looked specifically at the DIYbio community , and they noted , not surprisingly , that the press had a tendency to consistently overestimate our capabilities and underestimate our ethics .
As a matter of fact , DIY people from all over the world , America , Europe , got together last year , and we hammered out a common code of ethics .
That 's a lot more than conventional science has done .
Now , we follow state and local regulations .
We dispose of our waste properly , we follow safety procedures , we don 't work with pathogens .
You know , if you 're working with a pathogen , you 're not part of the biohacker community , you 're part of the bioterrorist community , I 'm sorry .
And sometimes people ask me , " Well , what about an accident ? "
Well , working with the safe organisms that we normally work with , the chance of an accident happening with somebody accidentally creating , like , some sort of superbug , that 's literally about as probable as a snowstorm in the middle of the Sahara Desert .
Now , it could happen , but I 'm not going to plan my life around it .
I 've actually chosen to take a different kind of risk .
I signed up for something called the Personal Genome Project .
It 's a study at Harvard where , at the end of the study , they 're going to take my entire genomic sequence , all of my medical information , and my identity , and they 're going to post it online for everyone to see .
There were a lot of risks involved that they talked about during the informed consent portion .
The one I liked the best is , someone could download my sequence , go back to the lab , synthesize some fake Ellen DNA , and plant it at a crime scene .
But like DIYbio , the positive outcomes and the potential for good for a study like that far outweighs the risk .
Now , you might be asking yourself , " Well , you know , what would I do in a biolab ? "
Well , it wasn 't that long ago we were asking , " Well , what would anyone do with a personal computer ? "
So this stuff is just beginning .
We 're only seeing just the tip of the DNA iceberg .
Let me show you what you could do right now .
A biohacker in Germany , a journalist , wanted to know whose dog was leaving little presents on his street ?
Yep , you guessed it . He threw tennis balls to all the neighborhood dogs , analyzed the saliva , identified the dog , and confronted the dog owner .
I discovered an invasive species in my own backyard .
Looked like a ladybug , right ?
It actually is a Japanese beetle .
And the same kind of technology -- it 's called DNA barcoding , it 's really cool -- You can use it to check if your caviar is really beluga , if that sushi is really tuna , or if that goat cheese that you paid so much for is really goat 's .
In a biohacker space , you can analyze your genome for mutations .
You can analyze your breakfast cereal for GMO 's , and you can explore your ancestry .
You can send weather balloons up into the stratosphere , collect microbes , see what 's up there .
You can make a biocensor out of yeast to detect pollutants in water .
You can make some sort of a biofuel cell .
You can do a lot of things .
You can also do an art science project . Some of these are really spectacular , and they look at social , ecological problems from a completely different perspective .
It 's really cool .
Some people ask me , well , why am I involved ?
I could have a perfectly good career in mainstream science .
The thing is , there 's something in these labs that they have to offer society that you can 't find anywhere else .
There 's something sacred about a space where you can work on a project , and you don 't have to justify to anyone that it 's going to make a lot of money , that it 's going to save mankind , or even that it 's feasible .
It just has to follow safety guidelines .
If you had spaces like this all over the world , it could really change the perception of who 's allowed to do biotech .
It 's spaces like these that spawned personal computing .
Why not personal biotech ?
If everyone in this room got involved , who knows what we could do ?
This is such a new area , and as we say back in Brooklyn , you ain 't seen nothin ' yet .
Geert Chatrou : A whistleblower you haven 't heard
In this engaging talk , world champion whistler Geert Chatrou performs the whimsical " Eleonora " by A. Honhoff , and his own " Fête de la Belle . " In a fascinating interlude , he talks about what brought him to the craft . & lt ; em & gt ; & lt ; / em & gt ;
Thank you very much .
That was whistling .
I 'm trying to do this in English .
What is a chubby , curly-haired guy from Holland -- why is he whistling ?
Well actually , I 've [ been ] whistling since the age of four , about four .
My dad was always whistling around the house , and I just thought that 's part of communication in my family .
So I whistled along with him .
And actually , till I was 34 , I always annoyed and irritated people with whistling , because , to be honest , my whistling is a kind of deviant behavior .
I whistled alone . I whistled in the classroom .
I whistled on [ my ] bike . I whistled everywhere .
And I also whistled at a Christmas Eve party with my family-in-law .
And they had some , in my opinion , terrible Christmas music .
And when I hear music that I don 't like , I try to make it better .
So " Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer " -- you know it ?
But it can also sound like this .
But during a Christmas party -- at dinner actually -- it 's very annoying .
So my sister-in-law asked me a few times , " Please stop whistling . "
And I just couldn 't .
And at one point -- and I had some wine , I have to admit that -- at one point I said , " If there was a contest , I would join . "
And two weeks later I received a text message : " You 're going to America . "
So , okay , I 'm going to America .
I would love to , but why ?
So I immediately called her up , of course .
She Googled , and she found this World Whistling Championship in America , of course .
She didn 't expect me to go there .
And I would have lost my face .
I don 't know if that 's correct English .
But the Dutch people here will understand what I mean .
I lost my face .
And she thought , " He will never go there . "
But actually I did .
So I went to Louisburg , North Carolina , southeast United States , and I entered the world of whistling .
And I also entered the world championship , and I won there in 2004 .
That was great fun , of course .
And to defend my title -- like judokas do and sportsmen -- I thought , well let 's go back in 2005 , and I won again .
Then I couldn 't participate for a few years .
And in 2008 I entered again in Japan , Tokyo , and I won again .
So what happened now is I 'm standing here in Rotterdam , in the beautiful city , on a big stage , and I 'm talking about whistling .
And actually I earn my money whistling at the moment .
So I quit my day job as a nurse .
And I try to live my dream -- well , actually , it was never my dream , but it sounds so good .
Okay , I 'm not the only one whistling here .
You say , " Huh , what do you mean ? "
Well actually , you are going to whistle along .
And then always the same thing happens : people are watching each other and think , " Oh , my God .
Why ? Can I go away ? "
No , you can 't .
Actually it 's very simple .
The track that I will whistle is called " Fête de la Belle . "
It 's about 80 minutes long .
No , no , no . It 's four minutes long .
And I want to first rehearse with you your whistling .
So I whistle the tone .
Sorry . I forgot one thing .
You whistle the same tone as me .
I heard a wide variety of tones .
This is very promising .
This is very promising .
I 'll ask the technicians to start the music .
And if it 's started , I just point where you whistle along , and we will see what happens .
Oh , hah .
I 'm so sorry , technicians .
I 'm so used to that .
I start it myself .
Okay , here it is .
Okay .
It 's easy , isn 't it ?
Now comes the solo . I propose I do that myself .
Max Westerman : Geert Chatrou , the World Champion [ of ] Whistling .
Geert Chatrou : Thank you . Thank you .
Roberto D 'Angelo + Francesca Fedeli : In our baby 's illness , a life lesson
Roberto D 'Angelo and Francesca Fedeli thought their baby boy Mario was healthy -- until at 10 days old , they discovered he 'd had a perinatal stroke . With Mario unable to control the left side of his body , they grappled with tough questions : Would he be " normal ? " Could he live a full life ? The poignant story of parents facing their fears -- and how they turned them around .
Francesca Fedeli : Ciao .
So he 's Mario . He 's our son .
He was born two and a half years ago , and I had a pretty tough pregnancy because I had to stay still in a bed for , like , eight months .
But in the end everything seemed to be under control .
So he got the right weight at birth .
He got the right Apgar index .
So we were pretty reassured by this .
But at the end , 10 days later after he was born , we discovered that he had a stroke .
As you might know , a stroke is a brain injury .
A perinatal stroke could be something that can happen during the nine months of pregnancy or just suddenly after the birth , and in his case , as you can see , the right part of his brain has gone .
So the effect that this stroke could have on Mario 's body could be the fact that he couldn 't be able to control the left side of his body .
Just imagine , if you have a computer and a printer and you want to transmit , to input to print out a document , but the printer doesn 't have the right drives , so the same is for Mario .
It 's just like , he would like to move his left side of his body , but he 's not able to transmit the right input to move his left arm and left leg .
So life had to change .
We needed to change our schedule .
We needed to change the impact that this birth had on our life .
As you may imagine , unfortunately , we were not ready .
Nobody taught us how to deal with such kinds of disabilities , and as many questions as possible started to come to our minds .
And that has been really a tough time .
Questions , some basics , like , you know , why did this happen to us ?
And what went wrong ?
Some more tough , like , really , what will be the impact on Mario 's life ?
I mean , at the end , will he be able to work ?
Will he be able to be normal ?
And , you know , as a parent , especially for the first time , why is he not going to be better than us ?
And this , indeed , really is tough to say , but a few months later , we realized that we were really feeling like a failure .
I mean , the only real product of our life , at the end , was a failure .
And you know , it was not a failure for ourselves in itself , but it was a failure that will impact his full life .
Honestly , we went down .
I mean we went really down , but at the end , we started to look at him , and we said , we have to react .
So immediately , as Francesca said , we changed our life .
We started physiotherapy , we started the rehabilitation , and one of the paths that we were following in terms of rehabilitation is the mirror neurons pilot .
Basically , we spent months doing this with Mario .
You have an object , and we showed him how to grab the object .
Now , the theory of mirror neurons simply says that in your brains , exactly now , as you watch me doing this , you are activating exactly the same neurons as if you do the actions .
It looks like this is the leading edge in terms of rehabilitation .
But one day we found that Mario was not looking at our hand .
He was looking at us .
We were his mirror .
And the problem , as you might feel , is that we were down , we were depressed , we were looking at him as a problem , not as a son , not from a positive perspective .
And that day really changed our perspective .
We realized that we had to become a better mirror for Mario .
We restarted from our strengths , and at the same time we restarted from his strengths .
We stopped looking at him as a problem , and we started to look at him as an opportunity to improve .
And really , this was the change , and from our side , we said , " What are our strengths that we really can bring to Mario ? "
And we started from our passions .
I mean , at the end , my wife and myself are quite different , but we have many things in common .
We love to travel , we love music , we love to be in places like this , and we started to bring Mario with us just to show to him the best things that we can show to him .
This short video is from last week .
I am not saying -- — I am not saying it 's a miracle . That 's not the message , because we are just at the beginning of the path .
But we want to share what was the key learning , the key learning that Mario drove to us , and it is to consider what you have as a gift and not only what you miss , and to consider what you miss just as an opportunity .
And this is the message that we want to share with you .
This is why we are here .
Mario !
And this is why -- — And this is why we decided to share the best mirror in the world with him .
And we thank you so much , all of you .
Thank you . Thank you . Bye .
Thank you .
Mark Shaw : One very dry demo
Mark Shaw demos Ultra-Ever Dry , a liquid-repellent coating that acts as an astonishingly powerful shield against water and water-based materials . At the nano level , the spray covers a surface with an umbrella of air so that water bounces right off . Watch for an exciting two-minute kicker .
I 'm here to show you how something you can 't see can be so much fun to look at .
You 're about to experience a new , available and exciting technology that 's going to make us rethink how we waterproof our lives .
What I have here is a cinder block that we 've coated half with a nanotechnology spray that can be applied to almost any material .
It 's called Ultra-Ever Dry , and when you apply it to any material , it turns into a superhydrophobic shield .
So this is a cinder block , uncoated , and you can see that it 's porous , it absorbs water .
Not anymore .
Porous , nonporous .
So what 's superhydrophobic ?
Superhydrophobic is how we measure a drop of water on a surface .
The rounder it is , the more hydrophobic it is , and if it 's really round , it 's superhydrophobic .
A freshly waxed car , the water molecules slump to about 90 degrees .
A windshield coating is going to give you about 110 degrees .
But what you 're seeing here is 160 to 175 degrees , and anything over 150 is superhydrophobic .
So as part of the demonstration , what I have is a pair of gloves , and we 've coated one of the gloves with the nanotechnology coating , and let 's see if you can tell which one , and I 'll give you a hint .
Did you guess the one that was dry ?
When you have nanotechnology and nanoscience , what 's occurred is that we 're able to now look at atoms and molecules and actually control them for great benefits .
And we 're talking really small here .
The way you measure nanotechnology is in nanometers , and one nanometer is a billionth of a meter , and to put some scale to that , if you had a nanoparticle that was one nanometer thick , and you put it side by side , and you had 50,000 of them , you 'd be the width of a human hair .
So very small , but very useful .
And it 's not just water that this works with .
It 's a lot of water-based materials like concrete , water-based paint , mud , and also some refined oils as well .
You can see the difference .
Moving onto the next demonstration , we 've taken a pane of glass and we 've coated the outside of it , we 've framed it with the nanotechnology coating , and we 're going to pour this green-tinted water inside the middle , and you 're going to see , it 's going to spread out on glass like you 'd normally think it would , except when it hits the coating , it stops , and I can 't even coax it to leave .
It 's that afraid of the water .
So what 's going on here ? What 's happening ?
Well , the surface of the spray coating is actually filled with nanoparticles that form a very rough and craggly surface .
You 'd think it 'd be smooth , but it 's actually not .
And it has billions of interstitial spaces , and those spaces , along with the nanoparticles , reach up and grab the air molecules , and cover the surface with air .
It 's an umbrella of air all across it , and that layer of air is what the water hits , the mud hits , the concrete hits , and it glides right off .
So if I put this inside this water here , you can see a silver reflective coating around it , and that silver reflective coating is the layer of air that 's protecting the water from touching the paddle , and it 's dry .
So what are the applications ?
I mean , many of you right now are probably going through your head .
Everyone that sees this gets excited , and says , " Oh , I could use it for this and this and this . "
The applications in a general sense could be anything that 's anti-wetting .
We 've certainly seen that today .
It could be anything that 's anti-icing , because if you don 't have water , you don 't have ice .
It could be anti-corrosion .
No water , no corrosion .
It could be anti-bacterial .
Without water , the bacteria won 't survive .
And it could be things that need to be self-cleaning as well .
So imagine how something like this could help revolutionize your field of work .
And I 'm going to leave you with one last demonstration , but before I do that , I would like to say thank you , and think small .
It 's going to happen . Wait for it . Wait for it .
You guys didn 't hear about us cutting out the Design from TED ?
[ Two minutes later ... ] He ran into all sorts of problems in terms of managing the medical research part .
It 's happening !
Dan Ariely : Our buggy moral code
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code : the hidden reasons we think it 's OK to cheat or steal . Clever studies help make his point that we 're predictably irrational -- and can be influenced in ways we can 't grasp .
I want to talk to you today a little bit about predictable irrationality .
And my interest in irrational behavior started many years ago in the hospital .
I was burned very badly .
And if you spend a lot of time in hospital , you 'll see a lot of types of irrationalities .
And the one that particularly bothered me in the burn department was the process by which the nurses took the bandage off me .
Now , you must have all taken a Band-Aid off at some point , and you must have wondered what 's the right approach .
Do you rip it off quickly -- short duration but high intensity -- or do you take your Band-Aid off slowly -- you take a long time , but each second is not as painful -- which one of those is the right approach ?
The nurses in my department thought that the right approach was the ripping one , so they would grab hold and they would rip , and they would grab hold and they would rip .
And because I had 70 percent of my body burned , it would take about an hour .
And as you can imagine , I hated that moment of ripping with incredible intensity .
And I would try to reason with them and say , " Why don 't we try something else ?
Why don 't we take it a little longer -- maybe two hours instead of an hour -- and have less of this intensity ? "
And the nurses told me two things .
They told me that they had the right model of the patient -- that they knew what was the right thing to do to minimize my pain -- and they also told me that the word patient doesn 't mean to make suggestions or to interfere or ...
This is not just in Hebrew , by the way .
It 's in every language I 've had experience with so far .
And , you know , there 's not much -- there wasn 't much I could do , and they kept on doing what they were doing .
And about three years later , when I left the hospital , I started studying at the university .
And one of the most interesting lessons I learned was that there is an experimental method that if you have a question you can create a replica of this question in some abstract way , and you can try to examine this question , maybe learn something about the world .
So that 's what I did .
I was still interested in this question of how do you take bandages off burn patients .
So originally I didn 't have much money , so I went to a hardware store and I bought a carpenter 's vice .
And I would bring people to the lab and I would put their finger in it , and I would crunch it a little bit .
And I would crunch it for long periods and short periods , and pain that went up and pain that went down , and with breaks and without breaks -- all kinds of versions of pain .
And when I finished hurting people a little bit , I would ask them , so , how painful was this ? Or , how painful was this ?
Or , if you had to choose between the last two , which one would you choose ?
I kept on doing this for a while .
And then , like all good academic projects , I got more funding .
I moved to sounds , electrical shocks -- I even had a pain suit that I could get people to feel much more pain .